News by Subject Medicine & Health

Teens who admit to texting while driving may be convinced to reduce risky cellphone use behind the wheel when presented with financial incentives such as auto-insurance apps that monitor driving behavior, according to a new survey. However, while more than 90 percent of teens surveyed said they were willing to give up sending or reading text messages, almost half indicated that they would want to retain some control over phone functions such as music and navigation.

Maintaining a stocked cart, with a full supply of the life-saving drug dantrolene, to treat malignant hyperthermia, a rare but potentially fatal adverse reaction to general anesthesia, may not be cost-beneficial in hospital maternity units where the incidence of the reaction is low, according to a new paper published in the Online First edition of Anesthesiology, the peer-reviewed medical journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA).

Can medical marijuana help to fight the opioid epidemic? Many believe that it can. But a new study finds that people who use medical marijuana actually have higher rates of medical and non-medical prescription drug use--including pain relievers. The study appears in the Journal of Addiction Medicine, the official journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), published by Wolters Kluwer.

A Duke-led study publishing April 17 in the Journal of the American Medical Association followed women for five years after two common prolapse surgeries and found failure rates for both procedures were equally high, at over 60 percent.

Giving opioids to animals to quell pain after surgery prolongs pain for three weeks and primes specialized immune cells in the spinal cord to be more reactive to pain, according to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder. The authors say the paradoxical findings could add a new wrinkle to the conversation about the national opioid epidemic.

A new BJS (British Journal of Surgery) study indicates that axillary ultrasound imaging is inferior for detecting axillary node metastasis in patients with breast cancer.

A new Johns Hopkins Medicine analysis of national trauma data shows that trauma patients were four times more likely to die from gunshot wounds and nearly nine times more likely to die from stab wounds before getting to a trauma center in 2014, compared with rates in 2007.

Searching the entire genome, a Yale research team has identified a gene that when eliminated can spur regeneration of axons in nerve cells severed by spinal cord injury.

A new way to rapidly assess levels of consciousness in people with head injuries could improve patient care.