The Biggest Medical Stories You May Have Missed In 2015

SPECIAL FROM Next Avenue By Craig Bowron As we head into the New Year, let’s take a look back and see what lessons we should have learned from medical science in 2015. The New England Journal of Medicine’s publication Journal Watch provides physicians and other health care providers with expert analysis of the most recent medical research. Below is a brief synopsis of what the Journal Watch editors felt were the most important stories in general medicine for the year 2015. While you likely heard about a couple, others probably escaped your radar. Getting Aggressive with Strokes We’re familiar with the idea of a cardiologist performing an angioplasty, where a tiny tube called a catheter is threaded into a coronary artery and a balloon on the end of the catheter is inflated to open the blockage that’s causing a heart attack. One would think a similar “endovascular” intervention might work well for a blocked cerebral artery causing a stroke, but it hasn’t worked out that way… until now. A new device called a “stent retriever” expands out into the offending arterial clot, allowing it to be removed. Five trials published in 2015 showed a clear benefit for this new technique, but the procedure needs to be performed quickly, and at high-level stroke centers. Testosterone for the Old(er) Man? Testosterone levels decline naturally as men age, and there’s never been any proof that artificially boosting testosterone l...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news