Gestational diabetes is one of the most common conditions that can occur during pregnancy. Although the symptoms generally disappear after delivery, women suffering from gestational diabetes are at increased risk of developing postpartum diabetes in the following years. Researchers at the Helmholtz Zentrum M

A new analysis confirms that CT colonography is a cost-effective colorectal cancer screening option.

Home births lead to higher infant mortality than hospital births, at least for mothers living in poorer areas. This is the conclusion of a new study conducted by N. Meltem Daysal (University of Southern Denmark and IZA), Mircea Trandafir (University of Southern Denmark and IZA) and Reyn van Ewijk (VU University Amsterdam and University of Mainz) that examines 356,412 low-risk Dutch women who delivered between 2000 and 2008 and who were allowed to choose between a home and a hospital birth.

The safety of home births for low-risk women is a hotly debated topic in the Western world. In this context, the Netherlands stands out as one of the few developed countries with a health care system geared toward home births, with more than half of all low-risk deliveries taking place at home. This makes it one of the best settings to study the safety of home births.

The study shows that home births lead to higher infant mortality among the poorer half of Dutch women. The researchers suggest that the infant mortality rate may be lower in hospitals because of the availability of advanced medical treatments (such as neonatal intensive care units). In the richer half of the Dutch population, on the other hand, home births are as safe for the child as hospital births. The researchers suspect that low-income women profit from hospital births because it is more difficult to assess whether they are low-risk or high-risk, for example due to a more difficult communication with their midwife.

One of the major challenges when investigating the effect of home births is that even among low-risk women, those who give birth at home or in a hospital may have different risk factors, with riskier deliveries usually taking place in the hospital. Therefore, babies born in a hospital often have more health problems than babies born at home and simple comparisons of these two groups are misleading.

In the present study, the researchers came up with an innovative solution to circumvent this problem. They noticed that some women gave birth at home or in a hospital depending on how far they lived from the nearest obstetric ward. The researchers then compared two groups of low-risk women who were identical, except that the women in one group had a higher probability of delivering in a hospital only because they lived closer to a hospital.

This study demonstrates that home births can lead to higher infant mortality for certain women, even in a country where the health care system is geared toward home births. In the context of the Netherlands, these women are those who live in the poorer half of the country and whose decision to deliver in a hospital or at home is affected by how far they live from the nearest hospital. The authors emphasize that no conclusion can be drawn for other groups. VU University Amsterdam

Tiny gas microbubbles can enhance the delivery and absorption of cancer drugs in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer, according to a new pilot study. The study was described at the International Contrast Ultrasound Society (ICUS) annual conference in Chicago.
One year after their last treatment cycle, two of 10 patients are still alive. 74 percent of pancreatic cancer patients die within the first year of diagnosis. The average life expectancy after diagnosis with metastic pancreatic cancer is just three to six months.

SCHILLER has teamed up with medsim specialists EPICARDIO to offer a market-leading simulation-based ECG e-learning program to its customers.
Responding to requests from its customers to provide innovative training techniques to complement its medical technology solutions, SCHILLER has worked with the UK-based company to bring them a cutting-edge customized e-training package.
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