September 20th, 2011 by RamonaBatesMD in Research
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Somewhere along the line I learned to encourage women with a family history of breast cancer to begin getting mammograms at an age 10 years prior to when their mother was diagnosed and to encourage their daughters to begin getting mammograms at an age 10 years prior to when they themselves were ever diagnosed.
I learned this prior to the discovery of BRCA genes. It was a trend that had been noted among women with strong family histories. The new study (see full reference below) in the journal Cancer verifies that genetic breast cancers show up earlier in the next generation – on average by 8 years.
The study from MD Anderson looked at 2 generations of families with the BRCA gene to assess the age at diagnosis. Using the pool of 132 BRCA-positive women with breast cancer who participated in the high-risk protocol at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (Gen 2), 106 women could be paired with a family member in the previous generation (Gen 1) who was diagnosed with a BRCA-related cancer (either breast cancer or ovarian cancer).
The median age of cancer diagnosis was Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
September 19th, 2011 by Toni Brayer, M.D. in News
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I was lucky enough to see Venus Williams play her first professional tennis match when she was a teenager. It was obvious she was something special and her coach-father said “If you think she’s good, wait until you see her little sister.” (Serena Williams).
Venus and her sister, Serena have dominated women’s tennis over the past decade but she is currently sidelined with a diagnosis of Sjogrens Syndrome. (pronounced Show-grins). It is a chronic auto-immune disorder where white blood cells (immune function cells) target the body’s moisture-producing glands. Symptoms include dry eyes, dry mouth, extreme fatigue and joint pain. Sometimes it co-exists with other auto-immune diseases like thyroid disease or rheumatoid arthritis.
Symptoms can wax and wane and getting the right diagnosis can take time. I can imagine Venus going to her doctor and complaining of fatigue and dry mouth. Considering her athletic schedule, she was probably told to get some rest and fluids. The diagnostic key should have been Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*
September 17th, 2011 by admin in Health Tips
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With the release of the movie Contagion, I thought it would be appropriate to post my cheat sheet on how to investigate a disease outbreak. Aspiring disease detectives take notes!
What do you think of when you hear the word “outbreak”? Maybe you envision a population decimated by a terrible, novel, and incurable disease like in the aformentioned movie Contagion or you think of Dustin Hoffman roaming around California in a blue biocontainment suit with Rene Russo trying to protect folks from a tiny monkey and narrowly preventing an airstrike by the US military?
Hollywood has done their best to capture what an outbreak is…but here are the facts. An outbreak, or epidemic, occurs when there are more cases of disease than would normally be expected in a specific time and place. The disease may be something doctors have already seen before just in a new form or abnormally high numbers, such as foodborne or healthcare-associated infections, or it may be an emerging disease that we don’t know much about like SARS. Either way, we need to investigate to determine why it is happening and how to prevent other people from getting sick or dying. 
Outbreaks are usually noticed by an astute clinician, such as those who first noticed AIDS in New York City and San Francisco, but there are also many high tech disease detection systems available to help us spot any increase in illness. PulseNet is a laboratory network that uses PFGE (pulsed-field gel electrophoresis) to help identify foodborne outbreaks by monitoring the genetic make-up of the bacteria causing what may otherwise look like unrelated illnesses. In the recent events of the Salmonella outbreak in ground turkey, PulseNet and the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System helped identify the cause of the outbreak as well as determine how widely it had spread. Programs such as Biosense and First Watch monitor the chief complaint or reason that someone called 9-1-1 or went to the hospital (aka syndromic surveillance). We also monitor news media for reports of outbreaks and websites such as Google Flu trends, which tracks circulating viruses and illnesses. With new technology ordinary citizens can also increasingly report outbreaks in their communities too.
The Magic Formula
So how do you figure out the who, what, when, and where of a disease outbreak? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Public Health Matters Blog*
September 8th, 2011 by Michael Kirsch, M.D. in Opinion
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A good friend of mine and Whistleblower reader contracted the sniffles and received a prescription for antibiotics at a local urgent care center. Nothing newsworthy here. So far this quotidian event sounds like a ‘dog bites man’ story. Had antibiotics been denied, this would have been ‘man bites dog’, as this denial would be a radical departure of standard medical practice, particularly in the urgent care universe.
No doubt, my friend was not assigned the dismissive diagnosis of ‘the sniffles’, but was likely given a more ominous diagnosis of ‘acute upper respiratory infection’, a term that sounds so serious that he might have feared that a 911 call had already been made.
Why are antibiotics prescribed so casually and so frequently? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at MD Whistleblower*
September 4th, 2011 by Berci in Opinion
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I’ve recently come across Medikidz, a fantastic initiative with a mission to help children understand medical information, especially diseases. I cannot imagine a better way to promote such important messages to children.
Millions of children worldwide are diagnosed every day with conditions that even their parents may find difficult to comprehend. Most children don’t understand their medical conditions, or associated investigations, procedures and treatments, and are often scared by what is going on around them.
That is where the Medikidz come into action!
The Medikidz are Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
