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

Carestream is expanding into new imaging modalities, including cone beam CT, and key advances were demonstrated at the recent British Orthopaedic Association (BOA) Annual Congress conference held in Liverpool, UK, where a conceptual scale model of cone beam CT was on display.
Patient studies are helping to guide Carestream’s development of cone beam CT (CBCT) systems for orthopedic imaging at hospitals, clinics and sports medicine providers. Cone beam CT systems use less radiation than traditional CT; they are compact and affordable and can be used in a wide range of facilities.
Carestream is exploring the benefits of CBCT technology for capturing images of patient extremities including weight-bearing images of knees, legs and feet, which are of particular interest to orthopedic and sports medicine specialists. (The CBCT system used in this study is investigational and not available for commercial sale).
“We are expanding our proven expertise in radiology with new systems and research aimed at addressing unmet needs in the orthopedic markets,” said Jianqing Bennett, President, Digital Medical Solutions, Carestream. “Our development staff is working with clinical experts and leading healthcare providers to develop new features and functionality that enhance patient imaging in these areas.”
www.carestream.com

Xbox Kinects could be used in the future to assess the health of patients with conditions such as cystic fibrosis.

Normally found in the hands of gamers rather than medics the Microsoft sensors could be used to assess the respiratory function of patients.

In tests it has proven to be as accurate as a patient breathing into a spirometer – the current method used – but providing additional information about the movement of the chest, which could help in identifying numerous respiratory problems.