Medical Treatments

The H1N1 swine flu virus kills some people, while others don't get very sick at all. A genetic variation offers one clue.

A Single Gene May Determine Why Some People Get So Sick With The Flu

5:07pm March 26, 2015

by Poncie Rutsch

A single genetic mutation might decide who ends up in bed with the sniffles and who heads to the hospital, because it shuts down immune system molecules called interferons.

Know Your Exposure: A Cancer Quiz

4:48pm March 26, 2015

by Paige Cowett

Throughout life we are subjected to many things that can affect our risk for developing cancer. Take our quiz to learn more.

Some surgeons aren't adept at laparoscopic surgery, although it is often the better choice for patients.

Patients Often Aren't Offered Minimally Invasive Surgery

10:32am March 26, 2015

by Nancy Shute

Laparascopic surgery can be faster, safer and cheaper, but patients don't always get the choice even if it's appropriate, a study finds. Using it more often would reduce complications and save money.

Dr Donald Pinkel, first medical director at St. Jude, led the hospital's leukemia research trials in the 1960s.

How 2 Children With Leukemia Helped Transform Its Treatment

9:50am March 25, 2015

by Amanda Aronczyk

Cancer treatment for kids has changed dramatically since the 1960s. Back then, doctors experimented with approaches that seemed promising but were also potentially toxic. Some survivors look back.

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Why The War On Cancer Hasn't Been Won

12:26pm March 24, 2015

by Richard Harris

Medical researchers have made only modest progress treating the most common cancers since the war on cancer was declared in 1971. The disease has proved far more complicated than doctors had hoped.

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Researchers and therapists are developing strategies to help people cut back on drinking, including tracker cards and tools to screen for dependence.

Rethinking Alcohol: Can Heavy Drinkers Learn To Cut Back?

11:19am March 24, 2015

by Allison Aubrey

The limit for healthy drinking may be less than you think — one drink a day for women and two for men, according to health experts. New strategies aim to help heavy drinkers reduce their intake.

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Find other stories in the Living Cancer series at WNYC.org.

Stats Split On Progress Against Cancer

8:33am March 24, 2015

by Richard Harris

When you dig into the number on cancer, the results are mixed. Overall, deaths are up. But survival five years after diagnosis has improved for many forms of the disease, including breast cancer.

Grey lines connecting health care workers (marked with "+") and patients represent contacts between them. The red figures are carriers of MRSA.

Wireless Sensors Help Scientists Map Staph Spread Inside Hospital

5:34pm March 23, 2015

by Scott Hensley

Over four months of tracking and testing, French researchers mapped the hops that bacteria made from one person to another. Within a month, a third of patients were newly colonized with staph.

If You're Going To Die Soon, Do You Really Need Statins?

4:30pm March 23, 2015

by Nancy Shute

Many older people are taking a lot of meds, and some drugs may not be doing them much good. When terminally ill people went off statins, they said they felt better. And it didn't increase their risk.

Microbiologist Jennifer Doudna at the University of California, Berkeley. She's co-inventor of the CRISPR-Cas9 technology — a tool that's recently made the snipping and splicing of genes much easier.

Scientists Urge Temporary Moratorium On Human Genome Edits

7:58pm March 20, 2015

by Rob Stein

Researchers who helped develop powerful techniques warn that tweaking the genome is now easy. More public debate's needed, they say, before making changes in genes passed from parent to child.

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