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News, opinions and meeting coverage in primary care.

Randy Travis Gets an LVAD, Future Uncertain

Grammy award-winning country music star Randy Travis has received the Impella pump, a temporary percutaneous left ventricular assist device, to help him as he battles viral cardiomyopathy, according to his publicist.

Itching: No Big Deal in Most Cases But ...

Summer usually brings with it plenty of causes for itching, most of which are annoying but not indicative of serious health problems.

Sun Damage: Darker Not Better for Sunglasses

Seeking some new shades? There is whole lot more than style at stake, experts say.

FDA Adds GI Warning to Benicar Label

WASHINGTON -- The FDA ordered the maker of the blood pressure drug olmesartan (Benicar) to add a warning about risk of the intestinal condition known as sprue-like enteropathy to the drug's label.

Xarelto Gets a No for Stent Thrombosis

SILVER SPRING, Md. -- The FDA has rejected an application for a new indication allowing rivaroxaban (Xarelto) to be used to reduce the risk of stent thrombosis in patients with acute coronary syndrome.

Health Insurers Improve Claims Processing

CHICAGO -- The percentage of claims incorrectly processed by health plans fell for the third straight year to 7.1% in 2013, according to the American Medical Association.

A Little Estrogen Goes a Long Way in Preventing UTI

Short-term estrogen therapy induced cellular changes in urothelium consistent with improved ability to fight off urinary tract infection, results from clinical and preclinical studies suggested.

Society Seconds Call for Incretin Data

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Endocrine Society has joined its voice to the recent call for incretin drugmakers to release all patient-level data on their products, the group announced at its annual meeting.

AMA House Votes Against Council, Calls Obesity a Disease

CHICAGO -- Obesity should be called a disease and not simply a condition, the American Medical Association's policy-making House of Delegates voted on Tuesday, ignoring a recommendation by one of its own councils.

Obesity Not a Disease, AMA Council Says

CHICAGO -- Obesity is hard to define and diagnose, and partly because of that is not a disease, an American Medical Association council said in a report issued here Monday.

Public Citizen's Wolfe Still Needling FDA

Sidney Wolfe, MD, founder of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, sat down this week with 麻豆传媒 in his Washington office to discuss his 40 years of work as a leading voice in consumer health advocacy.

CDC: Cut Back on Doxycycline Use

A continuing shortage of doxycycline means the drug should be used only for conditions that have no alternative treatments, the CDC advised this week.

Medicare to Pay for More FDG-PET Scans

WASHINGTON -- Up to three scans using 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose-enhanced positron emission tomography technology can be covered by Medicare for oncology treatment planning, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said.

ASCO: Herpes-Derived Tx for Melanoma?

CHICAGO -- Intralesional injection of an oncolytic therapy significantly increased the durable response rate in advanced melanoma compared with a control therapy, according to results of a randomized trial.

Biological Death Needs Better Definition

An international consensus is needed on contemporary and practical criteria for brain and circulatory death, according to experts gathered in Barcelona for the annual congress of the European Society of Anesthesiology.

Diabetes Experts Divided About 'Lone Wolf' Butler

Top experts in diabetes and endocrinology have offered mixed reactions to a profile of Peter Butler, MD, chair of endocrinology at the University of California Los Angeles, in the New York Times.

ASCO: Targeted Rx Slows Ovarian Ca Progression

CHICAGO -- Adding the oral anti-angiogenesis drug pazopanib (Votrient) to chemotherapy extended disease-free survival by an average of 5.6 months, a phase III study showed.

FDA Limits Magnesium to Prevent Preterm Labor

The FDA today advised clinicians not to give pregnant women magnesium sulfate to prevent preterm labor for more than 5 to 7 days because it may harm developing fetal bones.

Shots Best Way to Give B12 After Bariatric Surgery

Vitamin B12 injections are the preferred treatment for patients who develop a deficiency following bariatric surgery, researchers found.

Zilver Stent Recalled, System May Break

Cook Medical's Zilver PTX drug-eluting stent for peripheral artery disease has been recalled because of a defect in its associated delivery system, the company and the FDA said.

Hypothyroidism Hikes Death Risk in Blacks

African Americans with hypothyroidism face an increased risk of death, and in patients with congestive heart failure, even mild underactive thyroid disease raises mortality risk, a retrospective cohort study found.

Low Potassium Linked with Liver Disease

Patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease also had low potassium levels, researchers in China found.

APA Leaders Defend New Diagnostic Guide

SAN FRANCISCO -- The fifth edition of the "psychiatrist's bible" was officially released here in all its 947-page glory, with its developers offering a spirited rebuttal to their critics.

Early pH Test in GERD May Save Money

ORLANDO -- Early referral of patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) for pH monitoring can help avoid extensive and costly use of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), a researcher said here.

High-Salt Diet May Boost Cortisol

Eating a diet high in sodium increased levels of cortisol and other metabolites, potentially giving rise to metabolic syndrome, researchers found.

Cystic Fibrosis: Charity and Industry Partner for Profit

When a disease-related charity becomes a venture capitalist, count the pharmaceutical industry among the winners, but the charity is not far behind as John Fauber explains in this Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/麻豆传媒 investigation.

Withdrawal Not a Problem with Phentermine

Patients taking phentermine long-term to treat obesity don't have to worry about withdrawal when they come off it, researchers found.

Hangover Risk Prompts Ambien Label Changes

New dosing recommendations for products containing zolpidem (Ambien, Ambien CR, Edluar) are now included in their labels, along with warnings of next-day hangover effects, the FDA said Tuesday.

FDA Allows Opana Generics

The original formulation of extended-release oxymorphone (Opana ER) that lacked abuse-resistant mechanisms was not pulled from the market for safety reasons, and therefore generics based on that recipe are permissible, the FDA said.

Is Protein the Key to Fountain of Youth?

The cardiac clocks of aging mice were turned back to a more youthful time when they received a protein taken from the blood of younger mice, researchers found.

Triptans Go-To Migraine Drugs Even in Pregnancy

The triptans, most experts agree, are the go-to drugs for frequent or serious migraines in pregnancy.

Protein Rich Diet May Boost IVF Success

Results from a small study suggest that women whose diets consist of at least 25% protein may have more successful outcomes when undergoing assisted reproduction.

CHIP Faces Uncertain Future

锘縒ASHINGTON -- The final implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) could be bad news for re-authorization of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), a congressional staffer said.

Gun Control: Docs Told to Speak Up

WASHINGTON -- Physicians need to do a better job at promoting the data that supports stronger gun-control laws, experts here said.

Finger Stick Has Promise as Prediabetes Test

PHOENIX -- Measuring capillary blood via finger stick assay was as accurate as venous blood sample assays in predicting 5-year likelihood of diabetes, researchers reported here.

Case Study Links 'Pot' to Pituitary Damage

PHOENIX -- Daily use of marijuana over 15 years was associated with a case of low testosterone, follicle-stimulating hormone, and luteinizing hormone, researchers reported here.

On-Call Pay Varies Widely by Specialty

Surgeons commanded more than $1,000 a day for being on-call at the hospital, while primary care physicians reported compensation rates of around $150 a day, according to annually compiled data.

FDA Lowers Age for OTC Plan B

WASHINGTON -- The FDA has approved over-the-counter sale of the emergency contraceptive Plan B One-Step to women and girls as young as 15.

Lyme Disease, Autism Link Debunked

A new study has found no evidence of an association between Lyme disease and autism.

Sjogren's Carries Heavy Disease Burden

BIRMINGHAM, England -- Patients with primary Sjogren's syndrome are prone to develop serious complications over the long term, despite the presumption that this is a relatively benign autoimmune disease, a 25-year review found.

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