Health Summary: Canadian doctors on breast cancer screening and more


Devdiscourse News Desk | Updated: 11-12-2018 18:40 IST | Created: 11-12-2018 18:30 IST
Health Summary: Canadian doctors on breast cancer screening and more

Olympus unit pleads guilty to resolve U.S. duodenoscope probe

An Olympus Corp subsidiary pleaded guilty on Monday and agreed to pay $85 million to resolve charges that it failed to file reports with U.S. regulators regarding infections connected to its duodenoscopes while continuing to sell the medical devices used to view the gastrointestinal tract. Olympus Medical Systems Corp and Hisao Yabe, a former senior executive at the company in Japan, pleaded guilty in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, to distributing misbranded medical devices, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Canadian doctors urge women to weigh the pros and cons of breast cancer screening

When it's unclear whether the potential benefit of breast cancer screening outweighs the possible harms, doctors should encourage women to make an informed decision based on their personal preferences, Canadian doctors recommend. The new guidelines released today by the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care are similar to recommendations released in 2011, researchers note in CMAJ. But the updated recommendations may encourage more women, particularly those under 50, to opt against screening mammograms, said vice-chair of the task force Dr. Ainsley Moore.

U.S. top court, Kavanaugh spurn Planned Parenthood defunding case

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected appeals by Louisiana and Kansas seeking to end their public funding to women's healthcare and abortion provider Planned Parenthood through the Medicaid program, with President Donald Trump's appointee Brett Kavanaugh among the justices who rebuffed the states. The justices left intact lower court rulings that prevented Louisiana and Kansas from stripping government healthcare funding from local Planned Parenthood affiliates. The case was one of a number of disputes working their way up to the Supreme Court over the legality of state-imposed restrictions involving abortion.

Gilead Sciences snares Roche veteran O'Day as CEO

Drugmaker Gilead Sciences Inc on Monday named Roche Holding AG's Daniel O'Day as its new chief executive, tapping an industry veteran to fill a management vacuum. O'Day, now head of Roche's pharmaceuticals business, joined the company in 1987 and held various roles in the United States before moving in 1998 to headquarters in Basel, Switzerland.

South Sudan health workers to get Ebola shots as Congo outbreak grows

Some 2,000 healthcare and frontline workers in South Sudan are to be offered Ebola vaccines to try to stop any importation of the viral disease from an epidemic in Congo, the World Health Organization said on Monday. South Sudan is one of the three countries - with Uganda and Rwanda - that the WHO said are "at very high risk" of having Ebola imported from an outbreak in eastern Congo.

Exclusive: Dutch hospitals to drop U.S. body brokers, citing ethical concerns

Two major Dutch hospitals say they will stop importing human body parts from American firms, which they have been doing without any regulation for a decade. The hospitals told Reuters in recent weeks they made their decisions on ethical grounds. The move comes amid investigations by U.S. law enforcement into some so-called body brokers - companies that obtain the dead, often through donation, dissect them and sell the parts for profit.

Delivering a baby increases - then lowers - the risk of breast cancer: study

Having a baby temporarily increases the risk of breast cancer by about 80 per cent compared to the risk in women who have never given birth, researchers behind a new study have concluded. But the 80 per cent-higher breast cancer risk is not as scary as it first sounds because "fortunately, breast cancer is uncommon in young women," chief author Dr. Hazel Nichols told Reuters Health in a telephone interview.

U.S. veterans' hospitals often better than nearby alternatives

U.S. Veterans Administration (VA) hospitals may provide better quality care than other hospitals in many American communities, a U.S. study suggests. Researchers looked at 121 regional health care markets with at least one VA hospital and one non-VA facility. Altogether they assessed 135 VA hospitals and 2,988 non-VA hospitals using Hospital Compare, a public database that ranks hospitals on quality measures like mortality rates for common diseases and preventable complications.

Benefits of statins far outweigh risks

The benefits of statins in reducing the odds of heart attacks and strokes far outweigh any risks of side effects, according to a scientific statement released by the American Heart Association. The statement, based on a review of a plethora of studies evaluating the safety and side effects of the widely used cholesterol-lowering drugs, is scheduled for publication in the journal Atherosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.

Many diabetics needlessly test blood sugar at home

One in seven people with type 2 diabetes may be needlessly testing their blood sugar at home several times a day, a U.S. study suggests. People with type 2 diabetes don't need to test their blood at home if they have well-controlled symptoms and don't take medications that can cause dangerously low blood sugar, doctors say. For these patients, studies have not found that home blood sugar monitoring makes any difference in blood sugar levels. But still, many of them are pricking their fingers unnecessarily.

(With inputs from agencies.)

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