Health and Medicine

A new study heightens concerns that Cipro and related broad-spectrum antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones are being over-prescribed, accelerating bacterial resistance to the drugs and reducing their ability to treat infections.

The UCSF-led study evaluated the records of more than 13,000 patients across the country hospitalized for “community-acquired” pneumonia – pneumonia that developed before the patient was hospitalized. The researchers found that fluoroquinolones were widely prescribe

Tool provides physicians with better understanding of survival rates to help patients make more informed treatment decisions

The following stories detail news from the current issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings. They are intended for use as individual stories or as part of a larger story on a particular medical topic.

Mayo Clinic researchers have developed another user-friendly calculator to aid physicians in better understanding complex cancer data and helping their patients

Mayo Clinic researchers report that the risk of stroke that sometimes results from a common treatment for atrial fibrillation can be minimized when the patient takes anticoagulation medication prior to the procedure.

The researchers report on the largest single medical center experience regarding safety of elective direct current (DC) cardioversion of atrial fibrillation. DC cardioversion is the electronic restoration of the heart’s normal rhythm.

Atrial fibrillation affects mo

A study from The Feinberg School of Medicine has shown that the protease inhibitor lopinavir/ritonavir (Kaletra®) suppressed HIV to undetectable levels and was well tolerated through four years of treatment in patients who had not previously received antiretroviral therapy.

To date in the Kaletra® study, none of the patients has developed resistance to Kaletra® or other protease inhibitors. Kaletra® is thus far the only protease inhibitor for which resistance has not been observed in patient

Monitoring oxygen delivery to organs is vital for treatment of trauma and critical care patients

When treating trauma and critical care patients after severe hemorrhagic shock, hours and days count. That’s why University of Pittsburgh researchers, working with an Israeli physiology professor, saw the need to develop a “smart” urinary catheter – which is typically used for bladder drainage – that they modified in order to provide clinicians with immediate information about the amo

Correlations of antimicrobial resistance among s. pneumoniae in the U.S.: 2001-2002 trust surveillance

Resistance to commonly prescribed antibiotics is increasing among Streptococcus pneumoniae, a leading cause of respiratory illness. In the early 1990s, resistance to penicillin became a concern, however, in the last five years (1998-2002), S. pneumoniae has also exhibited increased resistance to other antibiotic classes, such as the macrolides (e.g. azithromycin, clarithromycin) and