Culture

Using a Johns Hopkins-developed program that allows medical professionals to provide acute hospital-level care within a patient's home, a New Mexico health system was able to reduce costs by roughly 20 percent and provide equal or better outcomes than hospital inpatients, according to new research.

As voters increasingly rely on websites of presidential primary candidates for news, they run a risk because candidates' online attacks are not vetted through traditional "watchdog journalists" and other gatekeepers to determine accuracy or fairness, according to a study by Baylor University researchers.

"The primary danger is that constituents often use this one-sided information to decide how to vote," said Mia Moody, Ph.D., study co-author and an assistant professor of journalism, public relations and new media in Baylor's College of Arts & Sciences.

The mosquito is possibly summer's biggest nuisance. Sprays, pesticides, citronella candles, bug zappers — nothing seems to totally deter the blood-sucking insect. And neither can rain apparently.

Even though a single raindrop can weigh 50 times more than a mosquito, the insect is still able to fly through a downpour.

Georgia Tech researchers used high-speed videography to determine how this is possible. They found the mosquito's strong exoskeleton and low mass render it impervious to falling raindrops.

St. Louis, MO, June 4, 2012 – The dental profession needs to build a stronger connection between oral health and general health—not only for individual patients, but also at the community level, according to the special June issue of The Journal of Evidence-Based Dental Practice (JEBDP), the foremost publication of information about evidence-based dental practice, published by Elsevier.

TORONTO, June 4, 2012—Researchers who examined the income levels of patients at central Toronto hospitals found that people in the highest and lowest income brackets are being hospitalized for different reasons and that different hospitals serve different income groups.

(WASHINGTON, June 4, 2012) – Results from a study published online today in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), demonstrate that inclusion of carfilzomib, a novel targeted therapy for multiple myeloma, in combination with lenalidomide and low-dose dexamethasone, resulted in complete or near complete remission in a

A three-drug treatment for the blood cancer multiple myeloma provided rapid, deep and potentially durable responses, researchers report today online in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology, and yesterday, Sunday, June 3, 2012, at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL, USA.

MAYWOOD, Il. -- Lower-income cancer patients are less likely to participate in cancer clinical trials, according to a study co-authored by Loyola University Medical Center oncologist Kathy Albain, MD, FACP.Patients with incomes of less than $50,000 per year were 27 percent less likely than higher-income patients to participate in clinical trials, and those with incomes less than $20,000 were 44 percent less likely to participate.Fifty-three percent of patients with incomes less than $20,000 per year expressed concerns about their costs of participating in clinical trials.

Analyzing medical records from thousands of patients, statisticians have devised a statistical model for predicting what other medical problems a patient might encounter.

Like how Netflix recommends movies and TV shows or how Amazon.com suggests products to buy, the algorithm makes predictions based on what a patient has already experienced as well as the experiences of other patients showing a similar medical history.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The antidepressant drug duloxetine, known commercially as Cymbalta, helped relieve painful tingling feelings caused by chemotherapy in 59 percent of patients, a new study finds. This is the first clinical trial to find an effective treatment for this pain.

Analyzing medical records from thousands of patients, statisticians have devised a statistical model for predicting what other medical problems a patient might encounter.

Like how Netflix recommends movies and TV shows or how Amazon.com suggests products to buy, the algorithm makes predictions based on what a patient has already experienced as well as the experiences of other patients showing a similar medical history.

ANN ARBOR, MICH. — Cancer patients with annual household incomes below $50,000 were less likely to participate in clinical trials than patients with annual incomes of $50,000 or higher, and were more likely to be concerned about how to pay for clinical trial participation. This is the conclusion of a large study by the SWOG cancer research cooperative group that will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago this week.

CHICAGO, IL (June 1, 2012)––Though it would seem logical, cancer patients don't always choose therapies with the best chance for survival—cost and side effects are also major considerations. Little has been known about the extent to which cost and side effects influence a patient's treatment decision. Now, new findings by Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers reveals that a patient's socioeconomic status, more than any other characteristic—such as age or disease site—is predictive of whether he or she will favor high efficacy, low cost or low toxicity when choosing a treatment.

PASADENA, Calif.—Medicare's new method for buying medical supplies and equipment—everything from wheelchairs and hospital beds to insulin shots and oxygen tanks—is doomed to face severe difficulties, according to a new study by Caltech researchers.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) implemented the purchasing process—a novel type of auction—in nine metropolitan areas across the country last year and plans to expand it to 91 in 2013.

The term "holiday heart syndrome" was coined in a 1978 study to describe patients with atrial fibrillation who experienced a common and potentially dangerous form of heart palpitation after excessive drinking, which can be common during the winter holiday season. The symptoms usually went away when the revelers stopped drinking. Now, research from UCSF builds on that finding, establishing a stronger causal link between alcohol consumption and serious palpitations in patients with atrial fibrillation, the most common form of arrhythmia.