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Antidepressant suicide risk up five times for seniors

According to Canadian researchers seniors who are prescribed antidepressants such as Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft are almost five times more likely to commit suicide during the first month on the drugs than those given other medication to treat depression.

3 May 2006

Bronchial thermoplasty offers significant improvement for asthmatics

Asthmatic patients showed significant improvement in peak expiratory flow, airway responsiveness and number of symptom-free days after treatment with bronchial thermoplasty, a new procedure designed to reduce the ability of airway smooth muscle to narrow from inflammation.

3 May 2006

Verbal medical order errors reduced to zero

Hospitals have spent millions of dollars on computerized physician order entry systems to reduce medical errors, but a simple change in the way verbal orders are entered in the system -- so simple that it cost nothing to implement -- has reduced errors to zero, according to a new Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study.

3 May 2006

SLU Liver Center to study effectiveness of tenofovir in treating hepatitis B

Saint Louis University School of Medicine researchers are studying the effectiveness of a drug for patients with chronic hepatitis B that is currently used to treat HIV.

3 May 2006

Saint Louis University hunt for a Hepatitis C vaccine

Human clinical trials involving investigational vaccines to prevent Hepatitis C are rare. In the fall of 2003 there was a first-ever study at Saint Louis University Center for Vaccine Development, and an earlier small study at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

3 May 2006

Percutaneous cryoablation is a safe method for treating kidney tumors

Percutaneous cryoablation, a relatively non-invasive technique that destroys tumors by freezing them, is a safe method for treating kidney tumors in selected patients who are not considered candidates for surgery, according to a new study by researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.

3 May 2006

Therapeutic gene suspected to cause cancer

One of the few gene therapy studies that had ever been successful was terminated in 2003, because several of the treated children had developed leukemia.

3 May 2006

Different methods of cooking vegetables could vary their effects on dental erosion

A research team led by Dr Graham Chadwick in the School of Dentistry have investigated whether the method of cooking a popular vegetarian dish, Ratatouille, would have any impact on the acidity of the food, and therefore the potential for contributing to dental erosion.

3 May 2006

MR cystography accurate and safe for vesicoureteral reflux screening

MR cystography provides excellent anatomic detail of the urinary system and is a potential screening examination for vesicoureteral reflux (VUR), according to a new study by researchers from Changi General Hospital in Singapore and the University of California, San Francisco.

3 May 2006

Passive smoking associated with behavior problems in children and pre-teens

A new Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study shows that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, even at extremely low levels, is associated with behavior problems in children and pre-teens.

3 May 2006

More effective influenza vaccine

An intranasal influenza vaccine proved to be more effective than the injectable influenza vaccine in children older than 6 months and younger than 5 years of age, according to study data presented at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in San Francisco.

3 May 2006

MDCT urography shows potential for detecting bladder cancer without surgery

MDCT urography is a promising technique for detecting bladder tumors both with and without contrast material, helping patients avoid an invasive test, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor, MI.

3 May 2006

Study helps explain why aerobic training helps heart failure patients

Aerobic training is associated with a reversal of abnormal hormonal patterns that underlie many of the debilitating symptoms of heart failure, according to a new study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

3 May 2006

Low radiation dose still means successful interventional procedures

Radiation dose can be reduced by as much as 88 percent for common interventional radiology procedures and still be safe and effective, a new study shows.

3 May 2006

African American men have fewer, less severe coronary obstructions than white males

While African American men are more likely to die from cardiovascular disease, they paradoxically have fewer cases of coronary obstruction than clinically similar white men, according to a new national study led by a Medical College of Wisconsin researcher.

3 May 2006

Importance of relative measures in policy on health inequalities

The British public supports the use of personal medical data, without consent, for public health research, finds a study published on bmj.com. Most people also think that cancer registration should be required by law.

3 May 2006

Varenicline could increase number who quit smoking

Smokers who try to quit using existing medications, such as nicotine patches or Zyban, are about twice as likely to succeed as those who don't use medication or are prescribed placebos during clinical trials.

3 May 2006

Virtual reality simulation technology improves carotid angiography skills

Cardiologists can learn to perform risky catheter procedures such as carotid angiography on a virtual patient simulator, rather than on real patients, according to a new study in the May 2, 2006, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

3 May 2006

Olanzapine appears to lower or delay full-blown psychosis

For young people who clearly seem to be developing early signs of schizophrenia, treatment with the antipsychotic drug olanzapine appears to lower or delay the rate of conversion to full-blown psychosis, according to an article by a Yale School of Medicine researcher in the May issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry.

3 May 2006

Inflammation markers identify fatigue in breast cancer survivors

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles have defined conditions associated with disabling fatigue that persists for years in almost a third of breast cancer survivors, according to a study in the May 1 issue of Clinical Cancer Research.

3 May 2006