| Esophagectomy safe for obese patients
SAN DIEGO, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- A special type of surgery to remove the esophagus in patients with esophageal cancer is safe for people who are obese, say U.S. scientists. Since the obesity epidemic of the last 20 years has increased the incidence of reflux disease, which has produced a 350-percent increase in the incidence of esophageal adenocarcinoma, the researchers think this information is good news for thoracic surgeons and oncologists. John Alexander and his colleagues at the University of Michigan Health system studied 133 profoundly obese patients with a body mass index of 35 or more who underwent transhiatal esophagectomy (THE) at the University of Michigan Health System between 1977 and 2006. The study group was compared to a control group of matched lean patients undergoing the procedure, and the team found that both populations had similar morbidity and mortality statistics, despite the difference in weight.
Judge gives green light to drug lawsuit
It was six years ago that Vanessa Young, a generally healthy high school student from Oakville, collapsed and died, her heart allegedly stopped by a drug she took for a minor eating disorder. Now, after years of legal wrangling, a judge has ruled the class action lawsuit Vanessa's father spearheaded can head toward trial, with charges that Prepulsid caused several deaths and illnesses in Canada, while patients were kept largely in the dark about the medicine's possible side effects. Justice Ellen Macdonald "certified" the $100-million lawsuit against Janssen-Ortho, which sold the medicine here, a major hurdle rarely achieved in Canadian class-action cases targeting pharmaceutical companies. .
Surf The Web And Save On Prescriptions
(AP) KEY LARGO, Fla. It's not often you save several hundred dollars on medicine by surfing the Web, but David Melvin did, CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews reports. "Tremendous savings," he says. Melvin was on the Consumer Reports' Best Buy Drugs site and saw that his cholesterol medicine, Pravachol, was three times more expensive than a plain generic, Lovastatin, a drug the Web site was calling its "best buy." "When I saw the difference in pricing and what I could save, an "oh my God' is right," Melvin says. He also saw that Nexium, the hugely popular prescription drug he was taking for acid reflux, was not the best buy it was Prilosec OTC, sold over the counter. His doctor agreed to the changes, and when Melvin added his savings last year, it was more than $600 on two drugs. "I can have the same kind of effectiveness for a heck of a lot less money," Melvin says.
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