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Ear, Nose & Throat Associates |
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June 2008 News Archives
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June 2: Acupuncture helps neck surgery patients, UPI
NEW YORK, June 2 (UPI) -- Acupuncture significantly reduces pain, dysfunction and dry mouth in head and neck cancer patients, a U.S. researcher says.
Dr. David Pfister of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York conducted a controlled trial on 70 patients who had neck dissection -- a surgical procedure for treatment of head and neck cancer. They were randomly selected to receive either acupuncture or usual care.
Pfister said he found pain and mobility improved in 39 percent of the patients receiving acupuncture, compared to 7 percent in the group that received usual care such as physical therapy and anti-inflammatory drugs.
"Unfortunately, available conventional methods of treatment for pain and dysfunction following neck surgery often have limited benefits, leaving much room for improvement," Pfister said in a statement.
An added benefit of acupuncture was significant reduction of reported xerostomia, or extreme dry mouth -- a common problem among head and neck cancer patients.
The treatment group received four sessions of acupuncture over the course of about four weeks.
The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology in Chicago.
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June 2: A nation of zombies? Sleep deprivation takes toll, The Applied Press
As a young mother in her twenties, Tracy Nasca, now 54, was a "total zombie."
She lived in a twilight state of fatigue, exhausted and confused. She had no short term memory, forgetting everything from evening plans to entire phone conversations. Her school-age children cooked themselves meals while she struggled to get out of bed. Eventually she had to quit her job as a florist after she spent too many afternoons napping on the floor next to the refrigerators of roses.
After years of exhaustion, Nasca's doctors found a diagnosis: She was massively, chronically sleep deprived.
And according to sleep experts, many Americans are headed for the same fate.
"All the recent surveys and studies show that the majority of Americans are sleeping far less than we need to to be healthy and functional," said Dr. Neil Kline, a sleep physician with the American Sleep Association.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 30 percent of Americans are habitually getting less than six hours of sleep a night -- far less than the recommended seven to nine hours -- and an estimated 50 to 70 million people suffer from sleep disorders or constant sleep loss.
The worst part is, we're exhausted and many of us don't even know it, said Dr. Meir Kryger, chair of the National Sleep Foundation. "A lot of my sleep deprived patients think this is just how life is," he said.
So if you think you're not getting enough sleep, you're probably right. And if you need more proof, Kryger offers this test: "If you need a cup of coffee to feel alert, there's a problem."
But how did we become a nation of bleary-eyed sleepwalkers, swigging giant lattes to make it through the morning? Experts blame a culture of overstimulation: As Americans become increasingly addicted to technology, most people are up late into the night texting friends on cell phones, flipping TV channels or surfing the Internet.
Americans also are working much longer hours and commuting farther than they did in decades past. Kryger said many of his patients spend hours every week driving to work, chunks of blank time that should be used for sleeping or "generally living life."
Increasing portions of the population are working nontraditional hours -- as medical professionals, long-haul truckers, even cashiers at 24-hour superstores -- further threatening a good night's sleep. The earliest risers aren't necessarily shift workers, either: They're students. As schools move start times to as early as 7 a.m. to accommodate after-school sports and busing schedules, habitually tired teenagers are joining the ranks of baggy-eyed adults by compensating for lack of sleep with Starbucks and energy drinks.
But the country's chronic lack of sleep has more serious implications than a nationwide caffeine addiction, Kline said. Insufficient sleep is associated with a number of diseases and conditions, such as diabetes, obesity, and depression.
Sleep deprivation also can be extremely dangerous: a high percentage of road accidents are due to daytime sleepiness, and large-scale mistakes like the Challenger explosion, the Exxon-Valdez oil spill and Chernobyl nuclear disaster have been associated with fatigue, Kline said.
Luckily, sleep deprivation is completely reversible. After receiving treatment for sleep apnea, a sleep disorder that kept her from fully falling asleep, Nasca's decade-long fog of zombie-dom lifted. She now regularly sleeps eight hours a night. Refreshed and rested, she now devotes her life to helping others get as much sleep as they need through her Web site talkaboutsleep.com.
To get a good night's rest, most sleep experts recommend a set of sleep rules, called "sleep hygiene." Keep your bedtime and wake time on a consistent schedule. Make sure your bedroom is cool, dark and quiet. Exercise every day, preferably at least six hours before going to bed. Avoid eating a large meal in the late evening, and limit caffeine and alcohol intake. Build in 15 minutes of "quiet time" at the end of the day to help calm racing thoughts.
If you're already doing all that and still toss and turn all night, you may have a bum mattress, said Karin Dillner, spokeswoman for the Better Sleep Council. "Most people aren't even looking at something as simple as a mattress for their quality or quantity of sleep, but that's often the problem," she said.
The Council recommends evaluating your mattress every 5-7 years for comfort and support, and if you're waking up with aches and pains, or noticing that you sleep better at a friend's house, it might be time to invest in a new one.
Your partners on that mattress may also be keeping you awake. Often a needy pet or a snoring, snuffling spouse can ruin a good night's rest, Kryger said.
"The key is to banish all distractions," Kryger said.
Of course, all these tips are "easy to say but hard to actually fit into your life," Nasca said, "because we're busy and we naturally tend to put sleep last on our to-do list."
However, truly devoting yourself to getting enough sleep is always worth it, she said. "Sleep is an absolute biological need. Nothing can replace it, and nothing else can make you feel so fantastic."
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June 8: Child's kiss deafens Hicksville mom, NewsDay
BY DELTHIA RICKS
This is a story about a kiss - an expression of love so potent from a little girl - that it caused her mother not only to lose her hearing after a buss on the ear, but to be thrust into the pages of medical history.
Yet it wasn't the sound of the smackaroo that damaged the hearing of Hicksville homemaker Gail Schwartzman, but a suction force that displaced the woman's eardrum, paralyzed a tiny trio of bones and left residual sounds in her head. Schwartzman's case will be the subject of a medical journal report within the coming weeks, outlining for the first time what the author calls "the kiss of deaf."
Schwartzman describes the kiss as physically painful but says it has left a deeper emotional scar on her daughter. Even as she recounted details of the buss planted two years ago, the child, now 6, broke into tears, apologizing to her mom. Schwartzman requested that her daughter's name not be published.
"What actually happened, I was out of the house that day," Schwartzman said. "And when I returned, I went to say a big hello to my daughter. She was 4 years old at the time. She was sitting on the floor watching TV, and she had really missed me. So I sat on the floor next to her.
"She grabbed me and gave me a hug and a really big kiss on the left ear. And while she was doing it, it felt like she was sucking the air out of my head. I couldn't push her away because I had this terrible sensation in my head," Schwartzman said.
"When she was finished, I had no hearing in that ear. The hearing slowly came back but with screeching noises in my ear," she said, referring to sounds known medically as tinnitus. Although some of her hearing has returned, allowing her to hear in muffled tones, the tinnitus has remained.
Loud noises cause tinnitus
Lisa Freeman of the American Tinnitus Foundation said loud noises can induce tinnitus.
"Typically this is the perception of sound in the ears or head. The sounds can range from ringing, clicking, swishing or buzzing and can cycle to moments of highs and lows," Freeman said.
She said tinnitus can be induced by sustained exposure to sounds usually greater than 85 decibels. The average rock concert hits the ears at 110 decibels and has left countless musicians with tinnitus.
"That was some kiss," Freeman said.
Dr. Anil Lalwani, chairman of physiology and neuroscience at NYU Medical Center in Manhattan, who was not involved in Schwartzman's case, said he has never heard of a kiss causing hearing loss.
Many of the cases he has treated, involving extreme sound exposure followed by hearing loss and tinnitus, increasingly have included soldiers who've served in Iraq. Thundering explosives have stolen hearing and left tinnitus as a permanent reminder.
Tinnitus, Lalwani said, is caused by damage to hair cells in the inner ear's cochlea, a shell-shaped structure that transmits sound signals to the brain.
Schwartzman shuns attention drawn by the kiss, arguing strongly against having her picture taken.
"It's not like I won something," she said, referring to a lottery or a prize for a a major discovery.
Numerous doctors whom Schwartzman consulted immediately after the kiss were unable to solve the mystery of what precisely went awry. Scans and a battery of sophisticated tests were conducted. One physician prescribed a potent hormone. No luck.
Then, last year she read a story in Newsday about a hearing expert at Hofstra University who spices his lectures by delivering them in rhythm and rhyme, and thought she would give him a try.
Sherlock Holmes of hearing
Levi Reiter, Hofstra's chairman of audiology, who also has a private practice in Brooklyn, likens his role in Schwartzman's case to that of Sherlock Holmes. He posits the kiss created a suction as would a vacuum cleaner or plunger over a drain.
"It's possible that things will get better as time goes by. Her tinnitus has gotten better; the other ear is just fine," Reiter said. "It could have been a lot worse."
In addition to helping Schwartzman cope with her hearing loss, he has been studying the case over the past year, honing his hypothesis. Reiter believes the suction of the kiss dramatically disturbed the tiny trio of interconnected bones - the hammer, anvil and stirrup. He contends the kiss caused a slight detachment of the stirrup from the muscle and an inflammatory response. Reiter's report will appear in The Hearing Journal later this summer.
When checking with experts nationwide to determine whether others had encountered patients deafened by a kiss, he found only one, a retired professor from the University of Connecticut who knew of a case in the 1950s. A scientific report was never written.
Reiter said Schwartzman lost her ability to perceive sound in what he calls the mid-frequencies. Normal conversation, he said, hits the ears at about 50 to 55 decibels. But her loss covers a large range. She cannot use a telephone on her left ear.
Reiter sees the case as a platform to discuss the etiquette of kissing. "The moral here is very simple," Reiter said, "try not to hurt the one you love."
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June 16: Kids' neck size may point to risk of sleep apnea, Reuters Health
By Megan Rauscher
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Children with bigger neck sizes for their age seem to be more likely to develop obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) syndrome, researchers report.
OSA occurs when soft tissues in the throat collapse and block the airway during sleep, so that breathing is briefly but repeatedly interrupted. Chronic snoring is often a sign of the problem. Because it disturbs sleep, it can lead to tiredness during the day as well as other problems.
The new report comes from SLEEP 2008, the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies. OSA has "many adverse neurocognitive consequences if left untreated in the child," the study team notes in their meeting materials.
They conclude, based on their study, that parents of children with bigger neck sizes for age should be asked if their child snores or makes gasping noises during sleep, and whether they seem excessively sleepy or show signs of hyperactivity.
Neck size in adults has been shown to correlate with the presence of OSA. To see if the same is true in children, Dr. Pearl L. Yu from the University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, and colleagues studied 242 children, ranging in age from 2 to 20, who were referred to a pediatric sleep center.
Nearly 40 percent of the children were obese, and these children were more likely to be snorers, the team found.
Yu and her colleagues also found that the more that neck size deviated from the expected measurement for a given age, the higher was the apnea score in terms of the number of breathing interruptions that occurred per hour during sleep.
In fact, neck size correlated with the apnea score better than did the child's body mass index (BMI), or weight, or tonsil size.
It is well known that kids with enlarged tonsils and adenoids are at increased risk for OSA, Yu noted in a telephone interview with Reuters Health. "Our findings indicate that kids who are obese, have a large neck size and do not have adenotonsil (enlargement) are at increased risk for having OSA syndrome."
"Even if a child does not have big adenoids and tonsils," Yu concluded, "you have to still ask about sleep apnea symptoms, especially if the child has a big neck and is overweight."
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June 16: Diabetes Might Help Spur Hearing Loss, The Washington Post
MONDAY, June 16 (HealthDay News) -- Hearing impairment may be a common, under-recognized complication of diabetes, suggests a U.S. study.
"We found that hearing loss was much more common in people with diabetes than people without the disease. The hearing loss we detected did not seem to be caused by other factors such as exposure to loud noises, certain medicines, and smoking," lead researcher Kathleen E. Bainbridge said in a prepared statement.
She and her colleagues analyzed data from 5,140 people, ages 20 to 69, who completed a hearing test and a diabetes questionnaire as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999 to 2004.
The age-adjusted prevalence of low- or mid-frequency hearing impairment of mild or greater severity in the ear with the worst hearing was 21.3 percent among the 399 adults with diabetes compared to 9.4 percent among the 4,741 adults without diabetes.
The age-adjusted prevalence of high-frequency hearing impairment of mild or greater severity in the ear with the worst hearing was 54.1 percent among adults with diabetes and 32 percent among those without diabetes.
Diabetes can damage small blood vessels and nerves in the body.
"It is possible that high blood sugar levels damage the small blood vessels and nerves of the inner ear, resulting in hearing impairment. People with diabetes might benefit from having their hearing checked," Bainbridge said.
The study was published on the Web site of the journalAnnals of Internal Medicine.
The editors of the journal noted that diabetes was self-reported by the people in this study and was verified in only a small percentage of participants. In addition, the researchers didn't distinguish between type 1 and type 2 diabetes, and participants self-reported their history of noise exposure.
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June 23: Close tie between diabetes and sleep apnea, American Medical News
Physicians are urged to check for co-existing conditions to catch multiple ills, including hypertension.
By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff.
Washington -- Now that several studies have detected a strong link between type 2 diabetes and obstructive sleep apnea, physicians should consider checking for both conditions in patients who seem to have only one, according to a new statement from the International Diabetes Federation, an umbrella organization of more than 200 groups in 160 countries, headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.
"While type 2 diabetes is recognized as a serious global epidemic, the severe health consequences of untreated sleep apnea -- especially in people with diabetes -- are not," said Paul Zimmet, MD, PhD, co-chair of the federation's Task Force on Epidemiology and Prevention.
Apnea is linked to cardiovascular disease as well as daytime sleepiness. Plus, studies have shown that treating sleep apnea can improve blood glucose levels.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force released a recommendation to screen for diabetes if a patient's treated or untreated blood pressure routinely equals or exceeds 135/80 mm Hg.
A universal goal is to catch and treat diabetes as early as possible. Since many people have type 2 diabetes for years before symptoms begin, the earlier it is detected, the better, noted the task force in a statement in the June 3 Annals of Internal Medicine. If left untreated, the high blood glucose levels that characterize the disease can lead to blindness, kidney failure, nerve damage and heart disease.
The IDF's statement, which was to be presented June 7 at the American Diabetes Assn.'s annual scientific sessions in San Francisco, places the medical community on alert. "It is imperative that we better understand the relationship between diabetes and sleep apnea through research and establish appropriate standards of care for managing diabetes and co-morbidities such as sleep apnea," said Dr. Zimmet, who is also the foundation director for the International Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia.
Recent studies have shown that as many as 40% of people with sleep apnea have type 2 diabetes and that more than half of those with type 2 diabetes have some form of sleep disorder, according to IDF.
People with obstructive sleep apnea should be screened routinely for metabolic disease and type 2 diabetes. People with diabetes should be checked for sleep apnea, particularly when presenting with classic symptoms such as witnessed apneas, heavy snoring or daytime sleepiness, and poor workplace performance, said the IDF statement.
Treatment for sleep apnea includes weight reduction in overweight people, reduction of alcohol intake and the use of continuous positive airway pressure.
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June 19: Brain's Olfactory Bulb Grows With Sense of Smell, HealthDay News
Finding could lead to better treatment when problems occur
-- Robert Preidt
THURSDAY, June 19 (HealthDay News) -- The olfactory bulb in the brain -- the brain's "smell center" -- may change in size as a person's sense of smell changes, a German study reports.
In this study, researchers at the University of Dresden Medical School studied 20 people with loss of sense of smell. At the start of the study, the patients underwent an assessment that included MRI of the brain and nasal endoscopy, an examination of the inside of the nose using a flexible instrument called an endoscope. Their ability to detect odors, discriminate between odors and identify particular odors was also tested. The full assessment was repeated 13 to 19 months later.
At the first assessment, seven of the 20 patients had no sense of smell (anosmia) and 13 had a reduced sense of smell (hyposmia). At the second assessment, six had anosmia and 14 had hyposmia, the study found.
In patients who initially had hyposmia, the volume of the olfactory bulb increased as the patients' sense of smell increased. But there was no correlation between the volume of the olfactory bulb and the ability to distinguish between or identify specific odors.
The study was published in the June issue of the journal Archives of Otolaryngology -- Head & Neck Surgery.
"The correlation between olfactory bulb volume and olfactory function may potentially be used in combination with other factors influencing olfaction such as remaining olfactory function, age and duration of olfactory loss as a means to provide patients with individual information on the prognosis of their disease," the study authors wrote.
"Hypothetically, a multifactorial approach could be applied to eventually come up with a formula that would allow a more precise prognosis of olfactory function. Especially since therapeutic options in patients with olfactory loss are limited, at present, this type of information is of high clinical significance."
More information
The U.S. National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders has more about smell disorders.
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June 20: Pacifiers use link to ear infections, BBC News
By Emma Wilkinson
Health reporter, BBC News
Parents should avoid using a dummy (British word for pacifier) in infants who are prone to ear infections, research suggests.
In a five-year study of almost 500 Dutch children, researchers found almost double the risk of recurrent ear infections in those who used a dummy.
Writing in the Family Practice journal they said doctors should advise parents of the risk.
Scientifically known as acute otitis media, ear infections are very common in young children.
Antibiotics do not generally work and the infection tends clear on its own within a few days but some children are prone to repeated bouts.
The researchers from University Medical Center, Utrecht said some studies before had found a link between dummy use and ear infections but they had not been very accurate.
Their research followed 476 children aged under four years, 216 of whom used a dummy.
There was a 90% increased risk of recurrent ear infections in those who sucked a dummy compared with those who did not.
Susceptibility
The researchers said results suggested that the first infection may increase susceptibility to future ear infections.
And using a dummy may allow bacteria to more easily migrate from secretions in the nose to the middle ear, they suggested.
Study leader, Dr Maroeska Rovers, said: "Paediatricians and GPs can use this information in their daily practice - they can dissuade parents from using a pacifier [dummy] once their child has been diagnosed with acute otitis media to avoid recurrent episodes."
Professor Steve Field, chair of the Royal College of GPs said there had been previous studies but they had not been put together very well.
"This is a very useful piece of research that shows use of dummies in children under the age of four who have a history of ear infections is not a good idea.
"There's no need to panic but - in those children - not using a dummy is likely to prevent recurrence."
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June 23: In cancer war, viruses can be good guys, McClatchy Newspapers
By Robert S. Boyd
WASHINGTON — Viruses aren't always the bad guys. Sure, they can cause colds, measles, AIDS and other miseries. But with some tinkering, these tiny organisms may become a new and better way to treat cancer.
In the last few years, scientists have been genetically engineering various viruses so they attack cancer cells but leave healthy cells alone. These "oncolytic" — cancer-destroying — viruses are being tested in hundreds of terminally ill patients for whom surgery, radiation and chemotherapy have failed.
Several of these experimental viruses target malignant brain tumors, like the incurable glioma that's afflicting Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
"The past two years have seen several major advances in oncolytic virotherapy," David Kirn, the president of Jennerex Biotherapeutics Inc., a biotechnology firm in San Francisco, reported in the journal Gene Therapy in April. "A large number of clinical trials have been carried out. Safety in humans has been demonstrated in more than 800 patients."
So far, no cancer-killing virus has received U.S. government approval for general use in humans, but dozens of clinical trials are under way to determine their safety and effectiveness.
Some could be ready for doctors to use in the next two or three years, said Dr. Frank McCormick, a cancer researcher at the University of California in San Francisco. He cautioned, however, that many hurdles remain to be overcome before viral therapy will be part of usual medical practice.
Ways must be found to defeat the body's natural immune system, which is primed to destroy invading viruses. Early results show that viruses can shrink a local tumor, but stopping cancer from spreading, or metastasizing, is much harder, McCormick said.
"The real need is systemic treatment for metastatic disease," McCormick said. "We're not there yet with this technology."
Despite the doubts, at least six species of viruses are candidates for cancer therapy.
For example, researchers are working with a harmless virus that sits in the lungs and intestines of most people. It's called a "reovirus," short for respiratory enteric orphaned virus. A Canadian company, Oncolytics Biotech, fiddles with reovirus genes to produce Reolysin, a virus that attacks a wide variety of cancers.
In a trial headed by Dr. James Markert, a neurosurgeon at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, 44 patients with brain cancer received injections of Reolysin. Preliminary results are encouraging, Markert said. "We're very optimistic that viral therapy will be one of our weapons in the fight against cancer. It could be a major piece of the puzzle."
Drs. Monica Mita and Francis Giles, at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, are testing reovirus against bone and lung cancer.
The cancer in one of Mita's experimental patients, Kenneth Scott, has remained stable since he received an experimental injection of Reolysin a year ago.
According to Mita, the side effects of reovirus are similar to a mild cold, compared with the more serious impacts of chemotherapy.
There are multiple strategies for a virus to attack cancer, Kirn said. The virus can worm its way inside a cancer cell, multiply and kill the cell. It can act as a tiny truck or "Trojan horse," sneaking cancer-killing substances into the target cell. It can gum up the environment around a tumor so that the cancer can't spread.
Other viruses being tested as weapons against cancer include:
• The common herpes virus, the source of cold sores and genital lesions. A modified herpes virus called HSV1716 has passed preliminary tests for safety and effectiveness against brain tumors and melanoma. It's undergoing an advanced clinical trial in Great Britain.
Markert and colleagues are testing another herpes virus, known as G207, against brain cancer. "Some patients had remarkable successes," Markert said.
• Vaccinia, the first vaccine against smallpox, which Edward Jenner, an English country doctor, discovered in 1796. Also known as poxvirus, it's the basis of JX-594, an anti-cancer product developed by Jennerex in San Francisco.
In a preliminary trial, 14 end-stage liver and lung cancer patients were injected with the JX-594 virus. Half of them survived for more than eight months, well past their life expectancies of three to four months, Kirn told a meeting of the American Gene Therapy Association in Boston in May.
• A modified cold virus, called H101, which the Chinese government approved in 2005 for use against head and neck cancers.
"This is the first oncolytic virus product approved by a governmental agency for human use," Kirn reported.
China is "more open-minded about trying these novel biological therapies than people here," McCormick said. China requires only that a drug reduce the size of a cancerous tumor, not necessarily prove that it prolongs a patient's life.
"Getting approval based on patient survival is very different than just showing a shrinking of tumors," McCormick said. "Rightly, our FDA would not approve that sort of thing."
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June 24: Long-standing hay fever may impede nasal airflow, Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People with persistent allergic rhinitis -- better known as hay fever -- may experience a progressive worsening of nasal airflow depending on how long they have the disorder, according to Italian researchers.
Dr. Giorgio Ciprandi, of Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria San Martino, Genoa, Italy, and colleagues assessed nasal function (i.e., nasal airflow) in 100 patients with persistent allergic rhinitis. Half the patients had short-term rhinitis (not more than 2 years) and half were long-term sufferers (rhinitis of at least 6 years' duration).
Those with long-term rhinitis had significantly lower nasal airflow values than those with short-term rhinitis; the average airflow rates were 348 versus 466 milliliters per second, the team reports in the medical journal Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.
Looked at another way, the data showed that the duration of hay fever was significantly shorter in individuals with moderate obstruction than in those with severe obstruction.
A reduced response to decongestants for treating allergic rhinitis may indicate that nasal passages have undergone remodeling, Ciprandi and his colleagues explain. "Preliminary findings of another study conducted in allergic rhinitis patients would seem to support this idea, as a progressive reduction of nasal airflow reversibility significantly depends on duration of the disorder," they write.
SOURCE: Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, June 2008.
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June 27: iPhone, M.D., Wall Street Journal Health Blog
Posted by Shelly Banjo
Everybody wants a piece of health IT, and everybody wants a piece of the iPhone.
So perhaps it’s inevitable that software companies are rushing to create health-related iPhone applications for doctors and patients.
All the hyperventilating will only increase next month, when Apple launches the iPhone 3G — and, along with it, the iTunes AppStore, which Steve Jobs et al. hope will serve all your smartphone health needs.
Because we’re not above a little hyperventilating ourselves, here’s a look at some iPhone health apps for patients and docs.
For Patients:
- A.D.A.M symptom navigator: Type in your health symptoms and the tool helps you determine what they mean, whether to self-treat or seek professional medical attention. (Free)
- medfileOnline: A web service to store medical information and records. ($.99 per month)
- Mynetdiary.com: A food and exercise diary and weight loss program. (From $7 per month)
- Pocket First Aid Guide: Offers quick instructions on how to treat anything from bee stings to burns. (Free)
For Doctors:
- Epocrates Software: A drug reference that includes dosage, interactions, retail pricing and health plan coverage. A new non-browser based for the iPhone comes out in July and will also include pill photos and a pill identifier. (Free)
- Modality Learning: A medical reference tool for students offering titles like the Atlas of Human Anatomy and features such as flash cards and pop quizzes. ($29.99)
- MIMVista: Medical imaging software that lets doctors and patients view radiological images, such as MRI, CT and PET scans. Users can adjust zoom and angles and merge two different images together. (Free)
- iPharmacy: A generic and name-brand drug database that lets you browse thousands of drug descriptions, dosage, symptoms, side effects. (Free)
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100 South Ellsworth Avenue, Suite 308, San Mateo CA 94401
tel 650/344 6896 fax 650/344 2794
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805 Veterans Boulevard, Suite 115, Redwood City CA 94063
tel 650/369 1619 fax 650/474 2997
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