A joint investigation by the BMJ and Daily Telegraph has exposed the major flaws in the current EU system used for regulating medical devices, such as hip replacements and breast implants.
It reveals that some "notified bodies" (the agencies charged with assessing how safe medical devices are before they are sold) are more interested in attracting business than safeguarding patients.
DETROIT – Patients treated with an epidural steroid injection for back pain relief are at increased risk of bone fractures in the spine, according to a Henry Ford Hospital study.
Researchers say the risk of fracture increased 29 percent with each steroid injection, a finding they believe raises patient safety concerns.
"For a patient population already at risk for bone fractures, steroid injections carry a greater risk that previously thought and actually pose a hazard to the bone," says Shlomo Mandel, M.D., a Henry Ford orthopedic physician and the study's lead author.
On July 20, a neuroscience graduate student in Aurora, Colorado, used an automatic rifle to murder 12 people and wound 58 others. Although this was one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history, mass shootings account for a small percentage of gun deaths in the U.S. and a negligible fraction of deaths overall. In the 4 months after the Aurora shooting, an estimated 3,000 Americans died as a result of guns, while 65,000 died due to medical error and 4,000 even died due to accidents in swimming pools.
Long after women have chosen Mr. Stable over Mr. Sexy, they struggle unconsciously with the decision, according to a new paper by UCLA psychologists who look at subtle changes in behavior during ovulation.
At their most fertile period, these women are less likely to feel close to their mates and more likely to find fault with them than women mated to more sexually desirable men, the research shows.
Residents living in high-income integrated and white neighborhoods were more likely to receive bystander CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) during an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest than victims in all low-income neighborhoods but also high-income black neighborhoods, according to a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
In an editorial appearing in the October 25 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, medical oncologists at Johns Hopkins and Brigham and Women's hospitals provide a four-point plan for integrating palliative care discussions throughout the treatment of patients with terminal illnesses. They write that better planning and communication may improve symptoms, stress, and survival time, as well as lower health care costs at the end of life.
We're not used to thinking of ourselves as animals. But as Jason Samson sees it, climate is as important in shaping the distribution and movement of humans as it is in other animals. The McGill-trained ecologist and fellow researchers have been using modeling techniques similar to those used to define the ecological niche for plant and animal species to explore the correlation between climate patterns and population growth in the contiguous United States between 1900-2000. And what they discovered was a pronounced population shift away from areas within the U.S.
DeKALB, Ill. -- With Election Day less than a month away, television is filled with talking heads spreading the conventional wisdom of what a Republican or Democratic president might mean for the economy.
However, a group of researchers says, when it comes to the relationship between presidential politics and the behavior of the financial markets, conventional wisdom may not be so wise.
Older patients who visited local ERs for chest pain or breathing problems and had chest x-rays reveal unknown spinal fractures, were more apt to receive osteoporosis treatment afterward if a simple intervention was used, recently published medical research from the University of Alberta has found.
Treatment rates for the bone-thinning condition substantially improved when patients and their family doctors received follow-up information about the warning signs and risk factors. It is the first and only trial in the world that looked at spinal osteoporosis.
Americans used less energy in 2011 than in the previous year due, partly due to a lingering recession but mainly due to a shift to higher-efficiency energy technologies in the transportation and residential sectors. Meanwhile, less coal was used as energy companies switched to cleaner natural gas, according to the most recent energy flow charts released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Less coal means less CO2 emissions, which have dropped to early 1990s levels from energy production.
MIAMI, FL – OCTOBER 24, 2012 – A study found that transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) yielded lower mortality rates after three years compared with medical therapy in patients deemed to be ineligible for conventional aortic valve surgery. Results of the PARTNER Cohort B trial were presented today at the 24th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine.
MIAMI, FL – OCTOBER 24, 2012 – A study found that second-generation drug-eluting stents are safe and effective in the treatment of left main coronary artery lesions. Results of the ISAR-LEFT MAIN 2 trial were presented at the 24th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine.
MIAMI, FL – OCTOBER 24, 2012 – A clinical trial found that the use of a next generation, micronet, mesh-covered stent demonstrated improved restoration of blood flow to heart tissue, compared to the use of either bare-metal or drug-eluting stents in heart attack patients undergoing angioplasty. Results of the MASTER trial were presented today at the 24th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium and will appear in the November 6th issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
The fourth installment of the Paranormal Activity films topped the box office last week. Television channel SyFy's hit show Ghost Hunters scares up big ratings, and has spawned copycat series on networks ranging from Biography to Animal Planet.
The omnipresence of paranormal entertainment piqued the interest of Paul Brewer, professor of communication, who wondered what makes viewers believe—or disbelieve— what they see on the screen.
Prasugrel, a novel anti-platelet therapy, is used to prevent recurrent cardiovascular events in patients who have had a prior heart attack, suffer severe chest pain and have been treated with coronary artery procedures (revascularization).
Recent results from a large clinical trial, the TRILOGY ACS study that focused on the effectiveness and safety of prasugrel in high-risk patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) who are medically managed without revascularization, found a neutral effect (failed to show a reduction in major cardiovascular events compared with clopidogrel).