The Washington Diplomat

Researchers Matching Treatments
With Patients for Lung Cancer
by Gina Shaw
Lung cancer kills more people worldwide than any other type of cancer. U.S. lung cancer deaths have been declining in men and are finally leveling off in women after increasing for a number of years (experts attribute this progress to effective anti-smoking campaigns). However, the disease remains the top cancer killer in both sexes, responsible for nearly one in three cancer deaths in men and about one in four deaths among women. It’s also the most common form of cancer worldwide, representing about 12 percent of all new cancer cases in 2002. Disturbingly, although it may be declining in the developed world, the opposite is true elsewhere: Developing countries’ share of new lung cancer cases jumped from 31 percent in 1980 to almost 49.9 percent in 2002. more...

See August 2005 Medical Directory

Stemming Rising Tide of Chronic Kidney Failure
by Gina Shaw
Chronic kidney failure is on the rise throughout the United States, but in the Washington area, it’s virtually an epidemic. Today there are about 130,000 successful kidney transplant patients in the United States and another nearly 350,000 people on dialysis, for a total of nearly half a million people living with what’s known as end-stage renal disease, meaning that there is a complete or near complete failure of the kidneys to function for day-to-day life. By 2010, experts estimate that number will double to close to 1 million people. more....

New Childbirth Consensus Emerges
Against Routine Use of Episiotomies
by Carolyn Cosmos
Medical experts in the United States and around the world now think that an automatic episiotomy—the practice of making a surgical incision at the entrance of the birth canal to help a baby emerge—is not in the best interests of most women giving birth, and they cite recently published studies—one came out in May of this year—to support this view. more....