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After successful lung transplant, challenging recovery awaits girl with cystic fibrosis

Sarah Murnaghan, the 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl at the middle of an organ transplant battle, finally underwent her long-awaited lung transplant on Wednesday. I am so happy that this little girl got a new chance at life.  All of us who have been following this case so closely realize just how critical this child has been for the future of organ transplantation. On Tuesday night, Sarah’s mother, Janet, said they had found a match for her daughter.  And with the great skill of her surgeons and nurses, along with the support of everyone involved in her care, the technical part of her surgery has been successful.   Throughout this whole ordeal, I never lost hope that Sarah would become a candidate for transplant surgery. And I think it speaks volumes about the spirit of the American people who stood behind her and demanded she get a fair shot at life. But the doctor in me tells me we have to be cautiously optimistic because there are still major hurdles that Sarah has to overcome. From a medical standpoint, in cases like this one, there is always the worry about infection.  Organ transplants require large complex surgeries with organs that are very prone to infection – especially the lungs.  And moving forward, Sarah has to undergo immunosuppressive therapy, which predisposes her to the development of infection. There are also significant issues of metabolism.  The function of the lungs is to oxygenate the blood, but this oxygenation contributes to the overall metabolic stability of the body.  Right now, it’s too soon to tell whether her metabolic condition can be stabilized through these new lungs. Finally, with any organ transplant surgery, you also have the possibility of organ rejection, which could theoretically develop over the course of the next few days.  The good news is that she is young, and she is receiving the best health care possible.   I spoke to Dr. Donald McCain, chief of surgical oncology and the vice chairman of the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center in N.J., about other potential obstacles Sarah faces.  He noted that because the donor was an adult, resizing the lungs may also create medical issues. “The size of the lungs are much too great, which is why they don’t use adult lungs in general (for pediatric patients),” McCain said.  “They must remove part of lung tissue, and…you have to do that surgically, creating a surgical line that didn’t exist before.  That surgical line normally will not have the same strength as obviously a non-surgical line.  That creates a potential weak point that is risky for an air leak.” McCain also added that even if Sarah overcomes these hurdles, there is a long road of recovery ahead. “Lung transplants are some of the sickest patients you wind up having, unlike liver and kidney transplant patients, who usually do quite well,” McCain said.  “With lung transplants, these patients are in the hospital a very long time and are usually very sick.” To me, the aggravating part of this story is that this sweet girl only got her chance at life at the last minute.  Had she been placed on the adult organ transplant list earlier, perhaps her condition would have been a little bit stronger when she received her new lungs. But I’m still very optimistic that Sarah will have a good recovery. It saddens me that it finally took a judge to see the common sense and force HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius into doing the right thing.  I just hope that other children under similar circumstances get the justice they deserve in enough time.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/13/after-successful-lung-transplant-challenging-recovery-awaits-girl-with-cystic/

FDA panel votes to relax Avandia restrictions

U.S. health advisers voted on Thursday to recommend relaxing market restrictions on GlaxoSmithKline's diabetes drug Avandia, the former blockbuster at the center of one of the biggest drug controversies in recent years. The vote, by a divided Food and Drug Administration advisory committee of outside health experts, could modestly enlarge the market for Avandia in the United States and lay the groundwork for further research into the drug's health risks. FDA will now take the vote into consideration for a final decision on how the pill also known by the generic name rosiglitazone can be used. The committee did not consider a specific change in protocol. But 13 experts on the 26-member panel who backed modification said current restrictions that require prescribing physicians and pharmacists to be certified should be relaxed or eliminated after a reexamination of Glaxo safety data settled longstanding concerns about the danger of death from cardiovascular disease. “In general, this drug doesn't look any different than any other diabetes drug,” said Dr. William Hiatt, a cardiologist from the University of Colorado, who was among seven experts who backed lifting restrictions altogether. Five committee members favored keeping the current sales restrictions, while one voted to withdraw Avandia from the market altogether. Glaxo, which no longer plans to promote Avandia, issued a statement saying the company would work with FDA as it considers its decision. “We continue to believe that Avandia is a safe and effective treatment option for type 2 diabetes when used for the appropriate patient and in accordance with labeling,” Dr. James Shannon, Glaxo's chief medical officer, said in a statement. The British drugmaker's stock closed nearly 1.5 percent lower in London trading before the committee voted. Avandia was once the world's best-selling treatment for type 2 diabetes, with annual sales of $3.2 billion. In 2010 its use in the United States was heavily restricted and it was withdrawn from the market in Europe because of the possibility of increased risk of heart attack and stroke. Only 3,000 people in the United States take it today, down from about 120,000 just before the restrictions were put in place. Much of the advisory committee's two-day meeting focused on a Duke University reexamination of a Glaxo safety study known as Record that confirmed initial findings of no significant increased heart risk from the drug. That reassured some experts that earlier concerns with the quality of the research had been unwarranted and encouraged support for the restrictive protocols, while retaining continued guidance on potential dangers for patients and care providers. A departing train But others said the original data was incomplete and compiled through a flawed study design, while other research pointed to the possibility of significant increased risk of cardiovascular death. “When you look at the overall totality of evidence, it is not sufficient enough to either implicate or exonerate rosiglitazone versus cardiovascular risk,” said advisory panel member Dr. Sanjay Kaul of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute. Several committee members endorsed suggestions for a major new clinical trial to determine precisely the drug's risks in the face of a growing worldwide diabetes threat. But other experts concluded that years of negative publicity made funding major research unfeasible except for new diabetes treatments now in the pharmaceutical pipeline. “The train has left the station,” said Gerald van Belle, director of the Clinical Trials Center at the University of Washington. Experts including the advisory committee's chairman, Dr. Kenneth Burman of the Washington Hospital Center, favored the creation of a registry to monitor the health of patients who currently take the drug if major studies into safety and efficacy were not an option. Some experts view Avandia as a potential alternative to other diabetes treatments, including insulin, that could become more important as the incidence of obesity and diabetes grows, bringing with it a host of costly chronic ailments ranging from heart and kidney disease to blindness and dementia. “When treating diabetes we really do need drugs that lower blood sugar without causing hypoglycemia, and there's not a lot that's available,” Dr. Ellen Seely of Harvard Medical School. “When you're dealing with individual patients, you come up often against dead ends on what you can do. And it's important to have options,” she said. But panel members agreed the market potential for Avandia may never again be large. Glaxo has settled lawsuits filed by tens of thousands of U.S. patients who had taken Avandia and claimed Glaxo failed to inform them about safety risks. Several thousand other cases remain pending. The drugmaker last July agreed to pay $3 billion to settle what U.S. officials called the largest case of healthcare fraud in U.S. history. The agreement resolved allegations that Glaxo failed through 2007 to provide the FDA safety data on Avandia and that the company improperly marketed other drugs.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/07/fda-panel-votes-to-relax-avandia-restrictions/

Merck melanoma drug shrinks tumors in 38 percent of patients

A Merck & Co drug designed to unmask tumor cells and mobilize the immune system into fighting cancer helped shrink tumors in 38 percent of patients with advanced melanoma in an early-stage study, U.S. researchers said on Sunday. Based on the findings about the drug lambrolizumab, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago, Merck says it will move directly into a late-stage clinical trial, which will start in the third quarter. “This is a top priority at Merck,” Dr. Gary Gilliand, senior vice present and head of oncology at Merck Research Laboratories said in a meeting with investors. “We're going flat out to deliver benefit to patients with this novel mechanism.” The moves may heap pressure on market leader Bristol-Myers Squibb, maker of Yervoy - the only approved immune system drug for the treatment of advanced melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. Bristol-Myers is conducting three phase-three studies of its own drug called nivolumab in advanced melanoma, and is studying the drug's effect on a range of other cancers, including lung cancer. Both nivolumab and lambrolizumab are part of a promising new class of drugs that disable programmed death 1 or PD-1, a protein that keeps the immune system from spotting and attacking cancer cells. “Even though it's (lambrolizumab) the second player in the field and even though it's all early, it impressed me,” said Dr. Antoni Ribas of the University of California Los Angeles' Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, the lead author of the study. Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration deemed the treatment a “breakthrough therapy,” a designation FDA cancer drugs chief Dr. Richard Pazdur described as “knock-your-socks-off therapies.” Results of an early-stage study of nivolumab in advanced melanoma released at the cancer meeting showed 31 percent of patients overall responded to different doses of the drug. Among those who took the 3 milligram per kilogram dose, 41 percent of patients responded. The drug response lasted an average of two years, and in many patients the drug kept working even after they stopped taking it. Analysts expect the drugs to generate billions of dollars in sales. Nivolumab alone is forecast to have sales of $1.2 billion in 2017, according to Wall Street analysts tracked by Thomson Reuters Pharma. Merck's study Merck's results are from the first clinical trial of lambrolizumab in advanced melanoma. They are based on analysis of 135 patients with metastatic melanoma who were divided into three groups with different treatment regimens. Overall, lambrolizumab resulted in 38 percent of patients having confirmed improvement of their cancer across all dose levels given after 12 weeks of treatment. But there was a wide range among doses, with only a 25 percent rate among patients who got the lowest dose and 52 percent among those who got the highest dose. In the highest dose group, 10 percent had a complete response, meaning their tumors could not be detected on scans. Side effects were generally mild and included fatigue, fevers, skin rash, loss of skin color and muscle weakness. More severe side effects were seen in 13 percent of patients, including inflammation of the lung or kidney and thyroid problems. “This study is showing the highest rate of durable melanoma responses of any drug we have tested thus far in this cancer, and it is doing it without serious side effects in the great majority of patients,” Ribas said. Merck said it plans to start a late-stage randomized trial of the drug in melanoma and in non-small cell lung cancer in the third quarter of this year. The company recently started a global, randomized mid-stage study of the drug versus standard chemotherapy in patients whose disease had progressed. And it is studying the drug as a treatment for triple negative breast, metastatic bladder and head and neck cancers. Researchers at the meeting marveled at responses to new immune system treatments after decades of failed studies among patients with melanoma. Only about one in five patients respond to Yervoy, approved in 2011 as the first immunotherapy to extend survival in patients with advanced melanoma. Yervoy works by blocking CTLA-4, a different molecule that also keeps the immune system from attacking cancer. Ribas said he has followed one patient on Yervoy for 12 years now. “She's not supposed to be around, and she's alive and well and melanoma free. That is why we've been doing these immunotherapies,” he said. With Yervoy, Ribas said these types of responses were few and far between. With the new PD-1 drugs, they are much more common, with fewer side effects. However, an early-stage Bristol-Myers' study released this month showed that 53 percent of patients who got a combination of Yervoy and nivolumab had at least a 50 percent reduction in tumor size, with fewer side effects. Tim Turnham, executive director of the Melanoma Research Foundation, said combination treatments would make a major difference for patients because they help overcome cancer's “sneaky” ability to evade treatment. But, at this point, he said, “Nobody knows which one is better.”source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/03/merck-melanoma-drug-shrinks-tumors-in-38-percent-patients/

Motorcycle injuries worsen with weaker helmet law

The average medical claim from a motorcycle crash rose by more than one-fifth last year in Michigan after the state stopped requiring all riders to wear helmets, according to an insurance industry study. Across the nation, motorcyclists opposed to mandatory helmet use have been chipping away at state helmet laws for years while crash deaths have been on the rise. For more than 40 years, Michigan required all motorcycle riders to wear helmets. State legislators changed the law last year so that only riders younger than 21 must wear helmets. The average insurance payment on a motorcycle injury claim was $5,410 in the two years before the law was changed, and $7,257 after it was changed — an increase of 34 percent, the study by the Highway Loss Data Institute found. After adjusting for the age and type of motorcycle, rider age, gender, marital status, weather and other factors, the actual increase was about 22 percent relative to a group of four comparative states, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin, the study found. “The cost per injury claim is significantly higher after the law changed than before, which is consistent with other research that shows riding without a helmet leads to more head injuries,” said David Zuby, chief research officer for the data institute and an affiliated organization, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The data institute publishes insurance loss statistics on most car, SUV, pickup truck and motorcycle models on U.S. roads. While other studies have shown an increase motorcycle deaths after states eliminate or weaken mandatory helmet requirements, the industry study is the first to look specifically at the effect of repealing helmet requirements on the severity of injuries as measured by medical insurance claims, Zuby said. Some states have sought to mitigate the repeal or loosening of mandatory helmet laws by setting minimum medical insurance requirements, but “that doesn't even come close to covering the lifelong care of somebody who is severely brain-injured and who cannot work and who is going to be on Medicaid and a ward of the state,” said Jackie Gillan, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, which backs mandatory helmet requirements for all riders. Jeff Hennie, vice president of the Motorcycle Riders Foundation, dismissed the study, saying the insurance industry views helmets as “the silver bullet that's going to change the landscape of motorcycle safety.” He said insurers are upset because “life has gotten more expensive for them and they have to pay out more.” “The fact is our highways are bloody,” Hennie said. “This (the Michigan helmet law change) doesn't make helmets illegal. ... No one is forcing anyone to ride without a helmet.” Vince Consiglio, president of American Bikers Aimed Toward Education of Michigan, blamed the increase in the severity of injuries on bikers who don't take safety courses required to obtain a special motorcycle license. He said bikers without motorcycle licenses have made up an increasingly larger share of fatalities and injuries in recent years. But Gillan said the study “clearly shows there is no such thing as a free ride, and the public is paying the cost for this.” There's no way to know how many of the Michigan claims involved motorcyclists not wearing helmets, the study said. But another recent study by the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute found a significant increase in motorcyclists involved in crashes who weren't wearing helmets after the law changed. From April 13, 2012, the first full day after the change took effect, through the end of the year, 74 percent of motorcyclists involved in crashes were wearing helmets, compared with 98 percent in the same period for the previous four years, the study found. Nationally, motorcycle deaths have risen in 14 of the past 15 years, and appear to have reached an all-time high of more than 5,000, according to an analysis by the Governors Highway Safety Association of preliminary 2012 data. Currently, 19 states and the District of Columbia require all motorcyclists to wear a helmet, 28 states require only some motorcyclists — usually younger or novice riders — to wear a helmet, and three states have no helmet use law. States have been gradually repealing or weakening mandatory helmet laws for nearly two decades. In 1967, to increase motorcycle helmet use, the federal government required that states enact helmet laws in order to qualify for certain federal safety programs and highway construction aid. The federal incentive worked. By the early 1970s, almost all states had motorcycle helmet laws that covered all riders. In 1976, Congress stopped the Transportation Department from assessing financial penalties on states without helmet laws, and state lawmakers began repealing the statutes. In 1991, Congress created new incentives for states to enact helmet and seat belt laws, but reversed itself four years later. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which sent observers to states last year to count how many motorcyclists wore helmets, found that 97 percent of motorcyclists in states with universal helmet laws were wearing helmets compared with 58 percent of motorcyclists in states without such coverage.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/30/motorcycle-injuries-worsen-with-weaker-helmet-law/

Hospitals install sensors, film employees to ensure hand-washing

Many hospitals are now utilizing motion sensors, hand-washing coaches and video cameras in their facilities to monitor whether nurses and doctors are washing their hands, the New York Times reported. Hand-washing, or basic hand hygiene, is essential in the hospital industry, especially in the wake of a recent report from  the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicating that drug-resistant superbugs are on the rise. Infections acquired in hospitals cost $30 billion a year and lead to approximately 100,000 patient deaths annually. As a result, hospitals are going to great lengths to ensure proper hand-washing and sanitation. In a study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, North Shore University Hospital in Long Island, N.Y., installed motion sensors designed to power on whenever someone entered an intensive care room in the hospital. The sensors activated a video camera, which transmitted images to workers in India who monitored whether nurses and doctors washed their hands. In order to receive a passing score, workers needed to wash their hands within 10 seconds of entering a patient’s room; the quality of the washing was not monitored. Only people who remained in the room for at least 60 seconds were tracked. The sensors were developed by a company called Arrowsight, which initially used this motion sensor technology to ensure sanitary conditions in the meat industry. Initially, hospital employees were not notified they were being monitored. During the first 16-week trial period, employees washed their hands at a rate of less than 10 percent, the study revealed. However, once employees started receiving reports about their behavior, hand washing rates rose to 88 percent. The hospital still uses the system, but only in the intensive care unit due to high costs. Other hospitals throughout the country are employing hand-washing coaches, as well as offering rewards like free pizza and coupons for employees who use proper hygiene.  Some are also administering penalties when employees fail to comply with hygiene standards. Others are using radio-frequency ID chips that activate whenever a doctor passes a sink, and some hospitals are even using undercover hand-washing “monitors” who police whether or not doctors are washing their hands for the recommended 15 seconds. “This is not a quick fix; this is a war,” Dr. Bruce Farber, chief of infectious disease at North Shore, told the New York Times. Some doctors and hospital employees, who may neglect to wash their hands due to factors like stress, forgetfulness or hand dryness, have resisted the new technology. Elaine Larson, a professor in Columbia University’s school of nursing who studies hand-washing, supports the electronic systems being developed.  However, she says none are perfect yet. “People learn to game the system,” she told the New York Times. “There was one system where the monitoring was waist high, and they learned to crawl under that. Or there are people who will swipe their badges and turn on the water, but not wash their hands. It’s just amazing.” Click for more from the New York Times.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/29/hospitals-install-sensors-film-workers-to-ensure-hand-washing/

Software company to recruit people with autism as programmers

German software company SAP is looking to recruit people with autism as programmers and product testers, drawing on skills that can include a close attention to detail and an ability to solve complex problems. SAP has asked start-up Danish recruitment company Specialisterne to help it find, train and manage employees diagnosed with the disability. “They bring a special set of skills to the table, which fits with SAP,” said a spokesman for the company, which has already hired people with autism in India and Ireland. Specialisterne Chief Executive Steen Thygesen said the partnership was his first with a multinational company to help with its worldwide recruitment. The Danish company says it has already helped several hundred autistic people to find a job. Sufferers often find it harder to communicate and some have lifelong learning disabilities. Those with a form of autism known as Asperger syndrome can sometimes have above-average intelligence. As children, they may prefer mathematics and other subjects rooted in logic and systems, according to Britain's National Autistic Society. “People with autism have some unique abilities to really focus on their task and stay focused for long periods of time. They are also good at spotting discrepancies in data,” said Thygesen, a former manager with Microsoft and Nokia whose 14-year-old son has Asperger syndrome. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in every 88 children in the United States and almost 1 in 54 boys are diagnosed with autism. The SAP spokesman said the company aimed to reflect the proportion of people diagnosed as autistic in society within its 65,000-strong workforce - or about 1 percent. A Berlin-based company, Auticon, already exclusively employs autistic people as software testers. It has a team analyzing data for Vodafone Germany, an Auticon spokesman said.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/22/software-company-to-recruit-people-with-autism-as-programmers/

What you need to know about new PSA screening guidelines

Recently, the American Urological Association (AUA) announced new guidelines for prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing.  These guidelines were designed to help urologists, and ultimately patients, reduce prostate cancer mortality by making informed screening decisions.  These recommendations were based on comprehensive literature reviews and the strength of the existing evidence.   Here is what you need to know: • The AUA recommends against screening in men under age 40.  Such blanket recommendations can increase the risk of younger men being overlooked and potentially resulting in worse disease later in life. Men under 40 need to be educated about prostate cancer and given a clear understanding of their individual risk factors.   Obesity/excess weight, a family history of prostate cancer, and African American race are the driving risk factors of this disease. • The AUA recommends against routine screening in men of average risk aged 40 to 54 years old.  Early diagnosis and treatment are the two most important factors to successfully eliminating prostate cancer. • The AUA strongly recommends careful consideration of the pros and cons of screening for men between the ages of 55 and 69.  The risk of prostate cancer increases significantly by age 65; so it’s wise for men in this age bracket to be screened. These men have the greatest opportunity for early detection and treatment to eliminate their prostate cancer with optimal quality of life. • The AUA suggests screening for prostate cancer every two years rather than annually. PSA is not a perfect test.  Prostate cancer can be an indolent cancer, taking many years to decades before it causes problems or it can behave in a highly aggressive manner. PSA is not able to differentiate these two cases. However, by tracking PSA velocity and density we can more accurately predict one’s risk of cancer. • The AUA recommends against PSA screening in men over age 70 with a life expectancy less than 10-15 years.  Now that such a large percentage of Americans live well into their 80s, prostate cancer screening should be part of overall wellness monitoring for these men. Prostate cancer remains the second leading cause of cancer death in men, killing approximately 34,000 men each year.  Since the widespread adoption of PSA screening in the early 90s, there has been a 39 percent reduction in prostate cancer mortality rates; so there is no doubt that PSA screening is successful – when used correctly.   Speak with your doctor about your individual risk factors for prostate cancer and your treatment goals.  Through comprehensive education about prostate cancer testing, diagnosis, and treatment options, American men can make well-informed decisions about what’s best for them. Dr. David B. Samadi is the Vice Chairman of the Department of Urology and Chief of Robotics and Minimally Invasive Surgery at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. He is a board-certified urologist, specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of urological disease, with a focus on robotic prostate cancer treatments. To learn more please visit his websites RoboticOncology.com and SMART-surgery.com. Find Dr. Samadi on Facebook.Dr. David B. Samadi is the Vice Chairman of the Department of Urology and Chief of Robotics and Minimally Invasive Surgery at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. He is a board-certified urologist, specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of urological disease, with a focus on robotic prostate cancer treatments. To learn more please visit his websites RoboticOncology.com and SMART-surgery.com. Find Dr. Samadi on Facebook.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/17/what-need-to-know-about-new-psa-screening-guidelines/

Hysterectomy not tied to heart risk factors, study shows

Despite evidence suggesting that women whose uterus has been removed may be more likely to experience heart troubles, a new study finds that the usual signs of heart disease risk are not more severe in middle-aged women after hysterectomy. After following more than 3,000 women for about 11 years, researchers found that heart risk factors like cholesterol, markers of inflammation and blood pressure were not significantly worse in women in the years following an elective hysterectomy, compared to women who did not have the procedure. “I think it's encouraging to women and clinicians that this is not something they have to worry about if they're considering hysterectomy (in) midlife,” said Karen Matthews, the study's lead author from the University of Pittsburgh. Hysterectomy, the surgical removal of the uterus, is the second most common surgery among U.S. women, after cesarean-section deliveries. Often the procedure is used to remove or prevent cancer, especially among younger women. But many women may elect to have the surgery for other reasons, including to treat painful benign growths in the uterine wall known as fibroids or to staunch heavy bleeding. Hysterectomies can involve removal of the uterus only, or the ovaries as well. Ovary removal in particular has been linked to increased cardiovascular risk because it takes away the main source of estrogen in a woman's body and plunges her abruptly into menopause. Even the gradual decline of estrogen following natural menopause has been linked to women's increased heart risks, so researchers have investigated whether hysterectomy raises those risks. But studies of the connection have produced mixed results. For the new study, Matthews and her colleagues used data from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation, which followed a large, multiethnic group for more than a decade to understand the experience of American women during and after menopause. The 1,952 women included in the study were between 42 and 52 years old and not yet in menopause when tracking began. They were followed from 1996 through 2008, receiving annual checkups that recorded information about their health, surgeries and whether or not they had started menopause. Specifically, the researchers looked at physical measurements that are markers for heart and cardiovascular disease. They included various components of cholesterol, blood pressure, blood clotting factors and molecules that are signals of inflammation. Overall, the researchers report in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that none of those measurements in the 183 women who chose to have their uterus removed - with or without their ovaries - were significantly worse, compared to the 1,769 women who went through menopause naturally. Matthews said their findings apply to women who are finished having children, in their forties and are considering a hysterectomy to help with excessive bleeding or other factors that cause a quality of life problem. She said they couldn't make a conclusion for women who need to have their uterus and ovaries removed because of cancer. “Our study really couldn't examine that question because we had too few women who had gynecological cancers, and the equation changes when you have gynecological cancer,” said Matthews. But Dr. JoAnn Manson, who has researched women's health after hysterectomy but was not involved in the new study, suggested the results don't mean that women who have hysterectomies are in the clear, because past studies only saw a difference in heart risks after 10 to 15 years. Manson, who is chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, told Reuters Health that the abrupt transition to menopause after a hysterectomy may only reverberate years later because “atherosclerosis takes a while to develop… That seems to take up to 10 and 15 years for clear differences to emerge.” For that reason, “This isn't totally surprising that there wasn't a difference in risk factors during the follow up period,” Manson said. Matthews said that's one potential explanation for why their results differ from previous studies, but she said there could be other reasons, including that modern women are somehow different from women included in past research. “It may be that it's emerging much later, but I would be surprised,” Matthews said.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/15/hysterectomy-not-tied-to-heart-risk-factors-study-shows/