OBGYN.net Staff

Women who consume one or more cups of coffee daily have a lower risk of stroke than those who consume less than one cup of coffee a day, according to a study published online March 10 in Stroke.

The number of cancer survivors in the United States had increased to nearly 12 million by 2007, according to a report in the March 11 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Benlysta (belimumab) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat lupus, the first medication sanctioned for the condition in the United States since 1955.

Higher serum polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) concentration levels that are within the normal range for women in the general U.S. population are associated with failed implantation in women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF), according to a study published online Feb. 24 in Environmental Health Perspectives.

Free text contains extra information relating to the diagnosis of ovarian cancer, and in some cases indicates a time lag between the diagnosis and coding in the medical record, according to a study published online Feb. 23 in BMJ Open.

Patients treated at hospitals rated with a HealthGrades Patient Safety Excellence Award have, on average, a 46 percent lower risk of experiencing a patient safety incident compared to those treated at the lowest-ranked hospitals, according to the eighth annual HealthGrades Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study published online March 9.

Body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, and waist-to-hip ratio all have a similar strength of association with cardiovascular disease, but do not significantly improve risk prediction when information on blood pressure, diabetes, and lipid levels is available, according to a study published online March 11 in The Lancet.

United Kingdom-trained physicians and medical students with ethnic minority backgrounds tend to underperform academically compared to their white peers, according to a meta-analysis published online March 8 in BMJ.

Black and Hispanic women newly diagnosed with breast cancer are more likely than white women to experience treatment delays of over a month, according to a study published in the February issue of the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved.

Meta-analyses of pharmacological treatments rarely include information addressing primary study funding and conflicts of interest (COIs) of the authors for the included randomized control trials (RCTs), according to a study published in the March 9 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

A geographically congruent "diabetes belt" with high prevalence of diabetes exists in the United States, according to a study published online March 8 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Low-level lead exposure, measured by umbilical blood lead levels, suggests a significant association with elevations in maternal blood pressure during labor and delivery, according to a study published online Feb. 3 in Environmental Health Perspectives.

The incidence and severity of cerebral palsy (CP) among preterm survivors decreased significantly from 1990 to 1993 onward, possibly because of a reduction in severe cystic periventricular leukomalacia (c-PVL), according to a study published online March 3 in The Journal of Pediatrics.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal describes some of the ways health care professionals are collaborating to improve obstetrics care, thanks in part to grants from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Patients with advanced malignancies appear to be quite willing to undergo pharmacodynamic (PD) and pharmacokinetic (PK) tests in order to be enrolled in clinical trials, according to research published online Jan. 18 in Cancer.

Most adults in the United States have experienced vaginal sex, but the number of younger adults reporting no sexual contact has increased since 2002, according to the March issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Health Statistics Report.

Among women with heavily pretreated metastatic breast cancer, eribulin mesilate may significantly improve survival compared to currently available treatments, according to a study published online March 3 in The Lancet.

Maternal use of opioid analgesics just prior to or during early pregnancy is associated with a modestly higher risk of certain birth defects, according to a study published online Feb. 24 in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

More North Americans are obese today than were 20 years ago, and the prevalence of obesity in Canada is about 10 percentage points lower than it is in the United States, according to a data report issued March 2 by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics.

Postmenopausal women who used to smoke or who currently smoke appear to be at a higher risk of invasive breast cancer than postmenopausal women who never smoked, according to a study published online March 1 in BMJ.

High body mass index (BMI) and low levels of physical activity are associated with increased risk of triple-negative and estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancers in postmenopausal women, according to a study published online March 1 in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

That’s what one team of researchers sought to determine as they explored its use in the case of laparoscopic hysterectomy.

Adherence to a Mediterranean diet is associated with a reduced risk of metabolic syndrome (MetS) and has beneficial effects on its individual components, according to a meta-analysis published in the March 15 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has notified health care providers and consumers that new data indicate that women who take topiramate (Topamax) during pregnancy increase the risk for cleft lip and cleft palate in their offspring.

Women are willing to wait longer with their symptoms to delay a more invasive procedure for uterine fibroids compared to how long they would delay a noninvasive one, according to a study published online March 1 in Radiology.

The association between female gender and increased mortality among patients undergoing primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) does not persist after adjusting for age and comorbidities, according to a study published in the January issue of the American Heart Journal.

Breast cancer incidence rates among non-Hispanic (NH) white women in the United States stabilized between 2003 and 2007 after a sharp decline between 2002 and 2003 that followed a drop in the use of postmenopausal hormone therapy, according to a study published online Feb. 28 in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

There is a lack of sex-specific data relating to the safety and effectiveness of high-risk cardiovascular devices prior to U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval, according to a review published online March 1 in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

Women who smoke cigarettes during the first trimester of pregnancy may increase their offspring's risk for congenital heart defects (CHDs), according to research published online Feb. 28 in Pediatrics.