Study: CT For ED Dizziness Almost Never Helps

Less than 1 percent of the time—0.74 percent, to be precise—does a CT scan performed on an emergency department patient who is experiencing dizziness yield clinically significant results that require medical intervention.

So says a study by researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. They presented it this week at The Triological Society’s annual Combined Sections Meeting in Miami Beach, Florida.

The study retrospectively reviewed the cases of 1,681 patients with dizziness or vertigo who visited a Detroit metropolitan emergency department during the period of January 2008 through January 2011. Of those, … read more »

T-rays: the next frontier?

Terahertz waves, also known by the much cooler-sounding name “T-rays,” are in the far-infrared part of the spectrum—some say between the microwave and infrared zones. Their wavelengths are hundreds of times longer than those of the rays in the visible light spectrum. Their most common use right now is in airport security scanners.

T-rays have great potential for medical imaging applications. They don’t penetrate deeply into the body. But each type of molecule has its own unique signature in the T-ray range. So T-rays can distinguish between, for … read more »

MRI can detect signs of potential developmental dyslexia in children even before they begin learning to read, according to researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston.

That could be very useful because the earlier the intervention, the better the prognosis in treating developmental dyslexia.

Senior investigator Nadine Gaab, PhD, of the hospital’s Labs of Cognitive Neuroscience said dyslexia usually isn’t diagnosed until the child is in third grade, although the various available neuropsychological interventions are more effective when begun earlier. The delay in diagnosis, she said, can lead to frustration for both the child, … read more »

How do physicians go about diagnosing peripheral neuropathy? There are almost countless ways, says a new study by researchers at the University of Michigan. The researchers suggest some standardization is in order.

“Currently no standard approach to the evaluation of peripheral neuropathy exists,” said Brian Callaghan, MD, assistant professor of neurology at the University of Michigan Medical School. “We need more research to determine an optimal approach. We do a lot of tests that cost a lot of money, and there’s no agreement on what we’re doing.”

Dr. Callaghan led the research. … read more »

The radiologist who has appointed herself the “guardian angel” (her term) of confessed killer Joran van der Sloot has accused his lawyer of misleading her and demanded the return of $75,000 she had sent for bail money.

Mary Hamer, MD, of Lake City, Florida, has been financially supporting van der Sloot, who pleaded guilty on January 11 to killing Stephany Flores, a 21-year-old student he had met in a casino in Lima, Peru. A Peruvian court sentenced him to 28 years in prison.

van der Sloot, 24, has also been suspected in … read more »

Medicare will pay for a bone-density scan every two years, so that’s how often many woman 65 or older get one. Not so fast, says a new study in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The study followed 4,957 women 67 or older who did not have osteoporosis at the beginning of the study. Of the women who began with normal bone density, fewer than 1 percent developed osteoporosis within 15 years. Of those with mildly low bone density, known as osteopenia, fewer than 5 percent developed osteoporosis within 15 years.

But … read more »

How do you precisely shape a hollow silicon wafer one thousandth of a millimeter in diameter? Scientists at The Methodist Hospital Research Institute in Houston have figured out a way. Their efforts may result in a better way to destroy breast cancer cells.

The wafers have to be exactly the right shape and size to bind to breast cancer cells and not other types of cells, and their surface chemistry has to be just right as well. The scientists also attach a type of organic compound called a polyamine to the … read more »

The new Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) will get more than $3 billion over the next decade to conduct “comparative effectiveness” research and suggest the best ways to treat various illnesses. Will anybody listen?

Don’t bet on it, suggests a Kaiser Health News article. Writer Julie Appleby cites the example of vertebroplasty—the injection of medical cement into compression fractures of the spine in order to relieve pain (at a cost of $5,000 or more). In 2009, two studies said it didn’t work.

The studies, published in the August 6, 2009, issue of … read more »

About 23 percent of the time, an old-fashioned autopsy comes up with a new diagnosis that was missed by all of modern medicine’s amazing imaging tests and sophisticated laboratory procedures.

So why, ask two experts at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, should we think that the imaging-based virtual autopsy, or “virtopsy,” is ready to replace the traditional direct physical inspection of the body’s internal organs?

Pathologist Elizabeth Burton, MD, deputy director of the autopsy service at Johns Hopkins, said that despite the dazzling postmortem scans depicted on such TV series as … read more »

The University of Missouri Department of Radiology appears to be under investigation.

The Columbia Daily Tribune newspaper of Columbia, Missouri (home of the university), reported Sunday that:
Multiple sources have told the Tribune that radiology employees, including low-level staff members, recently were instructed by the UM System General Counsel’s office not to delete e-mails or destroy documents, indicating an investigation.
The newspaper also reported that an internal audit published in late 2010 found that University of Missouri Health Care had been providing radiology services to Medicare patients at Women’s and Children’s Hospital in … read more »

A CNN report scheduled for tonight accuses most radiologists who take the exam to become board certified of cheating.

A CNN story about the report, posted online earlier today, begins: “For years, doctors around the country taking an exam to become board certified in radiology have cheated by memorizing test questions, creating sophisticated banks of what are known as ‘recalls,’ a CNN investigation has found.”

Radiology residents memorize test questions, write them down immediately after the test, and compile them into recalls for future use by other radiology residents, even though they … read more »

The recession may have accidentally created an experiment in the effects of market forces on health care costs.

Some have argued for years that health care costs have risen faster than overall inflation because employer- or government-provided health insurance has insulated consumers from the full costs of their health care decisions. Therefore, they don’t bother to be smart shoppers.

Well, in 2010, for the second year in a row, health care costs rose only modestly. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reported earlier this week that national health care … read more »

Mayo Clinic is building two new proton beam treatment facilities, one in Minnesota and one in Arizona. They exemplify either “what is wrong with American health care today” or an “investment to ensure that [Mayo's] patients have access to proven, effective, safe treatment for serious illnesses.”

Or maybe both. Or neither.

The “what’s wrong” assessment comes from Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, and Steven D. Pearson, MD, in an op-ed piece last week in the New York Times. Dr. Emanuel, a bioethicist and former White House adviser (Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago … read more »

Health insurance companies spent tens of millions of dollars trying to stop the health care reform law, and now the law has turned out to be a financial bonanza for them.

So says a Blooomberg Government study released last week. A Bloomberg news story quoted Peter Gosselin, the study author, as saying:
The industry that was the loudest, most persistent critic of this law, the industry whose analysts and executives predicted it would suffer immensely because of the law, has thrived.
Gosselin is senior health care analyst for Bloomberg Government. He said the … read more »