It’s described as an “aggressive, costly, morbid, and burdensome” surgery that often lacks “compelling evidence” that it contributes to patients’ “survival advantage.” So why are increasing numbers of women deciding to have both their breasts removed when doctors detect early stage cancer in one breast? New research, based on a questionnaire and follow-up with more….
Continue ReadingGynecology
In health care, long-lasting “facts” can be open to challenge
Facts line up in some challenging ways: Cranberry juice doesn’t work on urinary tract infections Despite longtime belief in its potency, cranberry juice doesn’t help women with urinary tract infections (UTIs), new research confirms. Experts administered cranberry capsules to 185 female nursing home patients for a year. The standardized doses were equal to drinking 20….
Continue ReadingLawsuits underscore need for caution with sperm banks
A reported rash of new lawsuits offers a poignant, sadly recurrent reminder: Aspiring parents who rely on commercial sperm banks for critical reproductive tissues must heed an ancient consumer prescription: caveat emptor. The New York Times says litigation, from Florida to California, Canada to the UK, all raises serious questions about the light or nonexistent regulation….
Continue ReadingFor healthy women, a call to rethink whether to have dreaded pelvic exam
There’s insufficient evidence of the health benefits for millions of women who aren’t pregnant and who aren’t experiencing problems to undergo regular pelvic exams, a top federal task force on preventive care says. Tens of millions of women get the exams each year, even though they are intrusive and uncomfortable. More important, research has failed….
Continue ReadingCancer specialists campaign for kids to get HPV vaccine
When it comes to inoculations for kids, cancer doctors want more preteens to get the vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV), while public health officials are encouraging shots and discouraging the use of a nasal mist to protect children against seasonal flu. The campaign for HPV shots has shifted among medical experts, the Washington….
Continue ReadingAdvocacy group warns about lack of oversight, harms from hospital mergers
Few states are monitoring, much less acting to protect, patient-consumers from one of the hot trends in today’s health care: the mergers, acquisitions, consolidations─and yes, closings─that are creating super-sized hospital organizations, chain-institutions that for business reasons seek greater efficiencies but also may be lessening access to care, sometimes as a result of religious reasons. That’s….
Continue ReadingSome good news on early cervical cancer detection, birth control availability
With the presidential campaigns under way and some partisans playing crazy with health care issues, it’s refreshing to find some good news to report about women’s reproductive issues, specifically, increases in early diagnoses in young women of treatable cervical cancer and calm, quiet efforts in two states to empower pharmacists to prescribe birth control medications. Researchers….
Continue ReadingWith celebrity ignorance and STDs on rise, let’s grow up about sex
For a nation that’s 238 years old, America can be remarkably immature in certain ways — take, for example, in its thinking about sex. Maybe if we weren’t so adolescent about this life-giving topic, we wouldn’t have been subjected to some of the recent, tawdry, and distressing reports from yes, both celebrities and scientists. HIV-AIDS….
Continue ReadingAs uterine surgeries are planned, transplant system’s ‘gaming’ can’t be ignored
Let’s give credit where it’s due: Transplant surgery, in popular lore, has become one of modern medicine’s most miraculous practices, not only saving individual lives but also blazing new frontiers about the functions of organs in the body and providing insights of large significance into the workings of the human immune system. This progress hasn’t….
Continue ReadingHPV Vaccine Brings Out Discomfort in Talking about S-e-x
It isn’t easy ever for moms and dads to have “The Talk” with teen-agers. But the reluctance of physicians to deal with youthful sexuality may be affecting women’s long-term health, new research suggests. A study by faculty at the medical schools at Harvard and Vanderbilt finds that primary care physicians are reluctant to recommend that young patients….
Continue Reading