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Source: BBC Health; Journal of Medical Screening Still think screening for breast cancer doesn’t matter? In this country there is a lot of debate about that very topic. Opponents of screening suggest that it results in over-treatment for “lumps” that may be benign cysts or nothing at all. What is over-treatment? Sometimes simple referral for ultrasound [...] Source: American Journal of Roentgenology; BBC Health A Duke University study published in the American Journal of Roentgenology (that’s x-rays) found that plain x-rays miss a surprising amount of fractures compared with MRI. How many? Out of 92 patients undergoing x-ray and then checked with MRI, 35 fractures were missed. That’s more than 1/3 of fractures [...] Source: US Food & Drug Safety Administration (FDA) and The Wall Street Journal The FDA just announced a potential patient safety issue with perfusion CT imaging of the head. The issue? overexposure to dangerous levels of radiation. Where is this test most prominent? For imaging to diagnose stroke and to determine treatment for stroke. Over an 18 [...] Source: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Chiarelli, A., 2009; 101: 1236-43; Barton M., 2009; 101: 1223-25; www.breastcancer.org Okay, some advice and some terms. First, women should be performing self breast exams (minds out of the gutter, or enlist a friend, whichever). The studies referenced compare physical exams by a doctor with current mammography. So what [...] Source: BBC Health; British Medical Journal A recent Swedish study (Yes, where the candy fish come from) comparing PSA (Prostate Specific Antigent) Test results of 540 men before they were eventually diagnosed with prostate cancer and 1,000 healthy men failed to determine the point where a PSA Test was a diagnostic predictor of prostate cancer. What [...] Source: The New York Times, June 2009 A survey led by an associate professor at Weill Cornell Medical College of records of some 5,434 patients at 19 independent primary care and 4 academic medical centers has produced some startling results. Now before you jump all over the Plaintiff attorney, the Director of Clinical Informatics and Brigham and [...] Source: Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions -Media (3/11/2009) Patient safety experts at Johns Hopkins are pushing for medical providers to give the same attention to diagnostic errors as they devote to drug prescription errors, wrong-site surgeries and hospital-acquired infections. Drs. Newman-Toker and Pronovost, estimate that 40,000 to 80,000 hospital deaths per year are the result of errors in [...] |
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