Screening for colon cancer can cost up to $3000
Screening for breast cancer can cost up to $1000
Screening for cervical cancer can cost up to $500
We charge only $149 for screening for sleep apnea using Home Sleep Test.
Knowing sleep apnea can increase the chance of:
High blood pressure
Heart attack
Congestive heart failure
Irregular heart beats
Lung cancer screening with CT scans can be cost-effective while saving lives, a new study suggests.
But, there are two caveats to that finding — the procedure has to be performed by skilled professionals and the screening must be done on a very specific set of long-time smokers, the researchers noted.
Results from the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) showed four years ago that annual CT scans can reduce lung cancer deaths by 20 percent in older, long-time smokers.
The new study, which uses data gathered during that national trial, concludes that screening for lung cancer would cost $81,000 for each year of quality life gained — lower than the generally accepted $100,000-per-year threshold for cost effectiveness.
“While it sounds like an awful lot, $100,000 to $150,000 per quality-adjusted life-year is considered a reasonable value within the United States,” said study author Dr. William Black, a professor of radiology at the Dartmouth University Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. “It’s plausible to design a screening program for lung cancer that ultimately would be cost-effective.”
Researchers in Sweden and France tracked the cognitive abilities of more than 3,000 people who were either working in a range of sectors or who had retired at three points: 1996, 2001 and 2006, according to a news release.
About half of the sample was drawn from a pool of patients of three occupational health doctors in southern France, who had worked at least 50 days of the year.
Participants were 32, 42, 52 and 62 years of age during the first set of tests, which assessed long- and short-term memory, processing speed and overall cognitive abilities.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Ofev (nintedanib) for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is a condition in which the lungs become progressively scarred over time. As a result, patients with IPF experience shortness of breath, cough, and have difficulty participating in everyday physical activities. Current treatments for IPF include oxygen therapy, pulmonary rehabilitation, and lung transplant.
“Today’s Ofev approval expands the available treatment options for patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a serious, chronic condition,” said Mary H. Parks, M.D., deputy director of the Office of Drug Evaluation II in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “Providing health care professionals and patients with additional treatment options helps enable appropriate care decisions based on a patient’s need.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Esbriet (pirfenidone) for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is a condition in which the lungs become progressively scarred over time. As a result, patients with IPF experience shortness of breath, cough, and have difficulty participating in everyday physical activities. Current treatments for IPF include oxygen therapy, pulmonary rehabilitation, and lung transplant.
“Esbriet provides a new treatment option for patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a serious, chronic lung disease,” said Curtis J. Rosebraugh, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Office of Drug Evaluation II in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “We continue to help advance medication therapies by approving products that treat conditions that impact public health.”
Sleep is one of the most important contributors to your child’s physical and mental health. Good sleep habits, sleep hygiene, or “sleep health” are alternative terms often used to describe sleep promoting practices. The explanation as to why healthy sleep practices promote sleep is likely to be, at least in part, that they work by improving the regulation of sleep
, either by reinforcing the body’s natural circadian rhythms (ie, timing of light and darkness), or by increasing the drive to sleep. Other sleep practices help us to associate certain activities (like a bedtime routine) and environments (ie, the bedroom) with sleep. Healthy sleep behaviors also promote sleep by reducing factors in the environment which are stimulating (like caffeine) and increasing relaxation, making it easier to fall and stay asleep.
Steroid withdrawal was associated with 1,097 exacerbations of any severity among 1,242 patients, which met statistical criteria for noninferiority versus continuation of ICS (1,078 exacerbations in 1,243 patients). The frequency of severe or moderate/severe exacerbations did not differ between groups or within any subgroups. The time to first COPD exacerbation also was similar between groups.
Withdrawal of ICS was associated with a larger drop in FEV1 during the final step of withdrawal, Helgo Magnussen, MD, of the Pulmonary Research Institute in Grosshansdorf, Germany, said here atCHEST 2014.
“In patients with GOLD [Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease] 3-4 COPD, receiving dual bronchodilators, the risk for moderate to severe exacerbations is statistically noninferior with ICS withdrawal compared with ICS therapy,” Magnussen said. “On the basis of these results we conclude that inhaled corticosteroids may be successfully withdrawn in patients receiving dual bronchodilator therapy with a long-acting muscarinic antagonist (LAMA) and a long-acting beta-agonist (LABA).”
In contrast, hospitalized patients with severe COPD had an increased risk of subsequent hospitalization for pneumonia if they did not receive prophylactic antibiotic therapy, according to results of a separate study reported at the meeting.
(NYTIMES) By JANE E. BRODY
Within a week of my grandsons’ first year in high school, getting enough sleep had already become an issue.
Their concerned mother questioned whether lights out at midnight or 1 a.m. and awakening at 7 or 7:30 a.m. to get to school on time provided enough sleep for 14-year-olds to navigate a demanding school day.
The boys, of course, said “yes,” especially since they could “catch up” by sleeping late on weekends. But the professional literature on the sleep needs of adolescents says otherwise.
Few Americans these days get the hours of sleep optimal for their age, but experts agree that teenagers are more likely to fall short than anyone else.
Researchers report that the average adolescent needs eight and a half to nine and a half hours of sleep each night. But in a poll taken in 2006 by the National Sleep Foundation, less than 20 percent reported getting that much rest on school nights. (more…)
(Reuters) – Treatment of a common form of advanced lung cancer with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co’s experimental immunotherapy nivolumab led to a one-year survival rate of 41 percent in a midstage clinical trial, according to data to be presented at a medical meeting, sending the drugmaker’s shares up 8.8 percent.
While the study, called CheckMate-063, did not compare nivolumab with another drug or placebo, the historical one-year survival rate for patients like those in the trial, whose squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) had progressed after treatment with two or more prior therapies, is between 5.5 percent and 18 percent, the company said on Thursday. Squamous cell cancer tends to be found in the middle of the lung.
“The data today look very, very good,” ISI Group analyst Mark Schoenebaum said, adding that it bodes well for an ongoing Phase III trial in NSCLC patients following just one prior therapy.
He had estimated a 1-year survival rate of about 20 percent as the number to beat.
Nivolumab belongs to a new class of drugs called PD-1 inhibitors that have generated great excitement in the medical community. They work by blocking a tumor’s ability to camouflage itself, allowing the body’s immune system to recognize and attack the cancer. (more…)
(Reuters) – Health officials were investigating the death of a middle school student in Nashville after preliminary tests suggested the pupil had a potent virus that has infected hundreds of children nationwide.
Specific testing to confirm or rule out the student had Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) was pending, according to an email sent to middle school parents on Friday by the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools and the Metro Public Health Department.
DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER WE WILL BE CLOSED THURSDAY THROUGH SUNDAY
01/18/24 – 01/21/24