December 2nd, 2010 by John Mandrola, M.D. in Better Health Network, News, Opinion, Research
Tags: AATAC Trial, AF Ablation, American Heart Association, Amiodarone, Anti-Arrhythmic Drugs, Antiarrhythmic Drugs, Atrial Fibrillation, Cardiac Arrhythmia, Cardiac Electrophysiology, Cardiac Procedures, Cardiovascular Drugs, Catheter Ablation, CHF, Circulation, Congestive Heart Failure, Dr. John Mandrola, Dr. Karl-Heinz Kuck, Hamburg, ICD, Implantable Cardiac Defibrillator, New England Journal of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
No Comments »
In treating atrial fibrillation (AF), this year has witnessed some real excitement. And not all the good news has to do with new pills. Recently, there has been a flurry of encouraging and objective news on ablating AF. Here are some comments on three notable studies that address three important questions:
1. What are the “long-term” success rates of AF ablation?
On this important question comes an American Heart Association (AHA) abstract from the highly-regarded lab of Dr. Karl-Heinz Kuck in Hamburg. They report on a relatively young cohort of 161 patients who underwent AF ablation (using standard pulmonary vein isolation techniques) in 2003-2004. At an average of five years of follow up, more than 80 percent were either AF-free or “clinically improved.”
Real-world impression: Although late recurrences of AF years after successful ablation have been reported, my impression (having started with AF ablation in 2004) is that most who are AF-free off drugs after one year have remained AF-free thus far. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*
December 1st, 2010 by RyanDuBosar in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News
Tags: ACP Internist, Economic Deficit, Elderly, Health Insurance, Medicare, NPR, Older Adults, Out-Of-Pocket Healthcare Expenses, Reuters, Ryan DuBosar, Seniors, social security, The New York Times, The Washington Post
No Comments »
Medicare poses a deficit problem, note some very influential analysts. A former Congressional Budget Office head and a former Medicare chief chime in on the scope of the program’s impact on the economy, and the difficulties of trying to scale it back.
Yet, a presidential commission is considering just that among other measures. The 18-member, bipartisan commission released its report weeks ago and was scheduled to have voted today on a shocking scope of deficit-trimming measures that included changes to military spending, Social Security and Medicare, among other areas. But they deferred the vote until Friday to try to garner more votes from members who are also currently elected officials. The panel needs 14 votes and substantive approval from its roster of Congress members to gain serious attention.
In related news for Medicare recipients, the Employee Benefit Research Institute reports that seniors will need hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings to cover health insurance and other out-of-pocket health needs. (NPR, The New York Times, ACP Internist, The Washington Post, Reuters)
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
December 1st, 2010 by Felasfa Wodajo, M.D. in Better Health Network, News, Opinion, Research
Tags: Dr. Felasfa Wodajo, Healthcare Apps, iMedicalApps, MedHealth World, Medical Apps, mHealth, MobiHealthNews, Mobile Health Apps, Mobile Health Technology, Mobile Medical Apps, Research2Guidance, Smartphone
No Comments »
In the future your medical apps might come from your hospital, not your app store. So says a recently published report by Research2Guidance, a mobile technology research company based in Germany. In their report, titled “Health Market Report 2010-2015″ the market researchers came to the conclusion that the dominant mode of application distribution in the future will be from doctors, hospitals and other care providers.
The report also painted a bullish picture of healthcare app adoption, estimating that the number of users of mHealth apps on smartphone phones will reach 500m by 2015. However, the revenue from this sector will still be driven mostly by device sales and through provision of services, rather than by paid downloads.
The report preview shows it to be organized into three “dimensions”: a) The smartphone market, b) The current state of the mHealth market & c) mHealth outlook to 2015. One would imagine that the last portion will be the most avidly read read as the numerous stockholders in mHealth — telecoms, device makers, insurance and pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and entrepreneurs jockey to position themselves in this rapidly-evolving land grab. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
December 1st, 2010 by Peggy Polaneczky, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips, News, Opinion, Research
Tags: Assisted Reproductive Technology, Chromosomal Abnormalities, Dr. Peggy Polaneczky, Egg Freezing, Embryo Cryopreservation, Fertility and Sterility, Fertility Clinics, OB/GYN, Obstetrics And Gynecology, Oocyte Cryopreservation, Pregnancy and Childbirth, Reproductive Health, TBTAM, The Blog That Ate Manhattan, Women's Health
No Comments »
Oocyte preservation, or egg freezing as it’s popularly called, is now being offered by over half of U.S. fertility clinics, and half of those not offering it now plan to do so in the future. This according to a national survey conducted in mid 2009 and reported this week in Fertility and Sterility.
Over two-thirds of the 143 centers offering oocyte cryopreservation will do it electively, as opposed to those that offer it only to women undergoing cancer treatments that threaten their natural fertility.
Go West, But Be Prepared To Pay
Centers located in the Western part of the U.S. are more likely to offer elective egg freezing than those in the East. Not surprisingly, centers that only accept out of pocket (as opposed to insurance) payments were more likely to offer the procedure, reflecting the history of infertility advancement, which, unlike almost any other area of medicine, has largely been financed by private individual dollars. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at tbtam*
December 1st, 2010 by GruntDoc in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Humor, News
Tags: Blogging, Charles Zanor, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Dr. Allen Roberts, DSM-5, DSM-V, GruntDoc, Medical Humor, Mental Disorders, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Narcissism, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Psychiatric Disorder, Psychiatry, Science Times, The New York Times
No Comments »
Via an article in The New York Times entitled “Narcissism No Longer a Psychiatric Disorder”:
Narcissistic personality disorder, characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance and the need for constant attention, has been eliminated from the upcoming manual of mental disorders, which psychiatrists use to diagnose mental illness.
As Charles Zanor reports in today’s Science Times, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — due out in 2013 and known as D.S.M.-5 — has eliminated five of the 10 personality disorders that are listed in the current edition. The best known of these is narcissistic personality disorder.
So, blogging is normal then? Kinda takes the fun out of it…
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
