Culture

Surgery for frail, senior citizen patients can be risky. A new patient-centered, team-based approach to deciding whether these high-risk patients will benefit from surgery is championed in an April 10 Perspective of the New England Journal of Medicine. The Perspective suggests that the decision to have surgery must balance the advantages and disadvantages of surgical and non-surgical treatment as well as the patient's values and goals in a team-based setting that includes the patient, his or her family, the surgeon, the primary care physician and the physician anesthesiologist.

According to a prospective study (the SPEED Study) presented by Yvonne Greve of Nuremberg Hospital et al. in Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2014; 111(12): 197), up to 3% of consultations at an emergency department concern a sudden loss of consciousness or near loss of consciousness.

London, United Kingdom, Friday 11 April 2014: New research announced at the International Liver CongressTM 2014 today provides new hope for the notoriously difficult-to-treat population of liver transplant patients with recurring hepatitis C (HCV).

London, UK, Friday 11 April 2014: Mortality from viral hepatitis is significantly higher than from HIV/AIDS across EU countries, according to results from The Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (GBD 2010) which was announced for the first time today at the International Liver CongressTM 2014(1).

GBD 2010 is the most recent version of a large epidemiological study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and coordinated by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington.

London, England, Friday 11 April 2014 Significant new data presented today at the International Liver Congress™ 2014 indicate that liver cancer (Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC)) may be treated by adoptive T-cell therapy.

This new therapeutic approach in the treatment of HCC could be very important as without treatment the 5 year survival rate is just 5%. Globally, HCC accounts for 746,000 deaths, and in the UK alone is responsible for over 4,000 deaths per year.

MADISON, Wis. – When the Earned Income Tax Credit was expanded in 1993, supporters hoped it would reward poor parents for working while critics feared that it might discourage single mothers from marrying or incentivize women to have more children to boost their tax refund.

A new collaborative study done by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Cornell University reveals the EITC has helped the working poor but hasn't affected personal choices.

Lebanon, N.H. (April 10, 2014) – The methodology Medicare uses to adjust the billions of dollars it pays health plans and hospitals to account for how sick their patients are is flawed and should be replaced, according to a new study by Dartmouth investigators published in the journal BMJ that weighed the performance of Medicare's methodology against alternatives.

Washington, DC, April 10, 2014 -- The American College of Physicians (ACP) today released a policy paper on the medical liability crisis, which continues to have a profound effect on the medical system.

Surgical decision making for sick, elderly patients should be orchestrated by a multidisciplinary team, including the patient, his or her family, the surgeon, primary care physician, nurses and non-clinicians, such as social workers, advocates Laurent G. Glance, M.D., in a perspective piece published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Surgery for frail, senior citizen patients can be risky. A new patient-centered, team-based approach to deciding whether these high-risk patients will benefit from surgery is championed in an April 10 Perspective of the New England Journal of Medicine. The Perspective suggests that the decision to have surgery must balance the advantages and disadvantages of surgical and non-surgical treatment as well as the patient's values and goals in a team-based setting that includes the patient, his or her family, the surgeon, the primary care physician and the physician anesthesiologist.

Federal spending after future terrorist attacks on the United States may be higher if the nation's terrorism risk insurance program is allowed to expire, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

The analysis finds that in a terrorist attack with losses up to $50 billion, the federal government would spend more helping to cover losses than if it had continued to support a national terrorism risk insurance program.

London, UK, Thursday 10 April 2014: Two new studies presented today at the International Liver CongressTM 2014 have provided more evidence to clarify the role of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) as an independent risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD).

London, UK, Thursday 10 April 2014: In the UK paracetamol toxicity is the most common cause of ALF and has a high mortality rate. It is estimated that 150 to 200 deaths and 15 to 20 LTs occur as a result of poisoning each year in England and Wales. LT is the definitive treatment for ALF patients who meet the criteria for transplantation but the current means of selection for LT (the King's College Criteria) are not ideal and do not assess changes in prognostic measures over time or quantify the mortality risk for individual patients.

Sophia Antipolis, 10 April 2014. Periodontal disorders such as tooth loss and gingivitis have been identified as a potential risk marker for cardiovascular disease in a large study reported today.(1) More than 15,000 patients with chronic coronary heart disease provided information on their dental health, with results showing that indicators of periodontal disease (fewer remaining teeth, gum bleeding) were common in this patient group and associated with numerous cardiovascular and socioeconomic risk factors.

Boston, MA – Findings from the Treatment of Preserved Cardiac Function Heart Failure with an Aldosterone Antagonist (TOPCAT) trial, have revealed that adding the medication known as spironolactone (Aldactone) to existing therapy did not significantly reduce the composite time to either death from cardiovascular causes, surviving a cardiac arrest, or hospitaliization to manage heart failure in patients with heart failure and a preserved ejection fraction in a study funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health.