Health Newsfeed – Johns Hopkins Medicine Podcasts

Cancer of the esophagus can be challenging to treat, and when it’s diagnosed a number of studies are appropriate to fully evaluate the disease. That’s according to Richard Battafarano, director of thoracic surgery at Johns Hopkins. Battafarano: Undergoing endoscopic ultrasound there's a special probe that can look to see how deep these esophageal cancers travel into the wall of

Esophagus cancer awareness month has just ended, and Richard Battafarano, director of thoracic surgery at Johns Hopkins, says while some people may have this type of cancer and not know it, the majority will have a range of symptoms. Battafarano: Well sometimes patients are feeling well and are having a routine upper endoscopy and they are found to have a tumor and when the endosco

Bladder cancer treatment is about to change dramatically based on a trial showing that adding an antibody to a toxic substance is much more effective than current treatments. Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer director William Nelson describes this class of pharmaceuticals. Nelson: They're called antibody dependent drug conjugates. The antibody itself has the ability to bind something ver

Stool based tests to screen for colorectal cancer have been around for some time and work pretty well. Now one of the most utilized ones has been improved, a clinical trial shows. William Nelson, director of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, says the word to the wise is use them annually. Nelson: This is well known for stool blood tests, they work better if you do them eve

A blood test to screen for cancer is something of a Holy Grail, and now a new study describes one for colorectal cancer. Kimmel Cancer Center director William Nelson at Johns Hopkins says while there is still quite a bit of work to do on this test, it is promising. Nelson: These were adults who were going to undergo colonoscopy to look for colorectal cancer or polyps, and it was a

Pulse oximeters, vital for measuring how much oxygen is in someone’s blood, don’t work well in people with darker skin, multiple studies have shown. Ashraf Fawzy, a critical care medicine expert at Johns Hopkins, says even the degree to which these devices report aberrant values varies. Fawzy: Some studies showed that the discrepancy changes throughout the day for the same pers

Just how inaccurate are the devices used to measure oxygen in the blood, called pulse oximeters, in people with darker skin? That’s the question that Ashraf Fawzy, a critical care medicine expert at Johns Hopkins, and colleagues addressed in a recent study. Fawzy: There is a gradation of how inaccurate the pulse oximeter is based on the skin pigmentation. We measured skin pigment

Pulse oximeters are essential to measure someone’s level of oxygen in their blood, yet they haven’t been updated since the 1970s and they’re not well regulated by the FDA. That’s according to Ashraf Fawzy, a critical care medicine expert at Johns Hopkins, whose research has shown that in people with darker skin tones inaccuracy abounds. Fawzy: We're seeing that this problem

If you’re a person with darker skin, a device to measure oxygen in your blood called a pulse oximeter may be inaccurate, sometimes extremely so, accumulating research shows. Ashraf Fawzy, a critical care medicine expert at Johns Hopkins and one author of a study examining these devices, says while we are waiting for a technology fix, another avenue should be pursued.  Fawzy:

Pulse oximeters are devices used to measure how much oxygen is in someone’s blood, and they are critical in settings like ICUs. Yet research shows that in people of darker skin tones they can be wildly inaccurate. Ashraf Fawry, a critical care medicine expert at Johns Hopkins, says these devices are sadly in need of an update. Fawzy: Think about every other technology we've had.