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Michigan's CQI model improves patient outcomes, reduces health care costs

In a paper published today in the professional health care journal, Health Affairs, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and the University of Michigan Health System report that their model for collaborative health care quality improvement has measurably improved safety and quality in several clinical areas, and has saved millions in health care costs.

8 Apr 2011

New treatment approach raises hope for women with ovarian cancer

Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University's Oregon National Primate Research Center may have good news for women at high-risk for ovarian cancer who also want to have children.

8 Apr 2011

Study: DBS surgery allows 77% of patients to stop anti-tremor medication use

Deep brain stimulation, a surgical procedure to suppress faulty nerve signals, allowed 77 percent of patients to stop the medications used to treat their essential tremors within one year following the surgery, University of South Florida researchers report.

8 Apr 2011

IDSA develops plans to combat deadly antibiotic-resistant 'super bugs'

To head off a health care disaster, the Infectious Diseases Society of America has developed a plan to combat deadly antibiotic-resistant "super bugs" and is rolling out the multi-pronged plan today, on World Health Day 2011.

8 Apr 2011

FDA issues Approvable Letter for Oceana's Solesta in treatment for bowel incontinence

Oceana Therapeutics, a global company focused on acquiring, developing and commercializing best-in-class specialty therapeutics, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued an Approvable Letter for Solesta® as a treatment for fecal (bowel) incontinence.

7 Apr 2011

Vismodegib is an effective treatment for patients with basal cell carcinomas

A new drug is effective in preventing new basal cell carcinomas in patients with an inherited predisposition to the disease.

7 Apr 2011

Pitt, UPCI researchers' cancer studies presented at AACR meeting

How do certain multiple myeloma treatment drugs cause complications? How does the immune system become dysfunctional due to cancer? How safe is a vaccine that could prevent development of precancerous colon polyps? Those are among the many questions that will be answered by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine during the American Association for Cancer Research 102nd Annual Meeting 2011, April 2 to 6, in Orlando, Fla.

7 Apr 2011

AstraZeneca's vandetanib receives FDA approval in medullary thyroid cancer

AstraZeneca today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the orphan drug vandetanib for the treatment of medullary thyroid cancer that cannot be removed by surgery or that has spread to other parts of the body.

7 Apr 2011

U.S., Canada research institutions to participate in NCI's Cancer Immunotherapy Trials Network

Research institutions at 27 sites in the U.S. and Canada have been selected to participate in the Cancer Immunotherapy Trials Network, a new initiative in immunotherapy funded by the National Cancer Institute and headquartered at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

7 Apr 2011

Robotic-assisted keyhole surgery tested for bowel cancer

A robotic system that promises to improve the quality of 'keyhole' bowel cancer surgery is being put to the test for the first time.

7 Apr 2011

New Pipeline Embolization Device receives FDA approval for treatment of brain aneurysms

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved a new device that provides neurointerventional surgeons with another tool to treat brain aneurysms without performing open surgery.

7 Apr 2011

ALR announces medical research grant awards to cure lupus

The Alliance for Lupus Research – the world's largest private funder of lupus research – today announced its most recent medical research grant awards, totaling $3.6 million, which support the ALR mission of finding better treatments and ultimately preventing and curing systemic lupus erythematosus, a debilitating autoimmune disease.

7 Apr 2011

AstraZeneca receives FDA approval for vandetanib to treat medullary thyroid cancer

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved vandetanib to treat adult patients with late-stage (metastatic) medullary thyroid cancer who are ineligible for surgery and who have disease that is growing or causing symptoms.

7 Apr 2011

Superbugs and antibiotic resistance

Health experts come together today (Thursday) to warn that a new form of superbug that gives bacteria the power to resist virtually all known antibiotics is spreading quickly, posing a global health disaster. It is called New Delhi metallobeta-lactamase, or NDM-1 for short. This enzyme destroys carbapenems, an important group of antibiotics used for difficult infections in hospitals, and has been found in a wide variety of bacterial types. British researchers last August reported that infections involving NDM-1 had been found in patients in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Britain.

6 Apr 2011

Viking expects record sales of $3.0 million for quarter ended March 31, 2011

Viking Systems, Inc., a leading worldwide developer, manufacturer and marketer of 3D and 2D visualization solutions for complex minimally invasive surgery, expects to report record sales for the quarter ended March 31, 2011 that will exceed $3.0 million, an increase of more than 50% compared with $1.9 million in revenue reported for last year's first quarter, and more than a 30% sequential increase over the fourth quarter of 2010.

6 Apr 2011

J&JPRD announces rivaroxaban Phase 3 trial results against venous thromboembolism

Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development, L.L.C., today announced results from the MAGELLAN Phase 3 trial evaluating the investigational oral anticoagulant rivaroxaban for the prevention of venous thromboembolism in hospitalized patients with acute medical illnesses.

6 Apr 2011

New data finds 50% decline in heart surgery wait times in Alberta and BC

New data from the University of Calgary's Faculty of Medicine shows that wait times for a number of heart surgeries have gone down close to 50 per cent in Alberta and British Columbia.

6 Apr 2011

Gender gap in general surgery specialty shrinking

The gender gap among United States Medical Graduates (USMG) in the traditionally male-dominated specialty of general surgery is shrinking, according to study results published in the March issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. These findings align with the overall trend of increasingly equal gender enrollment of medical students.

6 Apr 2011

Henry Ford performs partial nephrectomy with new, robotically controlled ultrasound probe

Henry Ford Hospital was the first hospital world-wide to use a new, robotically controlled ultrasound probe to help remove a cancerous tumor from a kidney.

6 Apr 2011

NYC scientists receive $420,000 S.L.E. Lupus Foundation grant for new research

New York City's S.L.E. Lupus Foundation is pleased to name the latest recipients of its Career Development and Basic Science Fellowships: Josephine Isgro, MD of Hospital for Special Surgery, Dipyaman Ganguly, PhD of Columbia University Medical Center, and Yi Yan, PhD of the Feinstein Institute at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Hospital.

6 Apr 2011