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Simple recommendations help reduce environmental exposures for women

Remove your shoes at the door of your home to avoid tracking in pollutants. Decrease consumption of processed and canned foods. Avoid the use of plastics with recycling codes #3, #4 and #7. Don't use chemical tick and flea collars or dips for pets. Reproductive health care providers should share these tips and more scientific information with women who want to become pregnant or who are pregnant, but that does not always happen.

7 Mar 2012

Mild TBI may increase risk of postconcussive symptoms in children

Children who experience mild traumatic brain injury may be more likely to show increases in symptoms over time that could impact quality of life, more so than children who experience an orthopedic injury. Injury severity could play a role.

7 Mar 2012

Physicians study human stem cell use as possible treatment for ischemic stroke

Physicians at the Methodist Neurological Institute are studying the use of human stem cells as a possible treatment for acute ischemic stroke, a leading cause of death and disability. Each year, stroke affects more than 15 million people around the world.

7 Mar 2012

Patients with traumatic cervical spine injury benefit from early surgery

Researchers at the Rothman Institute at Jefferson have shown that patients who receive surgery less than 24 hours after a traumatic cervical spine injury suffer less neural tissue destruction and improved clinical outcomes.

7 Mar 2012

Quality data has little impact on mortality rates

Research published in the latest issue of Health Affairs concluded that the performance data published on the Hospital Compare website did not result in fewer patient deaths.

7 Mar 2012

Ivabradine could save thousands of heart failure patients

Researchers behind a major trial of Procoralan believe the pill could save 10,000 lives a year in Britain alone. Ivabradine works by slowing the beating of the heart, helping it to pump blood more efficiently.

7 Mar 2012

Concussion in kids may lead to memory and cognitive problems at school later in life

The researchers from Nationwide Children’s Hospital and The Ohio State University looked at 186 children aged 8 to 15 who experienced concussion - most commonly in a fall or while playing sports - or other brain injury from a car accident or other causes. The children’s parents were asked to fill out a standard questionnaire to assess their child’s cognitive and physical status before the concussion, and again two weeks, three months and a year later. These responses were compared to those from parents of 99 similar children who came into the emergency room with orthopedic injuries.

7 Mar 2012

Methodist, UH to improve existing surgical training processes

Measure twice and cut once is a well-known phrase among surgeons, but this is not always what happens. To better prepare new surgeons for the operating room, University of Houston (UH) computer scientists are working with medical researchers at the Methodist Institute for Technology, Innovation and Education (MITIE) to improve existing training processes.

7 Mar 2012

Many Ethiopians coming to camp in search of traditional cure for HIV turn to ARVs, WSJ reports

The Wall Street Journal examines how many HIV-positive Ethiopians coming to a "squatter's camp" at Ethiopia's Entoto Mountain in the hopes that a spring believed to contain holy water would cure HIV instead begin treatment with antiretrovirals.

7 Mar 2012

First study to demonstrate cost-effectiveness of intensive TBI care

Aggressive treatment for severe traumatic brain injuries costs more than routine care, yet yields significantly better outcomes, improved quality of life, and lower long term care costs, according to a new study by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

7 Mar 2012

African Americans more likely to develop keloid after head and neck surgery

African Americans are seven times more likely than Caucasians to develop an excessive growth of thick, irregularly shaped and raised scarring on their skin - known as a keloid - following head and neck surgery, according to a new study from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

7 Mar 2012

Only about 75% of U.S. HIV/AIDS patients remain in care consistently

Only about 75 percent of HIV/AIDS patients in the United States remain in care consistently, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania published online this week in AIDS. The study of patients across the United States is the first to provide a comprehensive national estimate of HIV care retention and information about patients who are most likely to continue their treatment over time.

7 Mar 2012

CU Cancer Center aims to make progress against squamous cell lung cancer

Recent advances in targeted cancer treatments greatly bolster the prognosis for many types of lung cancer, but according to a University of Colorado Cancer Center investigator, "practically nothing has improved in squamous cell lung cancer in the last decades."

7 Mar 2012

AcelRx initiates ARX-01 Phase 3 study for treatment of post-operative pain

AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of innovative therapies for the treatment of acute and breakthrough pain, reported dosing of the first patient in a Phase 3 study for ARX-01, the Sufentanil NanoTab PCA System, its novel sublingual patient-controlled analgesia system.

6 Mar 2012

Metabolic syndrome predicts prevalence and incidence of CKD in elderly people

Elderly people with the metabolic syndrome-defined as having multiple risk factors associated with developing diabetes and heart disease-had an increased risk of chronic kidney disease, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

6 Mar 2012

State news: Several Mass. hospitals tie part of doctor pay to size of practice; Mass. officials push to alleviate crowds at ERs

Getting in to see a primary-care doctor at Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women's hospitals has for years been notoriously hard, with many popular practices closed to new patients. But now, reflecting dramatic shifts in health care, the prestigious hospitals are paying doctors more if they agree to accept new patients. The Harvard-affiliated hospitals are tying about 10 percent of doctors' salaries this year to the size of their practice and the complexity of their patients' illnesses.

6 Mar 2012

Leading AIDS experts issue new HIV guidelines

Leading AIDS experts at Johns Hopkins and other institutions around the world have issued new guidelines to promote entry into and retention in HIV care, as well as adherence to HIV treatment, drawn from the results of 325 studies conducted with tens of thousands of people infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

6 Mar 2012

Consumers equate cost with quality of health care providers

When asked to choose a health care provider based only on cost, consumers choose the more expensive option, according to a new study funded by HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) that appears in the March issue of Health Affairs.

6 Mar 2012

SSRIs appear to reduce depressive symptoms, fetal head growth during pregnancy

Treating pregnant women with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) appears to be associated with fewer depressive symptoms, reduced fetal head growth and a higher risk for preterm birth, but not with a delay in fetal body growth, according to a report published Online First by Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

6 Mar 2012

Make That Call campaign to promote colorectal cancer screening

Katie Couric, NewYork-Presbyterian and its Jay Monahan Center for Gastrointestinal Health, the Entertainment Industry Foundation's National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance (NCCRA), and ABC today announced the "Make That Call" campaign to promote colon cancer screening for National Colon Cancer Awareness Month.

6 Mar 2012