When Dr. Jeffrey Saver announced last week at the International Stroke Conference that treatment of acute, ischemic stroke patients with the Solitaire retrievable stent produced a 61% rate of complete recanalization, he predicted that this landmark result would quickly propel acute stroke management into a new era.

It sounds a bit audacious for the results... »

It’s been a quick reversal for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, reinstating funding some 72 hours after cutting off Planned Parenthood because of new criteria barring grants to organizations under investigation, prompted in this case, by a Republican congressman.

“We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations ... »

Human genome sequencing. Facebook. Informed consent. “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” Rare diseases. “Hotel California.” Cost-effective medicine.

It was all in a day’s work for the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues in its eighth meeting, this time at the University of California, San Francisco. The focus: What policies or... »

Not sure how to counsel your patients with obstructive sleep apnea about surgery? You might want to share the results of this study.

After multiple patients had surgery and reported anecdotal changes in dream content, recall, and sexual activity, Dr. J. Drew Prosser and his colleagues at Georgia Health Science University in Augusta decided to find out... »

The U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity weighed in publicly for the first time yesterday about research on mammalian-adapted H5N1 influenza, and the Board’s verdict was that the research is important and needs to go forward, but must be done very carefully, with oversight, and without releasing potentially dangerous details to the... »

Just a few years ago, tobacco and alcohol use were presumed to be the main causes of head and neck cancers. Evidence of oropharyngeal cancer associated with human papillomavirus (HPV) first appeared about 10 years ago, but it wasn’t until 2010, with the publication of 2 papers showing far greater survival among HPV-positive patients with head and neck... »

Government officials have stood before doctors many times and talked about the need to change the perverse incentives that pay them more for caring for sick patients than for keeping people healthy to start. Dr. Richard Gilfillan, who runs the new Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, had a similar pitch when he talked to more than 1,000 people... »