The INFORMED study is believed to be the first of its kind to track physician practice patterns as an outcome of a skin cancer detection training course. INFORMED stands for INternet curriculum FOR Melanoma Early Detection. Key findings of 54 physicians who took the course: • Scores for diagnosing and managing all skin cancer lesions increased 10 percent. …
Sequencing spells out, or decodes, the billions of letters of DNA and other genomic data so that clinicians can discover what genetic changes might lead to cancer. Better optics and faster computers, which are the hallmarks of today’s Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), are leading to genomic analysis that enables development of new drugs that target specific genetic mutations. However, because patients’ tumors often contain multiple abnormalities, their cancer often progresses beyond initial targeted therapies…
Working with local hospitals across North Carolina, UNC researchers led by Ronald Chen, MD, MPH, assistant professor of Radiation Oncology in the UNC School of Medicine, and Paul Godley, MD, PhD, Professor in the Division of Hematology/Oncology — both members of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center — surveyed patients about their decision-making process after a prostate cancer diagnosis. "Prostate cancer is a unique disease where there are multiple treatment options, ranging from active surveillance to surgical treatments to radiation treatments…
source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/28/why-men-should-discuss-premature-ejaculation-with-their-doctors/
source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/21/recommended-tests-to-keep-men-healthy-at-all-ages/
Nearly 15 million U.S. adults suffer from clinical depression. Treating them is currently a process of trial and error. “It's always been a combination of physician preference, patient preference and… who you actually choose to see for your depression,” Dr. Helen Mayberg, a neurologist at Emory University School of Medicine, said. “If you choose to go see a psychologist, psychologists do therapy. If you go to your family doctor… the likelihood is that you'll be prescribed a medication.” With fewer than 40 percent of patients achieving success with their initial treatment for depression, the majority have to wait to see if additional therapies are effective. “It's a serious illness,” Mayberg said. “There are consequences to going another six weeks, another eight weeks, another 12 weeks on a treatment that is unlikely to work.” Now, Mayberg and a team of researchers may have discovered a way to reduce the guesswork involved with treating clinical depression. Their study, published online in JAMA Psychiatry, suggests the solution is locked in a portion of the brain called the anterior insula. PET scans revealed that patients who benefitted from escitalopram (an antidepressant also known by the brand name Lexapro) had different activity levels in the anterior insula than patients who responded well to “talk therapy.” “The patients who did the best on escitalopram have high insula activity (compared to other parts of the brain),” Callie McGrath, an Emory graduate student and lead author of the study, said. “And the patients who do the best on cognitive behavioral therapy have low insula activity.” The researchers believe they've found the first reliable indicator to guide doctors in their selection of initial treatments for clinical depression. This has the potential to spare many patients from the prolonged suffering and uncertainty associated with current trial and error methods. “It's a very discouraging process,” said Edi Guyton, who leads local support programs with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). “It's long. You begin to feel hopeless.” Guyton said she struggled with treatment-resistant depression for most of her life until she was able to bring it under control through deep brain stimulation (DBS), an experimental therapy developed by Dr. Mayberg. Guyton said she hopes Mayberg's separate study on the relationship between brain activity and treatment outcomes will lead to more research that takes the hit and miss factor out of helping people with depression. “That would be wonderful, just knowing what medicine,” Guyton said. “If you were pretty sure, even 80 percent sure, that this is gonna work for me, I think it would make all the difference in the world.”source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/13/depression-treatments-brain-scans-may-suggest-best-course/
As a doctor, I get a lot of health questions both in my practice and in my e-mail inbox. Today, I found one from a mom whose 8-year-old child suffers from migraines. How do you deal with an “adult” illness that affects a young child? Read on for my advice. I have an 8 year old son who is suffering from migraines. One time, his migraine was so intense, he cried all the way to the ER, after we tried unsuccessfully to treat it at home. I have been told that there are adult medications for migraines that can be used on children in a smaller dosage. However, according to my pediatrician, they have not been tested on children and because such a small percentage of children get migraines, they will probably never be tested on children. My son has a migraine at least once a week, sometimes more. Is it worth putting him on one of these medications, and if not, what can I do to ease the discomfort without ending up at the local emergency room? – Carla Carla, I understand your frustration. It is very hard to watch and deal with a young child grappling with migraine headaches. Because there are so many factors that could trigger a migraine, it can be difficult to pin down the exact root of the problem. The first thing that I would say is that I hope your child has been seen by board certified pediatric neurologist who has properly diagnosed him with migraines. Sometimes, it can be very difficult to get a proper medical history from children. It can be especially confusing for them to try to describe the location and timing of migraine headaches. However, remember there are many other conditions that could mimic a migraine in a child, such as sinusitis or dental problems, which can both result in head pain. If migraine is in fact the actual diagnosis, then the treatment becomes multi-faceted. Key components of treatment include making sure the child gets enough rest and sleep, as well as utilizing the over-the-counter medications that your physician recommends. Most likely, a physician will prescribe a non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drug such as aspirin or ibuprofen. Prevention, of course, is even more effective than treatment. There usually tend to be two culprits in pediatric migraines. One is nitrates, which is found in many foods that kids eat such as packaged foods, processed lunch meats and hot dogs. The other culprit is monosodium glutamate, or MSG. MSG is a flavor enhancer that is found in baking mixtures, chips and gelatins, among other products. It is highly toxic for many people that suffer from migraines. So while working with your physician, it is key that you also focus on nutritional aspect of children’s health. In doing so, your child may suffer from fewer migraines and require less drugs, which, as you state in question, have not been clinically tested in children. Send me your health questions on Facebook and Twitter.  And remember to join me for my weekly health live chat every Wednesday from 2-3 pm ET.  source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/02/08/dealing-with-migraine-headaches-in-children/