With a graying nation projected to see millions of patients undergoing knee replacements each year at an annual cost to taxpayers running in the billions of dollars, it may be past time to ask if surgeons and hospitals promote and perform these popular procedures to excess. Liz Szabo, in a story written for the nonprofit,….
Continue ReadingSearch Results for: informed consent
30-year Swedish study boosts two approaches to prostate cancer care
A large, long-running study on treating prostate cancer, a leading killer of men, has supported both “watchful waiting” with most men diagnosed with the disease, and aggressive therapies — especially surgery — for patients at higher risk of the disease’s spread. Parsing the results of this research, however, may send men to a key source….
Continue ReadingFor couples struggling with infertility, a ‘gift of life’ carries costs, burdens, and risks
IN THIS ISSUE A scientific breakthrough became a common treatment in just a blink State of ART: Questions and controversies rise, with need for more oversight Ethical breaches at fertility care’s frontiers Where are the babies? BY THE NUMBERS 8 million Estimated number of babies born worldwide in four decades of in vitro fertilization technique 1….
Continue ReadingWhy are doctors and hospitals still bungling patients’ records requests?
Uncle Sam more than ever wants it to happen, and patient advocates are pushing hard, too. So, why, when technology can make it easier than ever to do so, must patients struggle still to get easy, convenient, low- or no-cost access to invaluable electronic records about their own health care? Judith Graham, a columnist focusing….
Continue ReadingDoctors too readily provide dubious treatments to vulnerable seniors
Doctors subject older patients to risky, costly, invasive, and painful tests and treatments, perhaps with good intention but also because they fail to see that the seniors in their care are individuals with specific situations with real needs that must be considered. If physicians too readily accept conventional wisdom in their field, for example, they….
Continue ReadingHospitals slammed for ventures that exploit patients and violate their privacy
Big hospitals can’t exploit patients and violate their privacy by throwing open their facilities to Hollywood for television shows that plump institutions’ reputations. And academic medical centers need to think twice before letting their leaders strike cozy deals to enrich a choice few insiders by hawking important diagnostic information collected with best intentions by medical….
Continue ReadingMaryland researchers set a new stage for clearer explanation of medical risks
What’s an internist to do when an 81-year-old patient, already in failing health with advanced emphysema, seeks a second opinion because he’s been told his prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels are unacceptably high? This senior also has been advised to schedule a prostate biopsy urgently to determine if he has cancer. Can this discussion with….
Continue ReadingAs Pharma beefs about testing, tougher comparative studies may be key
Big Pharma howls often about the federal Food and Drug Administration path to get prescription drugs approved for markets, complaining current regulatory processes take too long and, with their requirement for rigorous clinical trials, are too tough. Even as drug makers seem to be finding sympathetic officials to make these regimens faster and laxer, some….
Continue ReadingBe wary of getting buffaloed into one of these medical herds
IN THIS ISSUE The controversy over new blood pressure guidelines “Pre-diabetes” A useful label or not? Are those aches of age, or are twice as many Americans really arthritic? Maybe you don’t belong in this roundup? U.S. health care: more bucks, less bang BY THE NUMBERS 84 million Number of Americans estimated by CDC to….
Continue ReadingPatients? We’re just profitable bit$ and byte$ to Big Pharma and insurers
Big Data may be a business buzzword that puts most consumers into a big sleep, but big alarms are sounding for Americans about Big Brother intrusions into their lives via the collection and analysis of vast amounts of highly personal information. Of course, Big Pharma and medical insurers are at the fore of invasive practices….
Continue Reading