Categories
Cardiovascular
Diagnostics
Endocrinology
Health Insurance
Medical Devices
Mental Health
Nutrition
Oncology
Public Health
Sexual Health
Popular Articles
Cellulite Cream

Access To Abortion Services In Kansas Hindered After Closure Of Tiller's Clinic
After the murder of abortion provider George Tiller and the closure of his Wichita, Kan., clinic, residents of the city face about a three-hour drive to the nearest abortion provider, a distance experts say is not uncommon for access to abortion services in southern and midwestern states, the Wichita Eagle reports. Jenny O"Donnell of the Abortion Access Project said that southern and midwestern states have the heaviest restrictions on abortion, adding that "substantial populations don"t have an abortion provider" in states such as Mississippi and Arkansas. According to 2005 statistics from the Guttmacher Institute, 87% of U.S. counties have no abortion provider; the figure rises to 94% of counties in the Midwest and 96% of counties in Kansas. The number of abortion providers in Kansas declined from 15 in 1992 to seven in 2005, while the number of providers nationwide dropped from 2,380 to 1,787 over the same time period, according to Guttmacher. Experts say the decline is the result of several factors, including public pressures, increased regulation that has driven up the cost and complexity of providing abortion and a general trend in the health care industry toward consolidated, more specialized practices.Vicki Saporta, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation, said that the decrease in the number of abortion providers is misleading on some levels. The decline primarily has occurred among hospitals and small providers who perform a few procedures a year, while major clinics that specialize in abortion have remained essentially stable, Saporta said. Peter Brownie, executive director of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, said that the group"s clinics have experienced an increase in contacts from women from south-central Kansas since Tiller"s clinic closed a little more than one week ago. He added, "At the present time, there"s no place between Denver and Kansas City where a woman can obtain abortion care. That"s a significant barrier for women throughout the state that have that need." NAF has established a national hotline to offer referrals for women who have to make new arrangements for abortion care because of the closure of Tiller"s clinic, Saporta said (Lefler, Wichita Eagle, 6/9).
generic viagra online
Nineteen House Dems Plan To Vote Against Health Reform If Abortion Funding Is Included
Nineteen House Democrats recently sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stating that they will not vote for health care reform legislation "unless it explicitly excludes abortion funding from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan," CongressDaily reports. In the letter, the lawmakers wrote that they want to ensure that the Health Benefits Advisory Committee cannot recommend that abortion services be included as part of benefits packages. They wrote, "Without an explicit exclusion, abortion could be included in a government-subsidized health care plan under general health care." The letter was signed by Reps. Dan Boren (Okla.), Bobby Bright (Ala.), Travis Childers (Miss.), Jerry Costello (Ill.), Lincoln Davis (Tenn.), Kathleen Dahlkemper (Pa.), Steve Driehaus (Ohio), Tim Holden (Pa.), Paul Kanjorski (Pa.), Marcy Kaptur (Ohio), Mike McIntyre (N.C.), Charlie Melancon (La.), John Murtha (Pa.), James Oberstar (Minn.), Solomon Ortiz (Texas), Collin Peterson (Minn.), Heath Shuler (N.C.), Bart Stupak (Mich.) and Gene Taylor (Miss.) (CongressDaily, 6/30).
News of the day
More Hysterectomies Could Be Performed With Minimally Invasive Techniques
Eighty percent of women who have a hysterectomy have a traditional one, in which a surgeon must make an extensive incision that runs from the navel to the top of the pubic bone. If only these women"s gynecologists had been trained in minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery techniques, many of them could have had hysterectomies involving just a few small, keyhole incisions. Also, their recovery time would have also been reduced drastically, permitting them to resume their normal lives much faster.
Mental Health

Successful Neurosurgery With Transcranial MR-guided High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound

The Magnetic Resonance Center of the University Children"s Hospital Zurich has achieved a world first break through in MR-guided, non-invasive neurosurgery. Ten patients have been successfully treated by means of transcranial high-intensity focused ultrasound. This fully non-invasive procedure opens new horizons for neurosurgery and the treatment of different neurological brain disorders. In the context of a clinical study at the MR Center of the University Children"s Hospital Zurich transcranial MR-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) for brain surgery has been successfully applied for the first time world-wide. A research team under the direction of Professor Daniel Jeanmonod, neurosurgeon at the Department of Functional Neurosurgery of the Neurosurgical Clinic at the University Hospital Zurich and Professor Ernst Martin, director of the Magnetic Resonance Center at the University Children"s Hospital Zurich succeeded in proving the safety and efficacy of this revolutionary surgical method which permits fully non-invasive brain interventions even on an out-patient basis. For quite some years, HIFU has been used for the treatment of uterine fibroids and tumors of the prostate gland. However, its application to the brain through the intact skull for non-invasive neurosurgery was not possible until recently, because of insurmountable technical difficulties. Non-invasive neurosurgery In a Swiss National research project, the team of the University of Zurich successfully implemented and optimized a prototype system for transcranial Magnetic Resonance-guided High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) for neurosurgical interventions. The HIFU system ExAblate® 4000, developed by the cooperation partner InSightec, Tirat Carmel Israel, has been combined with a 3 Tesla high field GE MR-scanner. The two systems together provide a platform for image-guided, non-invasive interventions. Since September 2008 ten patients were treated at the Children"s Hospital Zurich with this new neurosurgical procedure in the context of a clinical study. All interventions were completed successfully and without complications. This novel technology now opens up new horizons allowing to develop non-invasive intervention procedures for a variety of brain diseases including brain tumors. The whole surgical procedure is planned and monitored in real time by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The HIFU beams produced by 1024 transducers are transferred through the intact skull of the patient into the brain and concentrated onto a focus of 3 to 4 millimeters in diameter. Thus, sharply defined targets deep inside the brain are coagulated by heating them up to a focal temperature of 60 degrees Celsius. The temperature increase during the sequential ň€žsonications", each lasting 10 to 20 seconds, is continuously displayed and controlled on precise MR-temperature distribution maps. The whole surgical procedure lasts several hours and is performed without anaesthesia. Patients are awake and fully conscious during the intervention. A project of the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Co-Me In the context of the Swiss National Research Program NCCR Co-Me (computer aided and image guided medical interventions), the potential of non-invasive, transcranial MR-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound (tcMRgHIFU) is investigated in clinical studies at the University Children"s Hospital Zurich. Scientists working in the Co-Me program pursue the goal of establishing and developing surgical interventions by means of tcMRgHIFU, in order to broaden the spectrum of completely non-invasive interventions for functional neurosurgery and for the treatment of brain tumors, stroke and various neurological brain disorders by targeted drug delivery. The research project represents a co-operation between the University of Zurich and the ETH Zurich, through (A) the Magnetic Resonance Center of the University Children"s Hospital (Professor Ernst Martin), (B) the Department of Functional Neurosurgery of the Neurosurgical Clinic at the University Hospital Zurich (Professor Daniel Jeanmonod), (C) the Medical Image Analysis and Computer Vision Laboratory of the ETH Zurich (Professor Gabor SzÓ©kely) and (D) the Institute of Neuroinformatics, ETH Zurich (PD Dr. Daniel Kiper), as well as the industrial partner InSightec Ltd. Zurich University


Add your comment:
Name:
Site address: http://
Your message:
Enter today\\\\'s date, 2 digits
(spam protection):

© Copyright 2009