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DENVER – All adolescent females who show up in the emergency department (ED) complaining primarily of lower abdominal pain and/or urinary or genital symptoms should be tested for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), according to the authors of a study to be presented Saturday, April 30, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Denver.

Washington, DC – A drug developed to treat Ewing's Sarcoma, a rare childhood cancer, may also help prevent human prostate cancer from spreading, as seen in new lab studies say researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, a part of Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC).

Published online April 29 in PLoS ONE, the researchers report that if the agent continues to work well in further laboratory and preclinical studies, it may be the first prostate cancer drug specifically designed to stop cancer spread, or metastasis.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Robotic surgery has become a mainstream tool for removing an ever-increasing variety of head and neck tumors. Now, a team of head and neck surgeons from Mayo Clinic has found robotic surgery can treat cancer in the narrow, hard-to-reach area beyond the tongue at the top of the voice box. Some patients were able to avoid further treatment with chemotherapy or radiation, and most could resume normal eating and speaking.

BOSTON – Low health literacy is a significant barrier to quality care, especially among elderly patients, but increased use of simple and effective health literacy assessment tests by nurses and clinicians can help improve communication and health outcomes.

Several screening tools are available to assess health literacy but they are underutilized, according to a presentation at the 36th Annual Congress of the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) by Ellen C. Mullen, RN, ANP-BC, GNP-BC, nurse practitioner in the Lymphoma and Myeloma Center at The University of MD Anderson Cancer Center.

PHILADELPHIA – Black cardiac arrest victims are more likely to die when they're treated in hospitals that care for a large black population than when they're brought to hospitals with a greater proportion of white patients, according to new research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The study is published in the April issue of the American Heart Journal.

WASHINGTON, DC/FRAMINGHAM, MA, APRIL 29, 2011 – Dune Medical Devices, Inc. today announced that the landmark, 664-patient pivotal trial evaluating the MarginProbe™ System met its primary endpoints. The MarginProbe System provides surgeons with a real time, intraoperative technology to detect microscopically-positive margins on excised tissues. Top-line data from the study were presented at the 12th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Breast Surgeons (ASBS) in Washington, DC.

Simply put, people develop diabetes because they don't have enough pancreatic beta cells to produce the insulin necessary to regulate their blood sugar levels.

But what if other cells in the body could be coaxed into becoming pancreatic beta cells? Could we potentially cure diabetes?

A gene known to be important in cardiac development has been newly associated with congenital heart malformations that result in obstruction of the left ventricular outflow tract. These are the findings from a study conducted by Nationwide Children's Hospital and appearing in the journal Birth Defects Research Part A.

The benefit and harm of positron emission tomography (PET) in patients with head and neck tumours, applied alone or in combination with computed tomography (CT), cannot currently be reliably assessed. This is the result of a final report published by the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG). The Institute was commissioned by the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) to assess the advantages and disadvantages of this diagnostic method. However, as the authors of the report explain, suitable studies for this purpose are lacking.

LOS ANGELES (April 28, 2011) – Scientists at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center have discovered how a molecular receptor on the surface of white blood cells identifies when invading fungi have established direct contact with the cell surface and pose an infectious threat.

JUPITER, FL, April 28, 2011 – Working with a group of national and international researchers, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have developed a new genetic model of premature aging disorders that could shed light on these rare conditions in humans and provide a novel platform for large-scale screening of compounds to combat these and other age-related diseases.

Injecting a tissue spacer in the prostate-rectal inter-space is an effective way to reduce the rectal dose for prostate cancer patients receiving radiation therapy, according to research presented April 30, 2011, at the Cancer Imaging and Radiation Therapy Symposium in Atlanta. This symposium is sponsored by the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) and Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

A pelvic MRI scan with IV contrast and rectal balloon is highly effective in identifying local recurrence even at low PSA values in prostate cancer patients with a rising or persistently elevated PSA after prostatectomy, according to a study presented April 29, 2011, at the Cancer Imaging and Radiation Therapy Symposium in Atlanta. The symposium is co-sponsored by the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) and the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

An annual mammogram is sufficient follow-up after breast conserving therapy (BCT) for breast cancer patients, according to a study presented today, at the Cancer Imaging and Radiation Therapy Symposium in Atlanta. This symposium is co-sponsored by the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) and Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

Combining computerized tomography (CT) with fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) images results in significantly more defined tumor outlines and potentially different treatment options in head and neck cancer patients compared to using CT alone, according to research presented today, at the Cancer Imaging and Radiation Therapy Symposium in Atlanta. This symposium is co-sponsored by the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) and the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).