On January 14, 2011, the FDA issued a severe liver injury warning on Dronedarone/Multaq.  FDA notified healthcare professionals and patients about cases of rare, but severe liver injury.  Two patients have required liver transplants. Information about the potential risk of liver injury from dronedarone is being added to the WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS and ADVERSE REACTIONS sections of the dronedarone labels.

If you have taken or are currently taking the heart medicine Multaq to control atrial fibrillation or flutter, contact the law firm of Berger & Lagnese for a free consultation.

With low doses of Gefitinib, which has no known side effects at this level, scientists were able to not only stop pancreatic cancer tumors from growing, but after 41 weeks of treatment, the cancer was gone.

"This is one of the most important studies in pancreatic cancer prevention.  Pancreatic cancer is a poorly understood cancer and the focus has been on treatment in the end stages. But, we found if you start early, there will be a much greater benefit. Our goal is to block the spread of the cancer. That is our best chance at beating this disease."

Currently, most pancreatic cancer is not identified until the later stages. However, research is moving closer to the development of an early detection test for pancreatic cancer. When that is in place, Oklahoma cancer center researchers believe they now have a method to target the cancer before it spreads.

According to the study, 126 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer, and of those, 90 percent of deaths occurred in men in the top 25 percent of PSA levels at age 60. The researchers concluded that men with a PSA level above 2 ng/ml at age 60 should be considered at increased risk of aggressive prostate cancer and should continue to be screened regularly.

Men with a PSA level below 1 ng / ml had a 0.2 percent chance of death from prostate cancer. The researchers concluded that men with PSA levels in this range, which is about half of all men, should be considered at low risk of prostate cancer death and may not need to be screened in the future. The study also indicated that some men found to be at low risk may actually have prostate cancer; however it is not likely to cause symptoms or shorten their life by the age of 85.

"This is a key finding," said Dr. Vickers. "We know that screening detects many prostate cancers that are not harmful, leading to anxiety and unnecessary treatment. It is our ability to determine the risk of the really aggressive cancers that makes this approach of such great potential value." 

Abbott, a $30 billion-a-year, Chicago-based pharmaceutical firm, ranked Midei among its top-volume doctors in the Northeast and made plying him with research money and "VIP trips" part of its business plan in late 2008 — about the time Midei's usage of Abbott-brand stents soared, the report said.  The 170-page document contains the findings of a months-long investigation by the U.S. Senate.

Have you had a cardiac stent placement recently and suspect it was unnecessary?  Have you suffered injuries from a cardiac procedure? Contact the firm for a free evaluation and investigation. 

How could this be?  When the baby is in the womb it is exposed to hormones, such as testosterone. Experts say that the more testosterone the baby is exposed to the shorter his index finger will be. Therefore, being exposed to less testosterone while still in the womb may offer protection from subsequently developing prostate cancer, the scientists wrote.  "The phenomenon is thought to occur because the genes HOXA and HOXD control both finger length and development of sex organs."

Prior studies have demonstrated an association between hormone exposure in the womb and certain disease risks decades later in life, such as breast cancer and estrogen exposure, and osteoarthritis and having a shorter index than ring finger. 

Although Isotretinoin has been anecdotally linked to suicide, observational studies have had inconsistent results. In other studies, severe acne itself increased risks for distress and suicide.
Having severe acne may be a risk factor for suicide, given that attempt rates increased before isotretinoin was initiated. The further increase in rates after isotretinoin initiation indicates that the medication could heighten the risk. The results argue for close monitoring of all isotretinoin-treated patients for suicidal behavior for up to a year after treatment stops.

The initial WHI findings suggested that risk for invasive breast cancer was limited to women who had used hormone therapy (HT) longer than 5 years. Now, an 11 year follow-up reports on breast cancer mortality in WHI participants.  The follow-up shows that breast cancers in women who received combination HT were more likely to be node positive, and that death rate was marginally raised with use of HT.

The study shows that hospital patients are harmed much more frequently than previously estimated, according to Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports.

"When mistakes are made in hospitals, the consequences can be serious and too often deadly," said Lisa McGiffert, Director of Consumers Union's Safe Patient project. "This report shows that hospital patients are being harmed by medical errors at an alarming rate. Unfortunately, most Americans have no way of knowing whether their hospital is doing a good job preventing medical errors."

In most states, hospital-specific information is kept secret and hospitals can get away with under-reporting errors because there is no effort made to systematically validate the data that hospitals are required to report. "The public should have the right to know when hospitals harm patients," said McGiffert. 

A new research study has found that certain signs and symptoms that accompany acute headache are predictive of a brain hemorrhage. 

Patients who present with nontraumatic headaches that peak within 1 hour and who have any of the following signs and symptoms must be assessed for dangerous brain hemorrhage:

    * 1: Patient is over age 40, complaint of neck pain or stiffness, witnessed loss of consciousness, onset of headache with exertion.  or

    * 2: Patient arrives at hospital by ambulance, age over 45, vomiting at least once, diastolic blood pressure greater than 100 mm Hg. or

    * 3: Patient arrives at hospital by ambulance, systolic blood pressure over 160 mm Hg, complaint of neck pain or stiffness, age 45–55

If you have any concerns that you or a loved one has been misdiagnosed or that medical personnel failed to diagnose a brain hemmorhage, contact Berger & Lagnese for a free, no obligation consultation.

The radiation overdose problem appears to be widespread and serious.  The FDA found that over an 18 month period at one single facility, more than 200 patients were given more than 8 times the proper radiation dose during CT of the brain. 
 
While this event involved a single kind of diagnostic test at one facility, the magnitude of these overdoses and their impact on the affected patients were significant. This situation may reflect more widespread problems with CT quality assurance programs. If patient doses are higher than the expected level, but not high enough to produce obvious signs of radiation injury, the problem may go undetected and unreported, putting patients at increased risk for long-term radiation effects.

Berger & Lagnese can assist you in investigating your situation if you have undergone a CT scan and may have been over-exposed to radiation.

These findings challenge the assumption that patients undergoing invasive dental procedures are at low risk for heart attack or stroke. Most of the cardiac problems occurred in women, and 30% occurred in patients younger than 50. The short-term risk of dental procedures must be weighed against the long-term cardiovascular benefits of alleviating periodontal disease. No direct evidence from this study suggests that inflammation is a causative mechanism in vascular events that occur after dental procedures. However, clinicians would be prudent to heed guideline recommendations to continue aspirin therapy during and immediately after minor surgical procedures.

Dr. Claudia Henschke, a longtime advocate for use of CT scans to screen for lung cancer, said the study probably underestimated the benefits of CT scans, because participants in the study were screened only three times over two years. Had the screening continuing annually for 10 years, as many as 80 percent of lung cancer deaths could have been averted, she said.