http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Researchers have developed a risk assessment scoring system that they believe may better identify certain adults-– especially African Americans-– at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke than does the current system of diagnosing the metabolic syndrome. The results will be presented Tuesday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-score-earlier-diabetes-african-americans.html Diabetes Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:19:17 EST news290780351 (Medical Xpress)—Cardiologists have identified a trio of biomarkers that may predict which patients with heart disease have a high risk of heart attack or death in the next two years. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-biomarker-trio-near-term-heart.html Cardiology Tue, 21 May 2013 06:30:03 EST news288335084 (Medical Xpress)—University of Nottingham researchers have developed a new predictive tool to help GPs identify and treat patients at risk of stroke. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-qresearch-tool-treatment.html Cardiology Thu, 16 May 2013 07:10:01 EST news287906067 Counselling and treatment with naturopathic care as well as enhanced usual care reduced the prevalence of metabolic syndrome, a risk factor for heart disease, by 17% over a year for participants in a randomized controlled trial published in CMAJ. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-treatment-naturopathic-doctors-reduction-cardiovascular.html Cardiology Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:00:04 EST news286452774 Risk prediction tools that estimate future risk of heart disease and stroke may be more useful predictors of future decline in cognitive abilities, or memory and thinking, than a dementia risk score, according to a new study published in the April 2, 2013, print issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-heart-problems-predictor-memory-loss.html Neuroscience Mon, 01 Apr 2013 16:00:06 EST news284036421 (HealthDay)—The cell-cycle progression (CCP) gene panel is useful to improve the risk stratification for men with even low-risk, clinically localized prostate cancer, according to research published online March 4 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-cell-cycle-panel-prostate-cancer.html Cancer Thu, 28 Mar 2013 14:40:01 EST news283698128 Researchers have identified genetic risk factors that may accelerate a teen's progression to becoming a lifelong heavy smoker. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-genetics-smokers.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 27 Mar 2013 16:00:01 EST news283614819 A clinical decision support tool helped physicians identify patients at high risk of bleeding complications prior to undergoing a coronary intervention procedure and helped guide the use of bleeding avoidance strategies, leading to less complications and a shorter hospital stay, according to a study being presented March 10 at the American College of Cardiology Scientific Sessions. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-validated-pre-procedure-score-complications-shorten.html Cardiology Sun, 10 Mar 2013 12:26:18 EST news282137170 (HealthDay)—For patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) measurements at presentation predict subsequent nonfatal MI and cardiac death; and for patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS), fetuin-A and CRP have prognostic value, according to two studies published in the Jan. 1 issue of The American Journal of Cardiology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-stemi-c-reactive-protein-mi-death.html Cardiology Sat, 19 Jan 2013 09:00:01 EST news277800818 A simple, inexpensive blood test performed on trauma patients upon admission can help doctors easily identify patients at greatest risk of death, according to a new study by researchers at Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-simple-blood-trauma-patients-greatest.html Health Fri, 18 Jan 2013 00:20:01 EST news277661804 (HealthDay)—For women affected by familial breast cancer, a polygenic risk score based on 22 genomic variants can identify women at high-risk of breast cancer, according to a study published in the Dec. 10 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-polygenic-score-women-familial-breast.html Cancer Tue, 18 Dec 2012 18:30:01 EST news275076443 Some heart attack patients end up back in the hospital just weeks after going home. It can happen for a variety of reasons, but doctors haven't had a reliable way to predict which patients will return—until now. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-tool-doctors-heart-patients-hospitalization.html Cardiology Mon, 05 Nov 2012 12:00:01 EST news271336986 A simple-to-use risk score can identify low-risk patients following a severe heart attack (STEMI) and may provide an opportunity to employ early discharge strategies to reduce length of hospital stay and save hospital costs without compromising the safety of the patient, based on a study presented by the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation on Oct. 23 at the 2012 Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) conference. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-simple-inexpensive-score-shorten-length.html Cardiology Tue, 23 Oct 2012 08:57:01 EST news270201404 Eating more legumes (such as beans, chickpeas or lentils) as part of a low-glycemic index diet appears to improve glycemic control and reduce estimated coronary heart disease (CHD) risk in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM), according to a report of a randomized controlled trial published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-legumes-glycemic-heart-disease.html Health Mon, 22 Oct 2012 16:00:15 EST news270136926 Daily low dose aspirin could slow the decline in brain power among elderly women at high risk of heart disease, indicates observational research published in the online journal BMJ Open. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-aspirin-temper-brain-power-decline.html Medications Wed, 03 Oct 2012 18:30:04 EST news268504639 A new anticoagulant called apixaban is superior to warfarin in preventing stroke with consistent effects across a wide range of stroke and bleeding risk in patients with atrial fibrillation, according to Duke University Medical Center researchers. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-apixaban-superior-warfarin-range-patient.html Cardiology Mon, 01 Oct 2012 18:30:03 EST news268329611 Rheumatoid arthritis alone is painful and disabling, but it also puts patients at higher risk of death. The greater susceptibility to infections that accompanies the autoimmune disorder is one reason. Assessing the danger of infection a particular patient faces so it can be addressed can prove challenging for physicians. A Mayo Clinic study finds that a risk score can be developed to predict a patient's chances of having serious infections. The score uses information about how rheumatoid arthritis is affecting a patient, plus factors including age, corticosteroid use and the presence of other illnesses. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-infections-rheumatoid-arthritis-patientsstudy.html Arthritis & Rheumatism Wed, 05 Sep 2012 11:12:31 EST news266062321 (HealthDay)—For children with metastatic MYCN-nonamplified neuroblastoma (NBL-NA) diagnosed at age 18 months or older, increased expression of tumor-associated inflammatory genes seems to correlate with poor prognosis, according to a study published online Aug. 27 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-gene-score-ids-prognosis-metastatic.html Cancer Wed, 29 Aug 2012 19:50:02 EST news265483865 Results of a study presented today at EULAR 2012, the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism, suggest that the newly developed RABBIT Risk Score, which calculates the risk of serious infections in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who are treated with anti-tumour necrosis factor drugs (anti-TNFs) or conventional disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) is a valid and effective tool for rheumatologists to predict risk of serious infection. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-rabbit-score-rheumatologists-patients-high.html Arthritis & Rheumatism Fri, 08 Jun 2012 04:40:01 EST news258347916 Current screening strategies for Down syndrome, caused by fetal trisomy 21 (T21), and Edwards syndrome, caused by fetal trisomy 18 (T18), have false positive rates of 2 to 3%, and false negative rates of 5% or higher. Positive screening results must be confirmed by amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling, which carry a fetal loss rate of approximately 1 in 300 procedures. Now an international, multicenter cohort study finds that a genetic test to screen for trisomy 21 or 18 from a maternal blood sample is almost 100% accurate. The results of the study are published online in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-noninvasive-genetic-syndrome-edwards-highly.html Obstetrics & gynaecology Tue, 05 Jun 2012 16:22:52 EST news258132162 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 A pre-procedure bleeding risk score can accurately identify high-risk, high-cost patients and may provide an opportunity to employ bleeding avoidance strategies to improve patient outcomes and reduce total costs related to percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) procedures, according to a retrospective study being presented March 26 at the 61st annual American College of Cardiology (ACC) scientific session. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-pre-pci-score-greater-higher.html Cardiology Mon, 26 Mar 2012 11:10:01 EST news251977754 Human geneticists have long debated whether the genetic risk of the most common medical conditions derive from many rare mutations, each conferring a high degree of risk in different people, or common differences throughout the genome that modestly influence risk. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-hidden-architecture-methods-uncover-gene.html Genetics Sun, 25 Mar 2012 13:58:06 EST news251902663 Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital has launched a study to determine whether genetic markers can be used to help identify children who are at risk of developing autism. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-cleveland-clinic-children-hospital-genetically.html Autism spectrum disorders Wed, 29 Feb 2012 10:17:43 EST news249733055 A new study by researchers at The University of Nottingham has proved that assessing family medical history is a significant tool in helping GPs spot patients at high risk of heart disease and its widespread use could save lives. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-family-history-significant-cardiovascular.html Cardiology Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:14:35 EST news249131665 The changing tide of Alzheimer's diagnosis presents new challenges to the public, physicians and lawmakers: if you could find out your Alzheimer's risk, would you want to know? How should doctors tell you your risk? And what does it mean for the many newly diagnosed Americans still in the workplace? http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-safeguards-discrimination-early-alzheimer-patients.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:41:35 EST news235327271 A new and simple risk score may aid physicians in gauging the likelihood that a common drug will cause a hemorrhagic stroke or other major bleeding in patients with atrial fibrillation, potentially allowing wider but safer use of the effective drug. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-scorecard-patients-highest-blood-thinners.html Medical research Thu, 04 Aug 2011 09:40:01 EST news231669054 The most lethal and sudden cardiovascular event can be the toughest for doctors to diagnose. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-simple-bedside-screening-effectively-patients.html Cardiology Mon, 16 May 2011 03:25:13 EST news224734540 Older, sicker heart-transplant recipients are significantly more likely to be alive a year after their operations if they have their transplants at hospitals that do a large number of them annually new Johns Hopkins research suggests. These patients fare less well at low-volume centers, the research shows. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-older-heart-transplant-patients-hospitals-yield.html Cardiology Mon, 09 May 2011 11:10:11 EST news224158190