Germany - The Federal Associations of Health Insurance Funds and the German Hospitals Association are now following Germany's Regulation 1 on the co-admission of child/adolescent patients and accompanying adults.
UK - Over 100,000 asylum seekers have been relocated throughout London and England's southeast, to spread the cost of their medical care.
Germany - 0.7% of newborn babies need surgery for congenital heart defects (CHD) - i.e. around 5,000-6,000 children in every 700,000 born.
Breathlessness, the most common symptom in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), greatly reduces their ability to participate in day-to-day activities.
More sensitive dissemination tests are needed for patients with locoregionally recurrent (LRR) breast cancer, according to a paper by Dutch researchers published online by the European Journal of Cancer (Volume 40, Issue 10 , 7/2004).
TB causes three million deaths annually, ranking it higher than any other infectious disease. And TB has resurged in Europe. In August, the British Thoracic Society, British Lung Foundation and TB Alert highlighted its increase in over the last 15 years in the UK alone.
Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a major healthcare problem with 1-2% of the population affected in Western countries. Because it increases with age, the prevalence of CHF is escalating with our aged populations.
Germany's Federal Committee of Physicians and Statutory Health Insurance Funds set up three model projects, based in Bremen, Wiesbaden and Weser-Ems, to trial the third edition of the European guidelines on healthcare within the German system and to develop the necessary organisational structures to make these work.
Monitoring and rapidly introducing new developments into everyday practice is an increasingly difficult task for many doctors. Additionally, patients are more informed due to media medical reports, which raise their expectations that doctors can offer a quick, reliable interpretation of the latest medical data.
The most expensive behavioural healthcare diagnosis, for sufferers and their insurers, is bipolar disorder, according to a study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry (160:1286-1290, July 2003).
G-ogo sport, a new innovation from Dr. Goettfert Systems, uses a pulsing magnetic field to stimulate cell metabolism.
The Biotronik Home Monitoring Service, which gained CE approval in May, has now monitored over 1,500 patients worldwide. Studies indicate that 88% of patients claim an increased sense of security due to the service.
The biomechanical features of the human ankle inspired the design of a new safety tip called Fedrofuss.
Medication regimes based on cocktails of antiretroviral drugs can reduce the AIDS virus to almost undetectable levels.
France - Less than 50% of those affected by bowel cancer survive beyond five years after diagnosis. However, new research* surprisingly suggests that a high calorie diet may increase chances of survival for longer.
France - Four studies of three TAXUS paclitaxel-eluting stents have demonstrated their safety and efficacy, according to the maker, Boston Scientific Corporation of Natick, Maryland, USA.
Prostate cancer, the most common neoplasm in men, often progresses from an androgen-dependant state (and is commonly treated by androgen ablation therapies) to a hormone-refractory stage, therefore making hormone therapy ineffective. The response duration to androgen ablation therapy is finite and ultimately most prostate cancer will become hormone-insensitive.
Professor Wolfgang Schlegel, Head of the Department of Medical Physics at the German Cancer Research Centre, has been awarded the 2003 clinical section of the German Cancer Award, for significantly improving the precision with which radiation beams can be directed at a tumour.