Results for search "Surgery: Misc.".
26 Oct
Post-operative pain is worse for pot users who often need more opioid drugs during recovery, researchers find.
25 Jul
Married adults who undergo bariatric surgery are twice as likely to get divorced, researchers say.
Some short men really struggle with their lack of height, feeling that they are both literally and figuratively looked down upon by others.
That’s why an increasing number of height-challenged men are turning to limb-lengthening surgery -- an expensive, potentially painful, months-long procedure that will add a few extra inches to their frame.
Limb-lengthening procedures have been...
Minimally invasive surgery works just as well as full-scale open surgery in removing early-stage pancreatic cancers, allowing patients a faster recovery with less infection risk, a new clinical trial has found.
The ability to remove all the cancer and the rate of cancer recurrence was essentially the same between the two groups, said lead researcher
When one of the heart’s valves springs a big leak, that can spell big trouble.
The good news: The condition, known as degenerative mitral regurgitation (DMR), is treatable using a minimally invasive intervention known as TEER (transcatheter edge-to-edge repair), a procedure that involves the insertion of a small clip to enable proper valve closure and blood flow.
The better news? ...
While the U.S. Veterans Affairs health system has been criticized for long appointment wait times and limited access to specialists, the quality of care and access to a range of surgical services is as good as or better than at non-VA health centers on several measures, new research reveals.
“Surgery involves many steps of care,” said lead study author
Here's one more reason to watch your weight: Obesity can increase your odds for serious complications after surgery.
Compared with patients of normal weight, those who are obese are at greater risk for developing blood clots, infections and kidney failure after surgery, a new study reports. Pa...
For the first time, doctors have successfully performed fetal brain surgery to treat a rare blood vessel abnormality that can be fatal to newborns.
Experts said the accomplishment, for a condition known as a vein of Galen malformation (VOGM), is "exciting." But they also cautioned that this is one case, and more research is needed to know whether the prenatal brain procedure is a good str...
Patients who've had surgery should ease back into movement and exercise.
These efforts may be small, but they're better than nothing, according to one surgeon who emphasized the importance of listening to your body.
“The most important thing is patient comfort. After surgery, there is often this apprehension of, ‘If I move or do something, I will hurt or damage the area where I...
Women having a mastectomy for earlier-stage breast cancer may be overtreated if doctors evaluate their lymph nodes while they are still on the operating table, a preliminary study suggests.
Researchers found those patients were much more likely to receive aggressive treatment — surgical removal of their underarm lymph nodes, often with radiation — versus women whose surgeons took more...
Each year, about 140 kids in the United States are diagnosed with a craniopharyngioma, a typically non-cancerous brain tumor that develops near the pituitary gland at the base of the brain.
Doctors treat craniopharyngiomas with surgery to remove the entire tumor or a less aggressive surgery followed by radiation to kill any remaining cells.
Now, a
Storing donor lungs at cool — but not near freezing — temperatures can markedly increase the length of time the organs can live outside the human body, a new study suggests.
Lungs stored at 50 degrees Fahrenheit remain healthy and viable for transplant up to four times longer than those stored at the current standard temperature of 39 degrees, according to new clinical trial results.<...
Sciatica can send searing, unrelenting pain down your legs, and surgery is often recommended if other less invasive measures fail to bring relief.
Unfortunately, a new study review suggests that such operations likely only provide temporary results, with pain typically returning within a year.
Sciatica is “characterized by pain going down the back of the leg, most often due to pre...
Surgery may help you manage pain and other symptoms if you have certain types of arthritis or your arthritis is severe.
To help you decide if surgery is right for you, here's a breakdown of five of the most common arthritis surgeries, including what they involve, how they're performed, who the best candidates are and what recovery may look like.
Arthroscopy surgery<...
Some women with multiple breast tumors can safely be spared breast removal surgery, choosing less invasive treatment instead, new research suggests.
Under certain conditions, women with two or three breast tumors in one breast can avoid mastectomy without increasing the chances that their breast cancer will come back.
“For these patients, breast-conserving therapy is a reason...
While joint reconstruction surgeries are fairly common, they may be anything but routine for people with sickle cell disease.
Patients with the blood disorder who undergo total knee replacement are at a higher risk for complications than other patients, according to a new large-scale study.
“SCD patients undergoing total knee replacement need a multidisciplinary approach and ...
Whether the gender of a blood donor could affect the recipient's survival was an unanswered question in medicine. Until now.
“Some observational studies had suggested female donor blood might be linked with a higher risk of death among recipients compared to male donor blood, but our clinical trial found that isn't the case,” co-lead author
Some patients with early testicular cancer may not need chemotherapy and radiation, researchers report.
Instead, surgery to remove lymph nodes in an area behind the abdomen lining called the retroperitoneum may be enough, according to their new study.
“We found that the majority of participants in the study were cured with surgery alone, avoiding the toxicities associated with t...
Women who are heavier or older may take longer to heal after surgery to reduce the size of their breasts, new research indicates.
Body weight and age can affect complication risk after breast reduction, according to a report in the April 2023 edition of
Cynthia Elford had recently lost her left leg to type 1 diabetes, after a sunburned big toe turned nearly black and forced an amputation.
Now, Elford was being told the same thing was happening in her right leg.
“I went to clip the toenail on the big toe of my right leg and I nipped my skin, just nipped it, and it was enough that it didn't heal,” said Elford, 63, of Hermitage, P...
A lot of women experience stress urinary incontinence, those bladder leaks that can happen when a woman is coughing, sneezing, laughing or exercising.
It's the most common type of urinary incontinence in women, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Some first-line options are changing behaviors and doing pelvic floor exercises.
Pelvic floor exercises strengthen ...
Older adults often develop delirium after surgery, and new research finds this is associated with a faster rate of mental decline.
The study highlights the importance of preventing delirium to preserve brain health in older adults who undergo surgery, according to the authors.
“Whether delirium causes this faster rate of decline, or is simply a marker of those who are at risk of e...
Retired nurse Tannaz Ameli was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer last winter. When chemotherapy failed, her doctors recommended hospice care.
But Ameli, of Minneapolis, had other ideas. She and her husband sought out a pioneering medical team at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago. Today, she is a survivor of a double-lung transplant -- just the second this team of specialists has succ...
Women are more likely than men to die after coronary artery bypass surgery, according to a large new study.
Researchers still don't understand why women have these poorer outcomes.
“This should be a ‘wake-up call' for cardiothoracic surgeons — women still have a higher risk of adverse outcomes following coronary artery bypass surgery, and there doesn't seem to have been any ch...
Returning to golf, tennis or pickleball after shoulder replacement surgery shouldn't be too hard.
Healing does take time, but within a few months most people can get back to play at their pre-surgery level without the pain that they experienced before, a pair of new studies show.
"Recovery after both an anatomic and reverse shoulder replacement or from any shoulder replacement is id...
A tweak in timing may make an immune-system therapy much more effective for patients undergoing surgery for advanced melanoma, a new clinical trial has found.
Researchers showed that giving the therapy — a drug called Keytruda (pembrolizumab) — both before and after surgery slashed the risk of a melanoma recurrence over the next two years. That was in comparison to the standard approa...
Children who have developmental delays may be at greater risk for complications after a tonsillectomy, researchers report.
“This elevated risk of complications should be included in pre-operative counseling and has potential implications for pre-operative decision making and treatment plans in this high-risk population,” said
Men suffering from an enlarged prostate can receive long-term relief from a minimally invasive procedure that partially blocks blood flow to the gland, new research reports.
The procedure, called prostate artery embolization (PAE), dramatically improved urinary symptoms in patients without having any effect on erectile function, said senior researcher
Older Black men are more likely than others to die after surgery, according to a new study.
Black men have a higher chance of dying within 30 days of surgery compared to Black women and white adults, and their odds of death after elective procedures is 50% higher when compared to white men, researchers found.
This may be because of the “especially high cumulative amounts of stres...
Ambar Marcus didn't think anything of going to the follow-up ultrasound her doctor recommended around 22 weeks of pregnancy — until she noticed how long it was taking.
“The technician was a lovely lady who chatted with me the whole time, but I noticed it felt like a very long appointment,” Marcus, who lives in Silver Spring, Md., recalled. “This is definitely the longest echo I've...
Some patients having surgery for early-stage lung cancer may no longer need to lose an entire lobe of their lung, new research shows.
The study results are from a phase 3 clinical trial sponsored by the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology.
For the trial, nearly 700 patients with early-stage lung cancer were randomly chosen to receive either lobectomy surgery, which removes an e...
When it comes to bunions, millions of Americans are painfully familiar with the signs: Swelling, redness, a telltale bulge on the side of the big toe. Corns and calluses where other toes rub together. And pain. Lots and lots of pain.
Fortunately, when surgery is needed, it's usually a success. But not always.
So researchers have stepped up with a
More women, even those at low risk for ovarian cancer, who have finished having children should have their fallopian tubes removed as a precaution to prevent the deadly disease, a leading research group has advised.
In new guidance released this week, the Ovarian Can...
The American Heart Association has issued a new scientific statement on pulmonary embolism (PE), a sometimes fatal condition in which a blood clot travels to the lungs.
The American Heart Association (AHA) statement suggests surgery be considered for more people with high-r...
Many people who have surgery for chronic pancreatitis continue to have health struggles in the years afterward — with some dying at a young age, a new study finds.
The study, done at one U.S. medical center, is the largest to look at overall survival in th...
A surgeon's skill has a direct impact on whether a patient will survive early-stage lung cancer.
Unfortunately, many surgeons are failing to follow a playbook that increase the odds of a successful outcome, a new study argues.
The quality of surgery for lung cancer varies widely across the United States, and patients whose procedures fall short of treatment guidelines suffer signifi...
Despite distance and occasional technical glitches, a new study finds that most patients like seeing a surgeon for the first time via video.
The study was published Jan. 19 in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
"We see patients ...
When people undergo surgery for broken arms or legs, they are often injected with prescription blood thinners to reduce their risk of developing potentially life-threatening blood clots in their lungs and legs.
But a large,
Major surgery is a challenge for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), raising their odds of death within a year by 61%, new research shows.
The researchers also found these patients incurred 13% higher health care costs in the year after their operation, compared to patients without the respiratory condition.
"These increased risks and costs were evident long ...
Moving a heavy object or even coughing can result in a medical condition known as a hernia.
While it's common, many people don't know what a hernia is, according to an expert at Penn State Health, who offered details on causes, symptoms and treatment.
“While we typically associate heavy lifting or strenuous activity with the development of a hernia, other congenital abdominal wall...
First Lady Jill Biden is scheduled to have surgery Wednesday morning to have a lesion removed from above her right eye.
The lesion was discovered during routine skin cancer screening, the president's physician Dr. Kevin O'Connor said in a
Researchers studying patients with low-grade, slow-growing brain tumors have found that more aggressive surgery may extend survival.
The trick to treating low-grade gliomas is to remove as much of them as possible soon after diagnosis, researchers at University of California, San Francisco found.
“Our findings...
Insured Black patients are less likely to undergo minimally invasive heart valve replacement or repairs -- relatively safe procedures -- than their white counterparts, new research shows.
Black patients who need a mitral valve replacement are more likely to have operations that involve opening the chest and cutting through the breastbone to reveal the heart, a
Doctors and patients should consider COVID-19 history when planning surgery, according to a new study.
For patients who've had a COVID-19 diagnosis, researchers found significant postoperative problems diminish gradually over time, but risks persist more than a year after the illness.
That time frame is longer than previously known, said the research team from Vanderbilt University ...
Black patients are more likely than their white peers to need emergency surgery for colon cancer, which increases their risk for complications and death, study authors say.
"Overall, these results suggest that racial and ethnic differences persist" among colon cancer patients, and "these differences likely contribute to disparities in postoperative outcomes among these groups," said firs...
Mastectomy has long been the standard of care for certain breast cancer patients, but it still may be more extensive than many women need, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that many women who have two or even three breast tumors may be able to have breast-conserving lumpectomies instead of having the entire breast removed.
That's because newer, more sensitive imaging techniqu...
Black patients with brain tumors may be less likely to have surgery recommended to them than white patients are, according to a large U.S. study.
The research, which looked at two national databases, found that on average, Black patients were less likely to have surgery recommended for any of four types of brain tumor. That included three considered benign (non-cancerous) and one that is ...
A new genetic test may help determine which people with breast cancer can safely skip radiation after breast-conserving surgery to remove their tumor.
Individuals with invasive breast cancer who had low scores on an investigational gene panel were just as likely to experience a recurrence if they received radiation therapy after breast-conserving surgery or not, Swedish researchers r...
Lasik eye surgery is a common vision-correcting procedure that many Americans view as safe and effective, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has now drafted guidance that warns of potential complications.
Although many patients are happy with the results after surgery, the recommended new guidance says complica...
Black adults who undergo a common procedure to open up clogged arteries are readmitted to the hospital more often than their white peers. They're also more likely to die in the years after treatment, a new study finds.
Researchers looked at how patients fared following balloon angioplasty and coronary stenting -- "one of the most common cardiovascular procedures performed in the U.S....
Before Andrea Acerra, 45, had a hysterectomy due to heavy periods in November, she received an iron infusion to boost her red blood cell count and stave off the need for a transfusion.
"I was just worried about side effects from the iron, but there were none," said Acerra, a senior medical assistant in Bay Shore, N.Y.
South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore, where Acerra was tr...
Patients with advanced ankle osteoarthritis have two surgical options to restore their quality of life, and the good news is a new study shows both have good outcomes.
Deciding which one is better depends on the patient.
“Our aim in this trial was to provide the data that patients need to make informed decisions about these operations,” said study author