Category: surgery

MEwens
Birth-Control Recall: Pfizer has recalled about a million packs of birth-control pills on concerns that incorrect packaging could lead to unplanned pregnancies, but says it believes only 30 packs actually had the troublesome glitches, the WSJ reports. Pfizer has identified three production problems that could permit pills to be placed incorrectly in the […]

MEwens
Prostate-Cancer Drug Studies: The results from two trials of experimental drugs for advanced prostate cancer add to recent progress against the disease, the WSJ reports. Medivation’s MDV3100 extended survival by nearly five months in a 1,199-patient study, while Bayer and Algeta’s Alpharadin, which homes in on cancer that has already spread to the […]

Laura Landro
Gut Brain: The health of the gut is tied to more than digestion, with links to processes and conditions including bone formation, learning and memory, Parkinson’s disease and, in lab rats, depression and anxiety, the WSJ reports. Researchers call the enteric nervous system the “gut brain” and note that about 95% of […]

MEwens
On TV crime shows, when people who have been stabbed or shot in the abdomen get to the hospital they’re inevitably rushed into surgery. (Which is why Lennie Briscoe often had to wait for witness statements until after the operation.)
In real life, though, that’s happening less frequently. Certain patients can avoid emergency exploratory […]

MEwens
Waiting to Restock: Wal-Mart, Walgreen and Supervalu are waiting to restock a batch of Enfamil Newborn formula until the federal government completes tests for a potentially harmful bacteria, even though the manufacturer’s own tests have turned up no traces of contamination, the WSJ reports. The FDA and CDC are trying to figure out […]

MEwens
Three people received full-face transplants at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston this year.
Now, physicians are reporting the details of the extensive procedures — which include grafting not only the skin, but also nerves, muscles, blood vessels, and structures like the nose. The report appears in the New England Journal of Medicine.
We’ve covered […]

MEwens
As we reported last month, Grammy-winner Adele has been sidelined by a vocal-cord hemorrhage.
The singer underwent surgery last week to treat the problem, and our colleagues over at the WSJ’s Speakeasy blog recently had a chat with her surgeon.
Without discussing the specifics of her case, Steven Zeitels, director of the Voice Center at […]

MEwens
Consumers are usually unable to get accurate information about how much medical treatment will cost them before they receive it, a new government study has found.
Investigators from the Government Accountability Office, a watchdog agency which works for Congress, tried to get upfront estimates from a variety of hospitals in Denver for the price […]

MEwens
If you’re obese and live with someone who goes through weight-loss surgery, you, too, may lose a few pounds.
That apparent halo effect was seen in a small study by Stanford University researchers, who found that obese adult family members of gastric-bypass patients lost about 3.4% of their body weight on average — results […]

MEwens
Cloning Technique Success: Researchers reported in Nature that they created 13 early-stage human embryos that were partial clones of diabetic patients, albeit abnormal ones, with three sets of chromosomes instead of the usual two, the WSJ reports. That extra set would have to be eliminated if the cloning technique were ever to be […]