Category: Diagnostics

MEwens
When you’re sick with the flu, public -health officials want to know what strain has infected you.
Figuring that out can take days. Most people come down with the seasonal variety, which can change from year to year. Seasonal flu can make people miserable and kills thousands every year, particularly young children and the […]

Katherine Hobson
Medical Cases: The Supreme Court will hear an appeal from the Mayo Clinic challenging two Prometheus Laboratories patents for a diagnostic test determining drug dosages for certain autoimmune diseases, the WSJ reports. Mayo says Prometheus is trying to patent medical observations of a natural phenomenon; the company says its patents “describe concrete […]

MEwens
Depending on the disease and accuracy of the test, people said they’d pay up to $622 to know if they would get the disease.
Read more this great post here

MEwens
Wall Street Journal health blogger Katherine Hobson will take questions from readers in a live chat on Monday, Nov. 1 about the TEDMED conference in San Diego.  Ask your questions now.
Read more this great post here

MEwens
Wall Street Journal health blogger Katherine Hobson will take questions from readers in a live chat on Monday, Nov. 1 about the TEDMED conference in San Diego.  Ask your questions now.
Read more this great post here

Katherine Hobson
Nobel Laureate Lee Hartwell on what’s on his plate after he retires as head of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center this fall.
Read more this great post here

MEwens
Bayer and GE are also developing diagnostic compounds to be used in tandem with imaging.
Read more this great post here

JGrimes
The study puts the prevalence of food allergies at “more than 1% to 2% but less than 10% of the population.”
Read more this great post here

JGrimes
It’s all fine and good to target cancer drugs to the specific pathways responsible for the disease. But as the NYT reports, the tests to determine who needs those drugs are not always accurate.
The WSJ explored this same issue a few years back. The problem is that lab tests such as the ones […]

JGrimes
The American Cancer Society put out updated guidelines for prostate cancer screening today and they look, well, a lot like the current ones.
After reviewing the recent scientific literature, there’s still no evidence that routine screening for men of any age makes sense, according to the committee that issued the guidelines.
They continue to recommend […]