Dental care before cancer surgery might be good idea

Exclusive: Sterilization firm Sotera Health explores sale for nearly $5 billion - sources

Exclusive: Sterilization firm Sotera Health explores sale for nearly $5 billion - sources

Sotera Health, a private-equity owned company that operates facilities that sterilize medical products and food, is exploring a potential sale worth as much as $5 billion including debt, people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday. The company's owners, Warburg Pincus and GTCR, are working with investment banks to assist them in the sales process, the people said, asking not to be named because the matter is private. Discussions are in the early stages and there is no guarantee a transaction will result, the sources added.

Dental care before cancer surgery might be good idea

Patients undergoing major cancer surgery might reduce their risk of complications by seeing a dentist beforehand, a study from Japan suggests. Patients who visited a dentist were slightly less likely to have post-surgery pneumonia or die within 30 days of surgery, the study authors found.

China agriculture ministry says can't rule out new ASF outbreaks

China's agriculture ministry said it cannot rule out the possibility of new African swine fever (ASF) outbreaks in the country, it said in a statement on its website on Wednesday. It is not clear how widely the disease has spread, and there is much uncertainty on how the situation will develop, the ministry said in the statement.

Congo Republic confirms yellow fever near Angolan enclave

Congo Republic has confirmed a case of yellow fever near the border with an Angolan enclave, the health ministry said on Tuesday, and has warned of "an emerging event of epidemic proportions". In all, 186 suspected cases have been detected this year, many of which were in the western commercial hub of Pointe Noire, the head of the government's epidemics unit Lambert Kitembo told Reuters.

Emergent BioSolutions to buy Narcan maker Adapt Pharma

Emergent BioSolutions Inc said on Tuesday it would buy privately held Adapt Pharma, beefing up its portfolio with Narcan, the only FDA approved needle-free emergency opioid overdose treatment. Addiction to opioids - mainly prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl - has emerged as a serious public health crisis in the United States, especially in rural areas.

Anxiety, depression tied to higher risk of heart attack, stroke

Adults with mood disorders like anxiety and depression may be more likely to have a heart attack or stroke than people without mental illness, a new study suggests. Researchers enrolled 221,677 people age 45 and older without any history of heart attack or stroke and tracked them for an average of nearly five years.

Heart benefits of fish oil, aspirin questioned in diabetics

A new large study of fish oil and aspirin in people with diabetes has found that the oil supplements don't prevent first-time heart attacks or strokes, yet aspirin does, although the benefit of aspirin therapy is canceled out by a higher risk of unwanted bleeding. Nearly 15,500 volunteers were tested to see if either treatment made a difference. None of them had heart disease at the start of the study but all had diabetes, which typically increases the risk of cardiovascular problems two- to three-fold.

UK rejects Gilead's CAR-T cancer cell therapy as too expensive

A cutting-edge CAR-T cell therapy for otherwise untreatable forms of blood cancer is too expensive to justify its use on Britain's state-funded health service, the country's healthcare cost agency NICE said on Tuesday. The decision by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is a blow to U.S. drugmaker Gilead Sciences, which wants to get its Yescarta product approved for use on the National Health Service (NHS).

Few heavy drinkers get drugs to help curb alcohol use

Less than one in 10 people with alcohol use disorders get prescribed medications that help people drink less and avoid binges, a U.S. study suggests. One in four American adults binges on alcohol at least once a month, and one in 15 binges five or more times a month, researchers report in JAMA. For males, binging means consuming at least five standard drinks on a single occasion; for females; it means consuming four standard drinks on one occasion.

India's health ministry calls for halting sales of e-cigarettes, smoking devices

India's federal health ministry called on Tuesday for stopping the sale or import of electronic cigarettes and heat-not-burn tobacco devices that companies like Philip Morris International Inc were planning to launch in the country. India has stringent laws to deter tobacco use, which the government says kills more than 900,000 people every year. But the country still has 106 million adult smokers, second only to China according to the World Health Organization.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)