Health Glance
Drugs like Avastin that are used to treat some cancers are supposed to work by blocking a vessel growth-promoting protein called vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF. With VEGF held in check, researchers have assumed tumors wouldn't generate blood vessels and that should keep malignancies from growing. In a sense, the cancerous growths would be "starved". But new research just published in the journal Nature shows this isn't true. Instead of weakening blood vessels so they won't "feed" malignant tumors, these cancer treatments, known as anti-angiogenesis drugs, actually normalize and strengthen blood vessels -- and that means they can spur tumors to grow larger.
Cancer Drugs Make Tumors Grow
U.S. trails other nations in chronic illness care
Chronically ill Americans are more likely to forgo medical care because of high costs or experience medical errors than patients in other affluent countries, according to a study released on Thursday.
Diarrhea bacteria common in hospitals: survey
A common and sometimes deadly cause of diarrhea is far more common in U.S. hospitals than people thought, and only better hygiene and more judicious use of antibiotics will help, experts reported on Tuesday.
As many as 13 out of every 1,000 hospital patients are infected with Clostridium difficile, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology reported.
Crestor would save lives at $500,000 each
The study, involving 18,000 patients, supplied powerful evidence that statins save lives by driving down blood cholesterol and cooling inflamed arteries, as measured by high blood levels of C-reactive protein.
The cost of saving one life, he says, would total about $557,000.
Headphones can interfere with heart devices-study
Headphones from iPods or other digital music players may damage hearing, but music lovers who have a pacemaker or an implanted defibrillator are better off keeping them in their ears.
Patients should not place the headphones, which contain magnets, in shirt pockets or drape them over their chest, lest they risk havoc with their heart-rhythm devices, researchers said on Sunday.
Study: Blood Test Can Spot Risks for Heart Attack, Stroke
A highly anticipated study has produced powerful evidence that a simple blood test can spot seemingly healthy people who are at increased risk for a heart attack or stroke and that giving them a widely used drug offers potent protection against the nation's leading killers.
New U.S. Rule Pares Outpatient Medicaid Services
In the first of an expected avalanche of post-election regulations, the Bush administration on Friday narrowed the scope of services that can be provided to poor people under Medicaid’s outpatient hospital benefit.
TVNL Comment: Another part of the Bush legacy: bail out the rich, screw the poor!
More Articles...
Page 210 of 234
