http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Physician-researchers at the Rothman Institute at Jefferson have developed a new, clinically meaningful scale of severity for diagnosing patients with cervical spinal stenosis. Their goal was to create a more accurate scale than the current "mild, moderate or severe" designations used for patients with this condition, a narrowing of the spinal canal in the neck. Researchers sought to create a reproducible, clinically validated classification of central cervical stenosis. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-anatomically-based-classification-cervical-spinal.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Wed, 20 Mar 2013 01:00:02 EST news282939053 Most adults and children with type 1 diabetes are not in optimal glycemic control, despite advances in insulin formulations and delivery systems and glucose monitoring approaches. Critical barriers to optimal glycemic control remain. A panel of experts in diabetes management and research met to explore these challenges, and their conclusions and recommendations for how to improve care and optimize clinical decision-making are presented in a white paper in Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics (DTT). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-guidelines-standardizing-glucose-optimizing-clinical.html Diabetes Fri, 01 Mar 2013 11:23:53 EST news281359420 Scientists at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and Beaumont Hospital have developed a new method of predicting which patients with bowel (colorectal) cancer will respond effectively to chemotherapy. The results of this study are published in the current issue of the prestigious Cancer Research journal. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-scientists-method-response-chemotherapy-bowel.html Cancer Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:20:29 EST news277737616 (HealthDay)—The top five issues that will impact physicians and patients in 2013 have been identified, according to a report published Dec. 10 by The Physicians Foundation. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-issues-docs-patients.html Health Mon, 14 Jan 2013 12:55:16 EST news277390498 The lifetime risks of cancer from medical radiation may be overemphasized relative to more immediate health risks, according to a new study published online in the journal Radiology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-health-radiation-induced-cancer.html Cancer Tue, 18 Dec 2012 00:00:01 EST news274987407 New streamlined guidelines will help healthcare providers better treat patients with the most severe type of heart attacks, according to an American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology statement. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-guidelines-treatment-severe-heart-patients.html Cardiology Mon, 17 Dec 2012 14:00:01 EST news274961425 Kevin W. Eva, Ph.D., of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and colleagues conducted a study to determine whether students deemed acceptable through a revised admissions protocol using a 12-station multiple mini-interview (MMI) would outperform rejected medical students when they later took the Canadian national licensing examinations after completing medical school. The MMI process requires candidates to rotate through brief sequential interviews with structured tasks and independent assessment within each interview. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-benefit-mini-interviews-medical-school-admission.html Other Tue, 04 Dec 2012 16:00:04 EST news273856368 (Medical Xpress)—A software tool called PredictAD developed by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland promises to enable earlier diagnosis of the disease on the basis of patient measurements and large databases. Alzheimer's disease currently takes on average 20 months to diagnose in Europe. VTT has shown that the new method could allow as many as half of patients to get a diagnosis approximately a year earlier. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-method-diagnosis-early-alzheimer-disease.html Alzheimer's disease & dementia Tue, 04 Dec 2012 07:02:28 EST news273826932 Nearly nine out of ten clinicians carrying out biomedical research trials believe that trial data should be shared more easily, even though they do express some practical concerns, a study published today on BMJ website reveals. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-naerly-percent-clinical-trialists-easily.html Health Tue, 20 Nov 2012 18:30:08 EST news272648076 heralded for its low complication rates—actually results in more complications than whole-breast radiation one year after treatment, Yale School of Medicine researchers report in the October issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-older-breast-cancer-patients-complications.html Cancer Mon, 22 Oct 2012 16:00:04 EST news270136740 Timely screening and diagnosis is critical to the success of new treatments and ultimately to the survival of hepatitis C patients. A new study led by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI MUHC) is the first to show that hepatitis C rapid and point of care tests with a quick turnaround time are highly accurate and reliable as conventional first-line laboratory tests. This head-to-head analysis, published in the current issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, will lead to changes in screening practices and ultimately impact the control of hepatitis C infection worldwide. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-rapid-hepatitis-global-game-changers.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Mon, 15 Oct 2012 17:17:10 EST news269540221 (HealthDay)—A multigene signature effectively predicts the presence of lymph node metastases in squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity (OSCC) and oropharynx (OPSCC), according to a study published online Oct. 8 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-gene-signature-validated-oral-cancer.html Cancer Sun, 14 Oct 2012 11:00:01 EST news269414523 New clinical guidelines need to be developed to help doctors provide better care for people with more than one chronic illness, according to a research team led by the University of Dundee. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-guidelines-multimorbidity.html Other Tue, 09 Oct 2012 08:14:05 EST news268989239 (Medical Xpress) -- A new study has found that although there has been an explosion in the scientific underpinning of modern medicine, gaps still remain in our knowledge when it comes to clinicians looking after patients' well being, especially for older people. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-modern-medicine-patients.html Health Fri, 06 Jul 2012 09:17:54 EST news260785062 (HealthDay) -- A nomogram has been developed to predict five- and 10-year mastectomy-free survival (MFS) in older women with early breast cancer and estimate the predicted benefit of radiation therapy (RT) following conservative surgery (CS), according to research published online June 25 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-nomogram-early-breast-cancer-survival.html Cancer Wed, 27 Jun 2012 18:40:01 EST news260040127 A method of molecular imaging that pinpoints hormonally active tissues in the body could change the course of treatment for a remarkable number of neuroendocrine cancer patients, say researchers at the Society of Nuclear Medicine's 59th Annual Meeting. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-pet-imaging-neuroendocrine-cancer.html Cancer Mon, 11 Jun 2012 13:25:00 EST news258639853 Physicians can reduce the number of heart failure deaths and unnecessary hospital admissions by using a new computer-based algorithm developed at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) that calculates each patient's individual risk of death. Published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the algorithm improves upon clinical decision-making and determines whether or not a patient with heart failure should be admitted to hospital. To bring this tool into the emergency departments, Peter Munk Cardiac Centre cardiologists are developing smartphone and web-based applications to assist physicians in the emergency department to determine patients' numerical risk score in real time. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-emergency-department-algorithm-death-heart.html Cardiology Mon, 04 Jun 2012 17:00:10 EST news258044648 More involvement by patients, clinicians and others in the health care community in developing comparative clinical effectiveness research studies will make such studies far more useful in clinical decision-making, according to the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, in an article published in the April 18 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on comparative effectiveness research. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-greater-patient-clinician-involvement-clinical.html Health Tue, 17 Apr 2012 11:10:01 EST news253878701 Coronary CT angiography (CCTA) scans allow doctors to determine safely and more quickly which patients at low-to intermediate-risk for a heart attack can be discharged from hospital emergency departments (EDs) than traditional methods, according to the results of a large, multicenter American College of Radiology Imaging Network (ACRIN) trial published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study found that low- to intermediate-risk patients who underwent a CCTA were more than twice as likely to be discharged and had significantly shorter hospital stays than those who received traditional care. The ACRIN trial also found that CCTA identified nearly three times as many patients with coronary artery disease as standard methods utilized. Results of the trial were presented today at the American College of Cardiology Annual Meeting. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-coronary-cta-rapidly-heart-emergency.html Cardiology Mon, 26 Mar 2012 09:50:01 EST news251973552 When making decisions and counseling about risk and management options for deliveries between 22 and 26 weeks (periviable deliveries), obstetricians are heavily influenced by family preferences, particularly by the impression that parents consistently prefer to have everything possible done to prolong a pregnancy or "save the baby" through interventions such as cesarean section. The results of a University of Pennsylvania study are published in the March issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-family-strongly-decision-premature-deliveries.html Obstetrics & gynaecology Fri, 02 Mar 2012 04:30:01 EST news249884714 Geneva, Switzerland: The first European Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) for the diagnosis and management of Wilson's disease are published today by the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) on the EASL website -- www.easl.eu.(1) Developed to assist physicians and healthcare providers in the clinical decision making process, the guidelines describe best practice for the diagnosis and treatment of patients with Wilson's disease -- a rare genetic(2) disorder that, if left untreated, is fatal. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-easl-publishes-european-clinical-guidelines.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:00:01 EST news247811081 A review of 16 prognostic indices used to predict risk of death in older adults in a variety of clinical settings, such as in nursing homes and hospitals, found that there is insufficient evidence to recommend the widespread use of these indices in clinical practice, according to a study in the January 11 issue of JAMA. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-accuracy-prognostic-tools-mortality-older.html Other Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:00:01 EST news245436485 A new study recently published in the American Journal of Transplantation reveals that the ability to successfully carry a pregnancy after kidney transplantation is very high, with 73.5% live birth rates. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-successful-pregnancy-kidney-transplant.html Other Thu, 20 Oct 2011 11:23:05 EST news238328532 Moffitt Cancer Center researchers, and colleagues, are pioneering promising research utilizing a monitoring technology that could provide a better understanding of acquired drug resistance and assist in clinical decision-making for developing individualized patient treatments for multiple myeloma. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-tool-counter-multiple-myeloma-drug.html Cancer Fri, 09 Sep 2011 14:44:24 EST news234798252 There are many products that are publicised as cures for acne, often at considerable expense to both consumers and the health-care system, but there is very little evidence of which ones work best and for whom. Few studies have compared treatments against each other in terms of effectiveness and safety. Furthermore, concerns that the long-term use of antibiotics to treat acne might contribute to bacterial resistance increases the urgency to test treatment regimens and to develop more effective non-antibiotic therapies, according to a Seminar, published Online First in The Lancet. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-lack-widely-acne-treatments-limiting.html Medications Mon, 29 Aug 2011 18:30:01 EST news233847500 Integration with a picture archiving and communication system (PACS) improves radiologists' use of clinical decision support tools, according to a study in the July issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-pacs-radiologists-clinical-decision.html Other Fri, 01 Jul 2011 05:25:42 EST news228716734