Steve's News

Artificial intelligence can transform medicine in a myriad of ways, including its promise to act as a trusted diagnostic aide to busy clinicians.

Results from the NRG Oncology GOG-0263 phase III clinical trial testing the addition of cisplatin-based chemotherapy to adjuvant radiotherapy following radical hysterectomy and lymphadenectomy for patients with early-stage, intermediate-risk cervical carcinoma indicated that the addition of chemotherapy did not improve outcomes for patients and led to increased toxicity for patients.

Bioengineering professor and The Grainger College of Engineering’s Dean, Rashid Bashir, led a team of researchers in a project that’s resulted in new technology that offers rapid, highly sensitive detection of multi-drug-resistant bacteria and other pathogens at low concentrations.

Rebecca Smith-Bindman, a professor at the University of California-San Francisco medical school, has spent well over a decade researching the disquieting risk that one of modern medicine’s most valuable tools, computerized tomography scans, can sometimes cause cancer. Smith-Bindman and like-minded colleagues have long pushed for federal policies aimed at improving safety for patients undergoing CT scans. Under new Medicare regulations effective this year, hospitals and imaging centers must start collecting and sharing more information about the radiation their scanners emit. About 93 million CT scans are performed every year in the United States, according to IMV, a medical market research company that tracks imaging. More than half of those scans are for people 60 and older. Yet there is scant regulation of radiation levels as the machines scan organs and structures inside bodies. Dosages are erratic, varying widely from one clinic to another, and are too often unnecessarily high, Smith-Bindman and other critics say. “It’s unfathomable,” Smith-Bindman said. “We keep doing more and more CTs, and the doses keep going up.” One CT scan can expose a patient to 10 or 15 times as much radiation as another, Smith-Bindman said. “There is very large variation,” she said, “and the doses vary by an order of magnitude — tenfold, not 10% different — for patients seen for the same clinical problem.” In outlier institutions, the variation is even higher, according to research she and a team of international collaborators have published. She and other researchers estimated in 2009 that high doses could be responsible for 2% of cancers. Ongoing research shows it’s probably higher, since far more scans are performed today. The cancer risk from CT scans for any individual patient is very low, although it rises for patients who have numerous scans throughout their lives. Radiologists don’t want to scare off patients who can benefit from imaging, which plays a crucial role in identifying life-threatening conditions like cancers and aneurysms and guides doctors through complicated

March 6 Zach Dyer reads this week’s news: The current bird flu outbreak is gaining momentum despite mass culling of infected poultry, and the Trump administration is embracing the conservative policy playbook known as Project 2025. Feb. 27 Katheryn Houghton reads this week’s news: Republicans in Congress are considering cuts to Medicaid, and the dietary supplement industry is hoping to cash in on RFK Jr.’s new role as head of the Department of Health and Human Services. Feb. 20 Jackie Fortiér reads this week’s news: Some states are turning to laundromats to reach people who could qualify for programs including Medicaid and food assistance, and cross-border telehealth is helping Spanish-speaking farmworkers get care. Feb. 13 Sam Whitehead reads this week’s news: Hospital systems are looking for ways to help people in the U.S. without legal status get care, and some schools say staffing shortages make it hard to meet the needs of students with diabetes who use continuous glucose monitors. Feb. 6 Katheryn Houghton delivers this week’s news: Pediatricians believe a decline in childhood vaccination rates could drive a return of deadly vaccine-preventable diseases, and addiction experts say legalizing sports betting has downsides for health. Jan. 30 Renu Rayasam delivers this week’s news: There are still no proven therapies for long covid despite more than $1 billion in federal funding, and some hospitals are assigning dogs to work alongside medical staff in hospitals to help them cope with burnout and stress. Jan. 23 This week on the KFF Health News Minute: Stable housing is scarce for a rapidly increasing number of homeless seniors, and insurers sometimes deny coverage for prosthetic limbs by deeming them experimental or not medically necessary. Jan. 16 This week on the KFF Health News Minute: AI tools in medicine might not save money, and credit agencies can no longer include medical debt on credit reports. Jan. 9 This week on the KFF Health News Minute: Small interventions at the doctor’s office