Patients treated at top-rated hospitals nationwide have nearly a one-third better chance of surviving, on average, than those admitted to all other hospitals, according to a study released today by HealthGrades, the leading independent healthcare ratings company.

Inhaled anesthetics commonly used in surgery are more likely to cause the aggregation of Alzheimer's disease-related plaques in the brain than intravenous anesthetics say University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers in a journal article published in the Jan. 23 issue of Biochemistry.

Multidetector CT (MDCT) without the use of contrast media can show the precise site of a bowel perforation, avoiding the need for surgeons to do exploratory surgery of the patient's gastrointestinal tract to locate the problem, a new study shows.

A study of Johns Hopkins surgeons, anesthesiologists and nurses suggests that hospital policies requiring a brief preoperation "team meeting" to make sure surgery is performed on the right patient and the right part of the body could decrease errors.

Radiotherapy after breast conserving surgery for breast cancer reduces recurrence and prevents development of additional breast tumors in older women with early stage breast disease, according to a new study.

In the largest single-institution retrospective study to date, researchers at Mayo Clinic Cancer Center have shown that giving patients both radiation and chemotherapy after completely removing invasive pancreatic cancer may improve overall survival rates. The study's lead author, a radiation oncology resident in Rochester, Michele Corsini, M.D., presented the findings Saturday, Jan. 20, at the 2007 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

Giving patients with head and neck cancer a combination of chemotherapy and radiation therapy controls the cancer and allows many patients to avoid additional surgery to the neck, according to a study presented at the plenary session today at the Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium in Rancho Mirage, Calif., co-sponsored by the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology, the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Head and Neck Society.

High rate of overweight and obesity found in children having surgery

In a small series of patients who underwent closed reduction, the standard procedure to repair a broken nose, nearly one-third reported dissatisfaction with the outcome and about one-third said they would consider further surgery to correct their nasal deformities, according to a report in the January/February issue of Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

A new study shows that pancreatic cancer patients 65 or older who live at least five years after surgery have nearly as good a chance as anyone else to live another five years.

New USC research also bolsters belief that epigenetic events precede genetic events in cancer development

An inexpensive tracing agent used in combination with ultrasound can pinpoint how effectively drugs targeting pancreatic cancer work, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have demonstrated for the first time.