Screening rates increase even more when doctors discuss details of screening tests, Kaiser Permanente study finds Patients who visited their doctor for any reason were nearly six times more likely to be screened for colon cancer compared to those who didn't visit their doctor, according to a...
JAMA Internal Medicine Study Highlights A research letter by Zahava Berkowitz, M.S.P.H., M.Sc., of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and colleagues found that most of the 2,087 primary care clinicians surveyed recommended Papanicolaou (pap) tests sooner than recommended by...
Shared-decision making, clear patient preference recommended before PSA testing Men between the ages of 50 and 69 should discuss the limited benefits and substantial harms of the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test with their doctor before undergoing screening for prostate cancer, according to...
Researchers at the University of Southampton are planning to investigate tests for a breathing disorder that affects babies and children who have Down syndrome while they sleep. They aim to provide the missing evidence so that doctors can introduce affordable and simple routine screening. The...
Even though young athletes are required to receive health screens to be cleared to play sports, those tests failed to detect important cardiovascular abnormalities in cleared players, and many were allowed to play despite suspicions of dangerous cardiovascular conditions, according to a large...
Medicare is putting out about as much money for screening breast cancer as it does treating it, claims a new study in JAMA Internal Medicine. Screening expenses for breast cancer in the Medicare program reached over $1 billion per year in the fee-for-service program during 2006 to 2007 with...
Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have developed a new strategy for finding novel antibiotic compounds, using a diagnostic panel of bacterial strains for screening chemical extracts from natural sources. Public health officials warn of a looming antibiotic crisis due to...
Routine breast cancer screening does reduce death risk, an independent panel of experts reported in The Lancet. However, the practice also results in overdiagnosis; cases of women with false positive results, having to have unnecessary biopsies and other interventions, or patients undergoing...
A major review of breast cancer screening services in Europe, jointly led by researchers at Queen Mary, University of London, has concluded that the benefits of screening in terms of lives saved outweigh the harms caused by over-diagnosis. The results, which are published in a special supplement...
For decades, young adult author Judy Blume has been shaping the lives of teens (particularly girls) with her pragmatic, popular novels on subjects that matter to kids. Touching on everything from divorce to sex and, most famously, periods, Blume's novels aren't afraid to talk about tough...
Screening for colorectal cancer (CRC) is cost-effective and saves lives by early detection. The ability to screen large numbers of individuals is especially important for states with tight health insurance budgets dealing with aging populations. However, in 2010 only 65 percent of U.S. adults...
Frequent antenatal screening has allowed doctors to detect and treat malaria in its early stages on the border of Thailand and Myanmar, dramatically reducing the number of deaths amongst pregnant women. In an analysis of 25 years' worth of data, in 50,981 women, from antenatal clinics at the...
A new study has determined how often people should get screened for gastric or stomach cancer in high-risk regions of the world. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings could help reduce deaths from gastric cancer, which is the...
Routine screening with echocardiogram can detect three times as many cases of rheumatic heart disease (RHD) as clinical examinations, offering a novel approach in preventing this common disease, according to a new study in Circulation. The study, conducted by cardiologists from Children's...
A study published in the April issue of Health Affairs reveals that thousands of lives could be saved at a fairly low cost if commercial insurers routinely covered lung cancer screening. In the United States, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths each year - killing over 150,000...
Lung cancer is the most lethal cancer in the United States. According to the National Cancer Institute, lung cancer causes more than 150,000 deaths annually and has a survival rate of 16 percent. More Americans die of lung cancer each year than of cervical, breast, colon and prostate cancers...
Growth rates of lung cancers found by annual rounds of computed tomography (CT) screening are important for determining the usefulness and frequency of screening, as well as for determining the treatment. According to the latest report from the International Early Lung Cancer Action Program...
Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have, for the first time, described the genetic basis of endometriosis, a condition affecting millions of women that is marked by chronic pelvic pain and infertility. The researchers' discovery of a new gene mutation provides hope for new screening methods...
A new case-control study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, shows that women who participated in at least three screening mammograms had a 49 percent lower risk for breast cancer mortality. "Our study adds further...
New breast cancer screening guidelines by the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health (CTFOPH), which recommend against annual screening of women ages 40-49 and extending time between screens for older women, ignore results of landmark randomized control trials which show that regular screening...