Diseases & Conditions Archive

A constant drone of low-level traffic noise may slightly raise your risk of cardiovascular disease, according to British researchers.

The study included data from the nearly 450,000 people admitted to London hospitals with cardiovascular disease over an eight-year period. Researchers estimated how much traffic noise these people were exposed to, day and night.

Get to know your triggers and ways to prevent flare-ups.

If a growth or mole looks like a melanoma, the doctor will take a biopsy to confirm the diagnosis. This entails removing either a sample of tissue or else the entire growth and some surrounding skin, and examining the tissue under a microscope to determine whether it's cancer. Depending on how deep a melanoma is, additional tissue may have to be removed. In some cases, lymph nodes may be removed, too. A procedure called sentinel node biopsy can show whether the lymph node nearest the tumor contains any cancer cells. If it does, surgery to remove additional nodes right away can improve survival.

In addition to surgery, treatments for melanoma include immunotherapy (which strengthens the immune system against the cancer), chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. Newer, so-called targeted treatments include drugs that target specific genetic changes seem in people with certain forms of melanoma. For example, about half of melanomas have genetic changes (mutations) in a gene called BRAF, which signals melanoma cells to grow and divide quickly. Drugs that inhibit BRAF, such as vemurafenib (Zelboraf ) and dabrafenib (Tafinlar), and related proteins are now available.

Physical therapy is helpful for wear-and-tear knee osteoarthritis, especially if you start doing it early. But injecting a painful knee with an anti-inflammatory steroid medication before starting physical therapy offers no additional benefit, according to a clinical trial in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Studies have shown that physical therapy modestly reduces pain and improves daily functioning in people with knee osteoarthritis. That could mean being able to walk farther with less pain or to continue leisure activities such as gardening. Before you start physical therapy, your doctor may offer to inject the knee with a cocktail of anti-inflammatory steroid medication and an anesthetic. Hypothetically, this could make it easier for you to stick with exercise and therefore lead to better results.

A driving assessment program can help identify your strengths and weaknesses and suggest ways to improve your driving skills.

The sense of freedom and independence that comes with driving is as important at 65 as it is at 16. But driving skills may start to falter as we age, an issue many people choose to ignore. "We all seem to be in denial about driving in our older years. No one wants to give it up. The good news is that you may not have to," says Lissa Kapust, a social worker at Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Wear sunscreen, and avoid direct exposure to the sun.

Knee replacements can restore your mobility, but you don't want to get one too soon—or wait too long.

Q. I have sciatica. I also have vertebral fractures caused by osteoporosis. I'd like to get physical therapy for my sciatica but am worried about damaging my spine further. What do you advise?

A. I am glad that you are interested in pursuing physical therapy to treat the sciatica. It's the best treatment for it. The physical therapist is likely to show you how to do gentle stretching exercises for your upper legs, buttocks, and back, as well as how to use your back, core, and legs more effectively to avoid worsening the strain on your sciatic nerve. She will also train you to do exercises to strengthen your back and core. None of these maneuvers will damage the bones in your back. But it's important for you to tell the therapist that you do have osteoporosis and vertebral fractures. She will keep that in mind as she works with you.

Strokes hit women hard. Self-care is key to preventing a stroke and minimizing the damage if you have one.

This year an estimated 425,000 women will have a stroke, and 55,000 will die from one. Women are more likely than men to have strokes, and they are also more likely to be disabled or to die from them.

Now we have a better tool to calculate your chance of a brain attack if you've been diagnosed with afib.

Atrial fibrillation (afib) is among the most common heart rhythm irregularities. During a bout of afib, the usually rhythmic contractions of the heart muscle's upper chambers (the atria) are replaced by an ineffectual quiver that does not completely move blood out of the heart chamber. As a result, blood can stagnate and form clots. These clots can then travel to the brain and cause an ischemic stroke.