Category: Regulations
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Cleveland Clinic Enrolling Fighters for MRI Brain Study
The Cleveland Clinic has begun a study with professional fighters to help determine if magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain can detect changes in brain health that correlate with impaired thinking and functioning. The clinic’s Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas is working with the Nevada Athletic Commission and fight promoters…
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Chemical Particles in Diesel Fumes Pose Cardiac Risk
Researchers at University of Edinburgh in the U.K. and colleagues in the Netherlands and Sweden have found that ultrafine particles from the burning of diesel fuel can increase the chances of blood clots forming in arteries, leading to a heart attack or stroke. Their findings appear in the current issue of the European Heart Journal.…
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FDA Issues Draft Guidance on Diagnostic/Therapy Companions
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a draft of guidance to encourage the development and review of diagnostics tests to help health care professionals determine if a patient should receive a particular drug therapy or its dosage. The agency is seeking public input on the draft guidance for 60 days. The draft document…
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Individualized Medical Cost-Effectiveness Metric Proposed
A physician and health economist at Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto have devised a way to tailor a common measure of medical cost effectiveness for individual decision-making. Their findings appear in the current issue of the journal PLoS Medicine. John Ioannidis, chief of the Stanford Prevention Research Center, and health economist Alan…
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Adult Stem Cells Help Cardiac Function in Angina Patients
A clinical trial by researchers at Baxter International in Deerfield, Illinois and Northwestern University medical school in Chicago found injections of individuals’ own stem cells reduced angina episodes and improved exercise tolerance time in patients with chronic, severe angina who did not respond to other treatments. The results of the research appear online in the…
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Generic Drugs Can Generate Sharp Health Care Cost Reductions
Researchers from Harvard University, Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and CVS Caremark have found that expanded use of generic medications for chronic disease can significantly reduce the cost of preventive health care. Their findings appear in the July issue of the journal Health Affairs (paid subscription required). The study concludes that preventive health care…
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Algorithm Being Developed to Limit Small Airplane Collisions
A postdoc and colleagues at Massachusetts Institute of Technology are developing an algorithm for a tracking system to predict and prevent collisions between small aircraft. The MIT team will present early results of its research in October at the 30th Digital Avionics Systems Conference in Seattle. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has mandated that by…
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Anti-Smoking Drug Raises Risk of Heart Problems
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Wake Forest University, and University of East Anglia in the U.K. found healthy tobacco users that take a leading smoking cessation drug face a notably greater chance of hospitalization from heart problems, compared to those taking a placebo. The findings appear in the current issue of the Canadian Medical Association…
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Foods with Baked Milk Can Build Children’s Dairy Tolerance
Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York have found that adding increasing amounts of foods with baked milk into the diets of children who have milk allergies helped most of them outgrow their allergies. The findings appear in the 23 May issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. The team…
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Computerized Outpatient Prescriptions Still Have Errors
Researchers from three Boston, Massachusetts medical centers, Harvard Medical School, and CVS Pharmacies analyzed records from automated prescription systems and found error rates similar to prescriptions written manually. The team’s findings appear online in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (paid subscription required). The panel of clinicians reviewed 3,850 prescription records from a…