June 10th, 2011 by Peggy Polaneczky, M.D. in Health Tips
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In a large multicenter study enrolling over 70,000 women, annual screening with transvaginal pelvic ultrasound and ca125 blood testing did not reduce deaths from ovarian cancer, and in fact led to an increase in complications due to screening.
Investigators in the NCI-sponsored Prostate, Lung and Ovarian Cancer (PLCO) Screening trial randomly assigned over 78,000 women age 55-64 years of age to either annual screening with transvaginal pelvic sonograms for 4 years plus CA125 testing for 6 years or usual care at 10 study sites across the US., and followed the groups for up to 13 years. Over that time period, ovarian cancer rates in the screened group were 5.7 per 10,000 person-years vs 4.7 per 10,000 persons-years in the usual care group, with 3.1 deaths vs 2.6 deaths per 10,000 person years, respectively. Over 3000 women had false positive screening results, a third of whom had surgery and 15% of those operated on had a complications from their surgery. Deaths from other causes did not differ between the groups.
The investigators concluded that annual screening for ovarian cancer does not reduce mortality, and in fact caused harms among women with fals positive abnormal results.
This is not the first study that failed to find efficacy for ultrasound and ca125 in reducing mortality from ovarian cancer, but Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Blog That Ate Manhattan*
June 2nd, 2011 by John Mandrola, M.D. in Health Tips, Research
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It is hardly news to say that we need better means to predict who will die of heart disease. No matter how much you may hear about medical errors, hospital acquired infections, or even distracted driving, it’s still heart disease that kills the most of us.
The inflammation that begins narrowing our arteries starts when we are young. It percolates quietly, stealth-like for years. The young usually skate by unscathed. But all the cookies, beers, chips, inactivity and work stress adds up. The tension of life squeezes our arteries, daring them to crack or fissure. This cataclysm is one of the ways that middle age may introduce herself.
A friend, or colleague, or sibling dies suddenly of heart problems. Those of us that our “masters-aged” have likely felt these sensations of sadness, and then the reality that they may be next.
“I should probably come in and get a check-up,” is something I hear frequently in the doctor’s lounge after such a tragedy.
I agree. When you are old enough to use reading glasses it is time to think about what lurks inside your heart’s blood vessels.
But herein lies the catch. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*
May 28th, 2011 by ChristopherChangMD in Health Tips, Research
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It is a prevalent belief out in the medical (and lay public) community that patients with iodine or seafood allergy can not receive contrast when undergoing certain radiological tests like CT or MRI scans. The concern is that contrast contains minute amounts of free iodide and as such, IV administration of this material puts the patient at risk of a life-threatening anaphylactic reaction.
Contrast is often given in these tests as it traces out bloodflow enabling the physician to see organ and mass architecture much more clearly allowing for improved accuracy in seeing anything abnormal.
Well… rest assured that patients with iodine and seafood allergy CAN receive contrast without any significant increased risk of an allergic reaction as compared to other allergies.
In a large study encompassing 112,003 patients, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Fauquier ENT Blog*
May 28th, 2011 by RyanDuBosar in Research
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Heart-ache can be a literal thing, as well as a metaphor for all those weepy, jilted-lover torch songs.
Consensus thinking in the peer-review literature is that the parts of one’s brain responsible for physical pain, the dorsal anterior cingulate and anterior insula, also underlie emotional pain.
Researchers at Columbia University in New York recruited 40 people who’d recently ended a romantic relationship, put them in a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine, and recorded their reactions to physical and then emotional pain.
Physical pain was created by heating the person’s left forearm, compared to having the arm merely warmed. Emotional pain was created by looking at pictures of the former partner and remembering the breakup, compared to when looking at a photo of a friend.
The fMRI scans showed physical and emotional pain overlapped in the dorsal anterior cingulate and anterior insula, with overlapping increases in thalamus and right parietal opercular/insular cortex in the right side of the brain (opposite to the left arm).
The theory is that Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
May 18th, 2011 by Medgadget in Health Tips, News
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Researchers from the University of Calgary have shown that doctors can make a stroke diagnosis using an iPhone application just as accurately (and faster) than they can on a traditional computer. In a study recently published by Journal of Medical Internet Research, two neuro-radiologists looked at 120 consecutive noncontrast computed tomography (NCCT) scans and 70 computed tomography angiogram (CTA) head scans. One used a diagnostic workstation and the other using Calgary Scientific‘s ResolutionMD Mobile app. The study results showed that using the ResolutionMD app is between 94%-100% accurate in diagnosing acute stroke, compared to a medical workstation.
In addition to accurately diagnosing a stroke, the app was also praised for its ability to handle a large number of images seamlessly and to detect subtle, but potentially critical findings in CT scans. Moreover, the mobile nature of the app gives doctors the ability to analyze and diagnose strokes from practically anywhere. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
In a large multicenter study enrolling over 70,000 women, annual screening with transvaginal pelvic ultrasound and ca125 blood testing did not reduce deaths from ovarian cancer, and in fact led to an increase in complications due to screening.
