Pap smears without the stirrups
Women who know they should get regular Pap smears but dread the stirrups that go along with the test may finally get a reprieve.
New research shows that Pap results are just as accurate when the screen is performed with the patient keeping her feet on the examining table.
There was a real bonus in terms of comfort too.
“There’s about a 50 percent reduction in physical discomfort if women did not use the stirrups,” said lead researcher Dr. Dean Seehusen, a family physician at the Eisenhower Army Medical Center at Ft. Gordon in Augusta, Ga.
Seehusen, who published his findings recently in the British Medical Journal, remains hopeful that the practice of giving women a choice — stirrups or no stirrups — will catch on.
Bone drugs may lead to jawbone problems
A new study has found a link between bisphosphonates — drugs used to treat bone cancers, osteoporosis and other conditions — and serious jawbone problems.
Previous studies have found an association between the use of intravenous bisphosphonates and osteonecrosis of the jaw or facial bones. In osteonecrosis, poor blood supply leads to bone death and deterioration.
Bisphosphonates are used to fight cancer-related bone lesions, elevated levels of calcium in the blood, or reduced bone density.
For the study, published in the June 26 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston identified more than 14,000 people with cancer who were treated with bisphosphonates (either pamidronate or zoledronic acid) and more than 28,000 patients who did not receive these medications.
After six years, about 5.5 percent of the participants who used bisphosphonate had undergone facial or jawbone surgery or had inflammation of the jawbone, compared with 0.3 percent of those who did not use bisphosphonates.
Less-invasive alternative to breast biopsies
Using ultrasound to monitor certain breast lesions that have a low probability of becoming cancerous may be a safe and less anxiety-producing alternative to a biopsy, a new study says.
The practice of monitoring certain masses with ultrasound can safely spare women from unnecessary, invasive biopsies, said study author Dr. Oswald Graf, chairman of radiology at the Ambulatory Care Center in Steyr, Austria.
The findings are published in the July issue of Radiology.
Breast ultrasound uses sound waves to make an image of breast tissues. The procedure is less invasive than a biopsy, in which breast tissue samples are taken and analyzed.
Graf’s team studied 409 women, average age 48, who had 448 solid masses identified during mammography and ultrasound that were classified as probably benign. Of these 448 masses, 445 were monitored with ultrasound for a range of two to five years, while biopsy was deemed necessary and performed on the other three.
Using ultrasound monitoring for an average of 3.3 years, 442 of the masses remained stable and two grew in size. One woman was diagnosed with breast cancer, the researchers said.
The risk of these masses, originally classified as probably benign, turning malignant during the ultrasound follow-up was very low, about 0.2 percent, Graf said.
