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Ten physicians indicted in alleged $250 million fraud scheme

As has been the trend in some recent health care fraud cases, the physicians were not the ringmasters. Instead, the indictments allege that they were fronts for others -; primarily immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

2 Mar 2012

Robotic surgery effective in treating oropharyngeal cancer in patients with HPV

Over the past few decades, doctors have noted a surprising trend in cancer of the tonsils and base of the tongue. Though oral cancer previously appeared predominantly in elderly patients with a history of tobacco and alcohol use, it's increasing in younger patients: 30- to 50-year-old nonsmokers with the human papillomavirus.

2 Mar 2012

Ga. House passes bill restricting abortion to limit fetal pain

The legislation would cut six weeks from the time women can have an elective abortion, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

2 Mar 2012

$DXA scan should be done at shorter intervals for women at high risk for fracture$

DXA scan should be done at shorter intervals for women at high risk for fracture

Although a recent study suggests that women with normal results on dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans at ages 67 and older may wait up to 15 years for a second test, a Viewpoint article published today in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research (JBMR) cautions that such a lengthy interval is inappropriate for many adults.

2 Mar 2012

March issue of WHO Bulletin available online

The March issue of the WHO Bulletin features an editorial on global shortages of medicines; a public health round-up; an article on breast cancer awareness; a research paper on interventions for the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa; and a paper on the global burden of cholera.

2 Mar 2012

Review highlights potential strategies for treatment of Down syndrome, AD

Down syndrome (DS) is the most common genetic disorder in live born children arising as a consequence of a chromosomal abnormality. It occurs as a result of having three copies of chromosome 21, instead of the usual two. It causes substantial physical and behavioral abnormalities, including life-long cognitive dysfunction that can range from mild to severe but which further deteriorates as individuals with DS age.

2 Mar 2012

Senate set for showdown on Obama birth control rule

An amendment by Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., which is scheduled for a Senate vote today, would allow employers and insurers to opt out of provisions in Obama's health care law to which they object on religious or moral grounds.

2 Mar 2012

HDFT scan can show broken neural connections caused by TBI

A powerful new imaging technique called High Definition Fiber Tracking (HDFT) will allow doctors to clearly see for the first time neural connections broken by traumatic brain injury (TBI) and other disorders, much like X-rays show a fractured bone, according to researchers from the University of Pittsburgh in a report published online today in the Journal of Neurosurgery.

2 Mar 2012

Northern Ireland has higher survival rates for pancreatic cancer, leukaemia

The first audit of leukaemia treatment and survival in Northern Ireland by the Cancer Registry (NICR) at Queen's University Belfast has shown that survival rates for the disease here are at the highest levels since data collection began in 1993.

2 Mar 2012

Snowe's departure from the Senate highlights ever-shrinking political center

Her surprise retirement also underscores what some say is a rift within the GOP between conservatives who demand allegiance to bedrock principles and those concerned with courting swing voters.

2 Mar 2012

The health law and the states

Stateline reports that some GOP governors are moving very slowly on health insurance exchanges. Also in the news, a bill in the Georgia House would restore child-only plans.

2 Mar 2012

Unpaid caregivers provided an estimated $202 billion in dementia care in 2010

NPR reports unpaid caregiver costs for those with dementia was an estimated $202 billion in 2010 alone. In other news, the income of Massachusetts' elderly covers only 60 percent of living expenses, and at the Mayo Clinic, researchers are trying to learn more about the effects of old age.

2 Mar 2012

Insight into why some children develop myopia

Myopia (nearsightedness) develops in children when the lens stops compensating for continued growth of the eye, according to a study in the March issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry.

2 Mar 2012

Global Fistula Care Map aims to connect women in need with health facilities

"In an effort to coordinate prevention and treatment of fistula across the globe, targeting outside help where it can do the most good," the non-profit Direct Relief International has developed an interactive Global Fistula Care Map, "displaying more than 150 health facilities that provide fistula repair in 40 countries across Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East," Miller-McCune reports.

2 Mar 2012

UCSD first to treat glioma with investigational viral vector

UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center researchers and surgeons are among the first in the nation to treat patients with recurrent brain cancer by directly injecting an investigational viral vector into their tumor. The treatment is being developed by a local San Diego Company, Tocagen Inc.

2 Mar 2012

Inexpensive test, treatment for syphilis could save nearly 1M infants annually

An inexpensive test and single-dose treatment could help save the lives of nearly one million infants annually if pregnant women in low-income countries were offered rapid tests for syphilis, experts from the Global Congenital Syphilis Partnership said on Thursday, Reuters reports.

2 Mar 2012

Poor neighborhoods linked with worse chronic pain for young adults

Living in a poor neighborhood was linked with worse chronic pain for young adults, according to a study by the University of Michigan Health System, but young black patients faced difficulties with pain management no matter where they lived.

2 Mar 2012

Women need more contraception options that protect against pregnancy, HIV

In this Huffington Post "Black Voices" opinion piece, Vanessa Cullins, vice president for external medical affairs at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, responds to an announcement by the WHO in February that the agency would not revise its contraception guidelines for women living with and at risk of HIV infection based on a "study suggesting that hormonal contraception increases women's risk of acquiring and transmitting HIV to their partners."

2 Mar 2012

First study to focus on platelet genetics in African Americans

Researchers, led by scientists from Johns Hopkins, have found five previously unknown gene mutations believed to be associated with elevated blood platelet counts in African-Americans, findings they say could someday lead to the development of new drugs to help prevent coronary artery disease.

2 Mar 2012

House Subcommittee OKs IPAB repeal

The House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee voted 17 to 5 to do away with a Medicare cost-cutting panel derided by Republicans as a "rationing board."

2 Mar 2012