Oregon Health & Science University Cancer Institute researchers have developed a Web-based software program that can help head and neck cancer patients better predict their survivability.”This new tool can help us make personalized predictions of conditional survival for an individual patient depending on his or her specific situation,” said Sam Wang, M.D., Ph.D., principal investigator, Holman Pathway Resident in the Department of Radiation Medicine, OHSU School of Medicine. [click link for full article]

President Bush on Wednesday said that proposals by Democratic and some moderate Republican lawmakers to expand SCHIP would result in more “incremental steps down the path to government-run health care for every American,” a move that Bush said is “wrong … for our nation,” the [click link for full article]

“SIECUS State Profile: A Portrait of Sexuality Education and Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs in the States,” [click link for full article]

Leaders of 10 African countries, including Kenyan Vice President Moody Awori, on Tuesday during a conference in Nairobi, Kenya, called for the legalization of safe abortion procedures to curb maternal mortality, Kenya’s Daily Nation reports. [click link for full article]

On school days, teen boys who play video games appear to spend less time reading and teen girls who play video games appear to spend less time doing homework than those who do not play video games, according to a report in the July issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Overall, video game players did not spend less time than non-video game players interacting with parents and friends. [click link for full article]

Regulatory warnings regarding the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors appear to be associated with reductions in the number of antidepressant medication prescriptions among children and adolescents covered by Tennessee’s expanded Medicaid program, according to a report in the July issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. [click link for full article]

In the world depicted in an alcohol billboard, bikini-clad babes clutch icy bottles, frothy beer flows over frosty mugs and the slogan reads, ‘Life is good.’ Ads like these may target adults, but children are getting the message too, a University of Florida and University of Minnesota study shows. [click link for full article]

State lawmakers have sought to offset the effects of a rule proposed by CMS that would reduce Medicaid reimbursements to pharmacies for generic prescription drugs, but “it isn’t clear whether the federal government will go along, since the cost of any fix would be shared” by all states, the Wall Street Journal reports (Merrick, Wall Street Journal, 6/28). [click link for full article]

UroToday.com- Annexin AI is a calcium and phospholipids binding protein that is part of a larger family of proteins that regulate a vast array of intracellular processes. Previous studies have demonstrated over expression of this molecule in cancers such as gastric and hepato-cellular malignancy. Conversely, expression has been shown to be decreased in prostate cancer and decreased expression is associated with an adverse outcome in head and neck and esophageal cancers. [click link for full article]

UroToday.com- Patients undergoing percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL), regardless of the presence of residual stone fragments, should be treated with patient specific metabolic therapy. This was clearly demonstrated in this important retrospective study from Glenn Preminger’s group at Duke University. [click link for full article]