Paleontologists at the University of Washington report that an extinct mammal relative harbored a benign tumor made up of miniature, tooth-like structures. The tumor, a compound odontoma, is common to mammals today. But this animal lived 255 million years ago, before mammals even existed.
Writing in JAMA, medical ethics Matthew DeCamp, MD PhD, and Kevin Riggs, MD, MPH, call for an “unwavering focus on the primacy of patient welfare,” in integrating the concept of high-value care (HVC) in medical education curricula.
An online program designed to help people overcome insomnia significantly improves both the amount and quality of sleep, a new study has found. The study is the first to look closely at the effects of the Sleep Healthy Using the Internet (SHUTi) program on people with health conditions that could be affecting their sleep.
In a small study of young or recently retired NFL players, researchers at Johns Hopkins report finding evidence of brain injury and repair that is visible on imaging from the players compared to a control group of men without a history of concussion.
Researchers at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) have conducted the first study of its kind, using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to look at brain regions in both adults and children who stutter.
Beneficiaries of Medicare who develop cancer and don’t have supplemental health insurance incur out-of-pocket expenditures for their treatments averaging one-quarter of their income with some paying as high as 63 percent, according to results of a survey-based study published Nov. 23 in JAMA Oncology.
Although both group and individual therapy can ease post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in active-duty military service members, individual therapy relieved PTSD symptoms better and quicker, according to a study led by a Duke University School of Medicine researcher.
The randomized clinical trial is the largest to date to examine an evidence-based treatment for active-duty military service members, with 268 participants from the U.S. Army’s Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas. Findings will be published Nov. 23 in JAMA Psychiatry.
Only a minority of medical studies take sex and gender into account when analyzing and reporting research results. Dr. Cara Tannenbaum (Canadian Institutes of Health Research) and Dr. Janine Austin Clayton, (National Institutes of Health, USA), have written a Viewpoint article published in JAMA highlighting the problem.
In a hopeful sign for the health of the nation’s brains, the percentage of American seniors with dementia is dropping, a new study finds.
The downward trend has emerged despite something else the study shows: a rising tide of three factors that are thought to raise dementia risk by interfering with brain blood flow, namely diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity.
Children who suffer cardiac arrest outside a hospital setting are more likely to survive, and to have better neurological outcomes, when they receive bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Researchers studying a large U.S. registry of cardiac arrests compared outcomes for two bystander resuscitation techniques, and also recommend improving provision of bystander CPR in minority communities to improve outcomes in children.
According to a recent study published in JAMA Neurology, Northwestern Medicine scientists have examined more than a century of data of the genetic makeup of ataxias, a neurodegenerative disorder, to better understand the different forms of this devastating disease and how it affects patients. This research has the potential for scientists to have a better understanding on how to diagnose and treat the disease, which has no known cure for patients suffering from the condition.
Roughly 30,000 sports-related eye injuries serious enough to end in a visit to the emergency room occur each year in the United States, and the majority happen to those under the age of 18, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health-led research suggests.
When the USPSTF recommended against prostate-specific antigen screening for prostate cancer in 2012, researchers began studying what effect this would have on diagnosing and treating prostate cancer.
While schizophrenia is best known for episodes of psychosis – a break with reality during which an individual may experience delusions and hallucinations – it is also marked by chronic neurocognitive deficits, such as problems with memory and attention. A multi-site cognition study led by psychologists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) found that these neurocognitive symptoms are evident prior to the onset of psychosis in a high-risk stage of the disorder called the prodromal phase. The findings suggest that these impairments may serve as early warning signs of schizophrenia, as well as potential targets for intervention that could mitigate the onset of the psychotic disorder and significantly improve cognitive function.
A Cardiff University study has found that children using screen-based media devices at bedtime have over double the risk of inadequate sleep duration compared to children without access to such a device.
In the past decade, ophthalmologists have been prescribing nutritional supplements to be taken daily to prevent or slow vision loss from age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Now, using nutritional supplements for eye health has become more common. But does increasing the recommended dose increase your protection? A case report appearing online in JAMA Ophthalmology from the Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah reveals what can happen when a patient takes more of a supplement than their body needs.
A new analysis suggests that Medicare should focus more on how well hospitals do at actually keeping patients alive during the first 30 days after a hospitalization, in addition to how well they do at keeping patients from being readmitted..
Pregnancy was not found to raise the risk of stroke in older women, but the risk was significantly higher in young women, according to a study from Columbia University Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian.
Scientists, led by a team of researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, have linked mutations in a single gene to autism in people who have a rare tumor syndrome typically diagnosed in childhood. The findings, in patients with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), may lead to a better understanding of the genetic roots of autism in the wider population.
Most patients who need blood transfusions – including those who are critically ill – can be given blood when their hemoglobin drops to a lower level than practiced traditionally, according to AABB, a national association of blood banks that based its recommendation on research led by Rutgers University.
In a study published in the journal JAMA Cardiology, Dr. Dawood Darbar, chief of cardiology at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System, and colleagues found that risk prediction models for atrial fibrillation developed by investigators on the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) trial, did not accurately predict incidence of the condition when it was applied to the EMRs of a large group of patients.
A study led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute and the Scripps Translational Science Institute suggests “molecular autopsies” may help detect gene mutations underlying a sudden death. The research, while early, could help doctors alert living family members to hidden health conditions.
A new study shows just how much it costs to care for patients who suffer a complication after surgery, and how widely hospitals can vary in their ability to keep patients from suffering, or dying from, the same complications. It reveals that hospitals vary widely – as much as two- or three-fold -- in what they get paid for caring for patients with the same complications from the same operation.
Rather than charging all patients the same for doctor visits and prescriptions, out-of-pocket costs should be based on how much a specific clinical service improves health, according to two experts who have studied the issue. They recommend specific changes to Medicare and IRS policy to facilitate this.
New research published Sept 29, 2016, in JAMA Oncology shows the HPV vaccine is efficacious in reducing cervical pre-cancers among young women throughout a population. The New Mexico HPV Pap Registry was the data source used in the study. The researchers found that among women who were 15 to 19 years old at the time of a diagnostic cervical biopsy, the incidence rate of cervical abnormalities decreased between 2007 and 2014.
Time is of the essence when getting people stricken with acute ischemic strokes to treatment. And the use of stent retrievers — devices that remove the blood clot like pulling a cork out of a wine bottle Current professional guidelines recommend that stent retrievers be used to remove blood clots from stroke patients within six hours for people to benefit. But new research finds that the procedure has benefits for people up to 7.3 hours following the onset of a stroke.
Nonwhite transplant recipients, who are at lower risk for developing skin cancer than their white counterparts, should still receive routine, total-body skin examinations, according to new patient data.
In 2012, UNC Hospitals launched an initiative aimed at reducing the time it takes hospital staff to recognize when a patient is having a STEMI (ST elevation myocardial infarction) heart attack – the sudden and complete blockage of a heart artery – and to begin appropriate treatment. Now, encouraging results from that effort have been published as a research letter in JAMA Cardiology.
Depression can create a huge cost burden on patients and institutions, and for teenagers that includes issues like missed school and the costs of healthcare for families. A new study in JAMA Pediatrics, led by Seattle Children’s Research Institute and Group Health Cooperative, identifies a cost-effective treatment that yields promising results for depressed teens. “We used a collaborative care approach to treat teen depression, which included having a depression care manager who worked with the patient, family and doctors to develop a plan and support the teen in implementing that plan,” said Dr. Laura Richardson, an adolescent medicine physician and researcher at Seattle Children’s.
Nearly 15 million times a year, heart patients climb onto a treadmill to take a stress test that can reveal blockages in their heart’s blood vessels. But a looming shortage of a crucial short-lived radioactive element means many heart patients could end up getting less-precise stress tests, or more invasive, riskier heart imaging procedures.
Researchers at Massachusetts Eye and Ear have discovered a new mutation in a highly antibiotic-resistant strain of E. coli that resists clearance by the body’s own immune system by inhibiting white blood cells that ordinarily kill and remove bacteria. In a paper published online today in JAMA Ophthalmology, the researchers describe the case that led them to discover the mutation, and offer suggestions for how to recognize and address this particular microbe if encountered in the future.
Using electric fans to relieve high levels of heat and humidity may, surprisingly, have the opposite effect for seniors, a study by UT Southwestern Medical Center heart specialists suggests.
Gastric bypass surgery is more effective for weight loss and long-term weight maintenance than are other surgical procedures and non-surgical treatment, according to a study led by researchers at Duke Health and the Durham VA Medical Center.
A major new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that delivering integrated mental and physical healthcare in team-based primary care settings at Intermountain Healthcare results in better clinical outcomes for patients, lower rates of healthcare utilization, and lower costs.
In a paper published online by the Journal of the American Medical Association, UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center physician-researchers raised concerns that there are inconsistencies between the five reference guides, or compendia, that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services uses to determine which drugs it will reimburse for off-label uses in cancer care.
University of North Carolina LIneberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers say the finding of a high prevalence of financial relationships among authors who helped develop a leading set of cancer care guidelines in the United States lays the foundation for future studies looking at whether payments influenced clinical practice or guideline recommendations.
A type of heart failure caused by a build-up of amyloid can be accurately diagnosed and prognosticated with an imaging technique, eliminating the need for a biopsy, according to a multicenter study.
Special Communication examines sources of high drug prices in the U.S. and possible solutions to reduce unnecessary burdens on patients while maintaining innovation
By discouraging the use of medications that can cause dizziness or loss of balance and prescribing medications known to prevent bone loss, clinicians can help patients lower their risk of falls and fractures.
As scientists learn more about which genetic mutations are driving different types of cancer, they’re targeting treatments to small numbers of patients with the potential for big payoffs in improved outcomes. But even as we learn more about these driver mutations, a new study suggests the science might be leaving racial and ethnic minorities behind.
Large, nationwide study finds better psychological well-being, fewer graft vs. host disease symptoms and greater likelihood of returning to work among bone marrow transplant recipients
One- and two-year-old children are at the highest risk of burning their eyes with chemicals, despite the long held belief that working-age adults were the most at risk from this type of severe eye injury, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health-led research suggests.
Women who engaged on social media after a breast cancer diagnosis expressed more deliberation about their treatment decision and more satisfaction with the path they chose, a new study finds.
While buprenorphine has long been used to treat adults with opioid dependence, its efficacy can be hindered by lack of adherence to daily, sublingual (beneath the tongue) doses of the medication. New research led by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai published online today in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed that a higher percentage of stable, opioid-dependent patients given six-month buprenorphine implants remained abstinent compared to patients given the medication sublingually.
St. Joseph's Hospital -
A new study from Lawson Health Research Institute and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) has cast doubt on the clinical significance of brain deposits of gadolinium (a chemical contrast agent commonly used to enhance MRI imaging).
St. Joseph's Hospital -
A new study from Lawson Health Research Institute and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) has cast doubt on the clinical significance of brain deposits of gadolinium (a chemical contrast agent commonly used to enhance MRI imaging).