Article Abstract:
The 2001 change in Medicare coverage to offer the colonoscopy for healthy people and other public messages on preventing colon cancer have made the colonoscopy a waiting-list medical test. Due to its effectiveness in catching early signs of colon cancer and helping patients survive, both healthy and unhealthy patients are seeking the test and are willing to wait until a doctor can provide a screening. Demand for colonoscopies by Medicare patients increased 42% from 2000 through 2002. The latest version of the test, the virtual colonoscopy, uses a C.T. scanner but is not covered by health insurers.
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Article Abstract:
A large international study has found that letrozole, sold as Femara by Novartis, can significantly reduce the chance of recurrence of breast cancer in postmenopausal women who have taken tamoxifen for five years, after which tamoxifen offers no additional benefits. Results with letrozole were so positive that investigators ended the study early in order to offer letrozole to women in the study who had been taking a placebo. Letrozole was found to reduce the yearly 2 to 4 percent chance of recurrence of cancer by nearly half.
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Article Abstract:
Although Merck and Company Inc. claimed that Vioxx, a pain medication, reduced the risk for gastrointestinal bleeding, their own research suggested that might not be the case, if patients also took low dose aspirin. Improved gastrointestinal safety was one of the reasons that Vioxx, Bextra, and Clebrex, all Cox-2 inhibitors, were being prescribed.
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