New adjuvant treatments for breast cancer are cost-effective at improving survival, according to two new studies. Published in the August 1, 2007 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the two studies looked at the cost-effectiveness of different drugs for the management of adjuvant therapies for early breast cancer. [click link for full article]

Researchers have shown that bone marrow stem cells injected into a damaged inner ear can speed hearing recovery after partial hearing loss. The related report by Kamiya et al, “Mesenchymal stem cell transplantation accelerates hearing recovery through the repair of injured cochlear fibrocytes,” appears in the July issue of The American Journal of Pathology.Hearing loss has many causes, including genetics, aging, and infection, and may be complete or partial. [click link for full article]

Women treated for cardiovascular disease at the nation’s best- performing hospitals have a 39 percent lower risk-adjusted mortality rate when compared with women at the nation’s poorest-performing hospitals, according to the fourth annual HealthGrades Women’s Health Outcomes in U.S. Hospitals study. [click link for full article]

The recent rejection of a commercial for Trojan condoms by Fox and CBS is “irresponsible programming” and the “height of hypocrisy” from networks that have been “taking sex to the bank,” Vanessa Cullins, vice president of medical affairs for [click link for full article]

Summertime means outdoor activities, picnics, playing in the park and swimming. It also means more yardwork, especially mowing the lawn. Along with these activities comes exposure to allergens, such as…

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences studying links between an early sign of heart disease called coronary artery calcification and body fat have found that, paradoxically, more fat may have some advantages, at least for people - particularly women - who have type 1 diabetes. [click link for full article]

Treatment with the oral antiviral Tamiflu (oseltamivir) and prophylaxis for people exposed to infected patients could be one of the most cost-effective strategies for reducing illness and death during an influenza pandemic. According to modelling research presented by Beate Sander, University of Toronto, Canada, a stockpile of Tamiflu sufficient to cover 65% of a country’s population could cut deaths by approximately half. [click link for full article]

A Portuguese law that legalizes abortions during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy was published in official government records on Thursday and will come into effect July 15, the AP/Chicago Tribune reports (Hatton, AP/Chicago Tribune, 6/21). [click link for full article]

The rising incidence of chronic conditions among American children is going to be a serious challenge for the future provision of health and social welfare resources said researchers in a commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).The current issue of JAMA is devoted to the topic of pediatric chronic disease. [click link for full article]

The University of Zurich has announced an investigator initiated large-scale prospective randomized controlled clinical trial to assess the clinical impact of Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT) in heart failure patients. [click link for full article]