Culture

CHICAGO, IL (June 4, 2011)––The standard treatment for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is a combination of two old-fashioned cytotoxic chemotherapy drugs. The combination, however, comes with substantial toxicity. Now, Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers report that a combination of two molecularly-targeted agents may provide similar therapeutic benefit with less toxicity.

WASHINGTON — Geographic adjustments to Medicare payments are intended to accurately and equitably cover regional variations in wages, rents, and other costs incurred by hospitals and individual health care practitioners, but almost 40 percent of hospitals have been granted exceptions to how their adjustments are calculated, finds a new report from the Institute of Medicine. The rate of exceptions strongly suggests that the mechanisms underlying the adjustments are inadequate, noted the committee that wrote the report.

(BOSTON) — Emergency department patients who have recently been hospitalized are more than twice as likely to be admitted as those who have not recently been in the hospital, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania which will be presented this week at the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine's annual meeting.

WASHINGTON, DC, (June 1, 2011) – A notable prevalence of childhood abuse – physical, sexual, verbal, or emotional – in migraine patients has been observed and documented over the last few years. In fact, it has emerged as a significant enough issue for the American Headache Society to devote an entire plenary session to it at its annual scientific conference in Washington this week.

Honour and shame work equally well in encouraging social cooperation, according to a new study by researchers at the University of British Columbia and the Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology.

Published today in Biology Letters, the study reported on the results of a series of experiments with 180 first-year UBC students (see below for experiment details.)

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- For patients with severe heart failure, an implanted mechanical pump known as a Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) can be a life-sustaining treatment. Even though the technology involves risks, few patients and their families tend to talk explicitly about the "what ifs" before surgery takes place. In the June issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, a team of Mayo Clinic researchers found that careful discussions at the bedside about patients' end-of-life preferences brought relief to families and eased subsequent medical care.

Montreal, June 1, 2011 – Young adults from Montreal, Halifax and New York City have very specific ideas about what it takes to build a more sustainable world. And they are willing to make the necessary changes to their lifestyles to make such a world a reality. This is the conclusion drawn from a survey sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which surveyed 400 young adults between the ages of 18 and 35.

The world is composed of multiple languages, cultures, races and religions, but among this diversity our eyes see, it is possible that the world is more united through our ears.

In fact Mihailo Antovic, a linguist and visiting researcher at Case Western Reserve University, proposes that our musical conceptualization brings together a world of different people.

Ranney says, "Where male and female victims of community violence differed in this chart review was in the circumstances of their injury. Our study shows that adolescent females are more likely than males to be injured by a relative or intimate partner, and equally likely to be injured by friends or strangers. "

Currently, one in five elderly patients discharged from a hospital is readmitted within a month. Seeking to address the human and substantial financial burden of revolving door hospital readmissions, the Affordable Care Act proposes a number of initiatives to improve care and health outcomes and reduce costs for the growing population of chronically ill people in the U.S. While transitional care is a central theme in these provisions, there is little information available to guide those responsible for implementing these important opportunities.

Alexandria, VA — Fatigue and poor health, anxiety and depression (physiological, affective and cognitive factors) may have a major impact on patients with functional dysphonia (FD), leading to time off work, reduced activity, and social withdrawal, all of which could further perpetuate and/or cause anxiety, low mood, fatigue and reduced voice use, according to new research published in the June 2011 issue of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery.

Johns Hopkins Children's Center scientists have found that having a regular outpatient mental health provider may not be enough to prevent children and teens with behavioral problems from repeatedly ending up in the emergency room. The study is published in the June 1 issue of the journal Psychiatric Services.

Imaging utilization on stroke patients is affected by age and imaging capacity — the number of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) machines at any given facility, according to a study in the June issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology (www.jacr.org).

New research from the University of Leicester raises concerns about higher than expected mortality following acute coronary events such as heart attack in those with significant mental ill health.

Researchers from the University of Leicester in the UK and Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute in Australia examined 22 previous studies involving 825,754 individuals, comparing care given to those with and without serious mental disorders.

In this week's PLoS Medicine, Anoop Shah of University College London and colleagues report that, in people with stable coronary disease, there were threshold haemoglobin values below which mortality increased in a graded, continuous fashion. As well as a systematic review and statistical analysis of previous studies, the researchers conducted a retrospective analysis of patients from a prospective observational cohort.