Originally published in MedPage Today
by Crystal Phend, MedPage Today Senior Staff Writer
Gains in life expectancy from lower smoking rates over the next decade will be offset, to some degree, by reductions in life expectancy based on the rise in obesity, researchers estimated.
If obesity and smoking rates had held steady, the average 18-year-old would have seen a 2.98-year increase in …
Does smoking or obesity affect life expectancy more?
Fear is such a powerful emotion, humans will do almost anything to relieve it. The most effective way to control fear is to manage whatever it is we’re afraid of. Night lights against the monsters under the bed; locks on the doors and a handgun under the pillow to fend off intruders; annual mammograms and PSAs to keep us from dying of cancer. Although all these things may relieve fear …
Why the fear of cancer undermines the new mammography guidelines
Originally published in MedPage Today
by John Gever, MedPage Today Senior Editor
Responding to growing concern over concussions suffered by professional football players, the National Football League may soon require teams to seek opinions from independent neurologists before allowing head-injured players back on the field.
League officials have not confirmed the plan, but reports in The New York Times, the Associated Press, FOXSports.com, …
NFL football players with concussions may need independent neurologists to clear them
Originally published in MedPage Today
by Kristina Fiore, MedPage Today Staff Writer
Radiologists have rejected revised mammography guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), arguing that they are not backed by scientific evidence and will lead to unnecessary deaths.
Under the revised guidelines, “screening will begin too late and its effects will be too little,” said Stephen A. Feig, MD, of …
Radiologists don’t agree with the USPSTF breast cancer mammogram screening guidelines
Originally published in MedPage Today
by Kristina Fiore, MedPage Today Staff Writer
Some women already at high risk of breast cancer should be cautious about having mammography or chest x-rays before the age of 30 because the imaging may increase the risk of developing the disease, researchers here said.
Five or more x-rays, or any exposure to ionizing radiation before age 20, …
Do chest x-rays and mammograms increase the risk of breast cancer in young women?
by Bruce Goldman
People of a certain age have been known to complain that, while they lucidly recall the details of childhood events, they can’t remember what they ate for breakfast.
As it is with brains, so it may be with immune systems. Older people’s immune responses, while generally somewhat sluggish in revving up after, say, a vaccine against seasonal influenza, seem to retain a knack for fending off the current H1N1 …
Previous influenza exposure can protect against the H1N1 flu
Recently, two groups released new guidelines that may affect breast cancer and cervical screening in women.
The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommended against screening women in their 40s and to screen women every other year starting at age 50. The USPSTF left room for individualized screening, particularly in the presence of risk factors such as family history. Still, it is …
An oncologist takes on the recent breast and cervical cancer screening controversy
Originally posted in MedPage Today
by John Gever, MedPage Today Senior Editor
Almost one-third of doctors in an industry-sponsored survey said they didn’t spend enough time with their diabetic patients and blamed low reimbursement rates for diabetes care, researchers said.
In a survey of 200 primary care physicians and 100 endocrinologists, 32% reported an inability to provide comprehensive diabetes care, Alyssa Pozniak, …
Low pay for diabetes care harms patients
Originally posted in Insidermedicine
The eye is very similar to a camera. Both are optical systems that have lenses in the front to focus light rays onto a film. The retina is the eye’s film. It is a tissue that consists of 10 layers and is about 500 microns thick—or, half a millimeter. The main function of the retina is to trap light rays, convert them into electrical impulses, and send …
Seeing floaters or flashing lights can be caused by posterior vitreous or retinal detachment
The following is part of a series of original guest columns by the American College of Physicians.
by Steven Weinberger, MD, FACP
It is difficult to find a medical guideline that has garnered so much press and controversy as the recent recommendations about breast cancer screening developed by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) and published in Annals …
ACP: Teasing out science, politics, and emotion about the mammography guidelines
Originally published in MedPage Today
by Michael Smith, MedPage Today North American Correspondent
The CDC is keeping a careful eye on a mutation in some strains of the pandemic H1N1 flu that Norwegian researchers isolated from three patients with severe disease.
The mutation has been seen “sporadically” in the U.S., according to Anne Schuchat, MD, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization …
Will the H1N1 flu virus mutate?
by Jeoffry B.Gordon, MD, MPH
The recent recommendation of the US Preventive Services Task Force against routine screening mammograms for healthy, low risk women under the age of fifty has demonstrated our broad consensus about the value of breast cancer screening. The discussions about new guidance from the American Academy of Obstetrics and Gynecology on when to start and how often to do PAP smears illuminate the impact, effectiveness and support …
How the mammogram and Pap smear debates ignore the uninsured
Originally published in MedPage Today
by Emily P. Walker, MedPage Today Washington Correspondent
The emotional debate over a federal panel’s proposal to end routine mammograms for women in their 40s has reignited controversy over a contentious healthcare reform issue: comparative effectiveness research.
Healthcare reform opponents say the new mammogram guidelines by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) make their point: If …
The health reform politics of mammograms and breast cancer screening
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The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) has just revised their guidelines for Pap smears under some pressure. This resulted from an Annals of Internal Medicine article which documented that only 16.4% of gynecologists followed the College’s prior guidelines. Most did more screenings than indicated, the worst record of the specialties tested. But the ACOG still recommends that nearly all women obtain regular screening at intervals of 1-3 years.
The …
Informed consent is missing from Pap smears and cervical cancer screening
Originally published in MedPage Today
by Michael Smith, MedPage Today North American Correspondent
In the first six months of the H1N1 flu pandemic, 22 million Americans fell ill from the virus, the CDC now estimates.
Of those, about 98,000 needed inpatient care, and 3,900 died, according to Anne Schuchat, MD, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
The estimates …
What is the death toll for the H1N1 flu pandemic?
Originally published in MedPage Today
by Charles Bankhead, MedPage Today Staff Writer
Women can wait longer for their first Pap smear and then repeat the test less frequently, according to recommendations from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).
The organization now says women should begin cervical cancer screening with a Pap test at age 21. Subsequent tests should occur at …
When women should have their first Pap smear; the new cervical cancer screening guidelines
Doctors have understood for some time that it was inevitable. The American Cancer Society has acknowledged that cancer screening has been oversold.
It seems like every day you read in the newspaper that what was standard medical care yesterday is now no longer recommended. Don’t doctors know anything? Well, actually they do. And what seems like paradoxical behavior, no longer recommending aggressive screening for certain cancers, actually represents a more sophisticated …
Can less aggressive cancer screening recommendations be better for patients?
What if a non-partisan, authoritative entity wrote a robust, evidence-based guideline, but nobody followed it?
That is precisely what’s happening with the USPSTF’s recent revision of their breast cancer screening recommendations. The change most find problematic is their recommendation that women younger than 50 not undergo any breast cancer screening, such as with a mammogram.
Here are their reasons explaining why:
The harms resulting from screening for breast cancer include psychological harms, …
Why health reformers should be worried about the breast cancer screening backlash
Originally published in MedPage Today
by Chris Emery, MedPage Today Contributing Writer
Complications from first trimester abortions performed by family practitioners are rare, and family doctors could help address abortion provider shortages across the U.S., a new study found.
Among more than 2,500 abortions performed by family physicians, abortion was successful without complications in 96.5% of patients using medications (95% CI 95.5% …
Can family doctors do safe first trimester abortions?
The Wall Street Journal and other sources reported on a study from the Annals of Internal Medicine that showed that most US doctors don’t know the guidelines of how often women should get a pap smear. More importantly, doctors were doing a lot of pap smears on women who didn’t need them. In all the talk about health care reform, reducing costs by eliminating unnecessary testing has been mentioned multiple …
Why doctors are doing so many unnecessary Pap smears
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