Feature Channels: Women's Health

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• For pregnant women with kidney failure who underwent dialysis for more than 36 hours per week, the live birth rate was 85%, while it was only 48% in women dialyzed for 20 hours or less per week. • Infants were a healthier weight at birth when women were dialyzed for more than 20 hours per week than when women were dialyzed for 20 hours or less per week. • Pregnancy complications were few and manageable in patients receiving intensive dialysis.

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In a Perspective column today in the New England Journal of Medicine, Penn Medicine cardiologist and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar Lisa Rosenbaum, MD, discusses barriers to helping women understand their heart health risks.

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The first guidelines to be issued on stroke prevention in women are now available. These guidelines were developed by the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association to address the unique risk factors for stroke in women.

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More than 14 percent of pregnant women were prescribed opioids (narcotics) for pain at some time during their pregnancy, according to a study posted to the online version of Anesthesiology. Given the surprising rate these medications were prescribed to pregnant women, more research is needed to assess the risk of opioids to unborn babies, the study suggests.

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The Society for Women’s Health Research (SWHR) is the leading voice on research into the biological differences between women and men. SWHR President and CEO Phyllis Greenberger comments on the CBS 60 Minutes segment that aired February 9 on how drugs uniquely affect men and women.

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The good news: More people survive stroke now than 10 years ago due to improved treatment and prevention. The bad news: Women who survive stroke have a worse quality of life than men, according to a study published in the Feb. 7 online issue of the journal Neurology.

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Despite the fact that heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the U.S., about three-quarters (74 percent) of Americans do not fear dying from it, according to a recent survey from Cleveland Clinic.

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Despite strokes’ being on the decline in the U.S., more women are dying from them than are men. Now the AHA and ASA have released guidance on prevention specifically for women.

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FGM is recognised as a form of Non-State Torture (NST), and the consequences of FGM can create an obstacle to girls and women enjoying their human right to education. The International Federation of University Women (IFUW), condemns female genital mutilation (FGM) on the occasion of International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation on 6th February.

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A survey of young women who use tanning beds found that despite being aware of the health risks associated with indoor tanning, they continue to take part in the activity, according to research conducted by University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

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Medical associations widely recommend that women visit their obstetricians and primary care doctors shortly after giving birth, but slightly fewer than half make or keep those postpartum appointments, according to a study by Johns Hopkins researchers.

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New research is lighting up yet another reason for women to quit smoking. In a study published online in the journal Menopause, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania report the first evidence showing that smoking causes earlier signs of menopause – in the case of heavy smokers, up to nine years earlier than average – in white women with certain genetic variations.

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Since the 1970s, the frequency and use of pain relief during childbirth – and most especially the use of epidural analgesia during labor – has increased dramatically. Reports on epidural rates range from 47 percent to as high as 76 percent of vaginal births, while between 39 percent and 56 percent of women use narcotic analgesics – including drugs like Fentanyl – via IV for managing labor and delivery pain. Only about 14 percent of women, the literature reveals, use no pharmacologic method to relieve childbirth pain.

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The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force osteoporosis screening recommendation may not identify the majority of women in the 50–64 age group who would be potential candidates for osteoporosis therapy. Following the strategy may lead to missed opportunities to decrease fracture risk in at-risk women.

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A strong sensation of pressure—what some have described as an elephant sitting on one’s chest—can be one of the red flags that someone is experiencing a heart attack and should seek immediate medical assistance. But if you are a woman, waiting to feel this type of pain may be a mistake. Fifty percent of the time a woman has a heart attack, there will be no chest pain involved, explains Dr. Liliana Cohen, a board-certified cardiologist with Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical Group.

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A multicenter research team led by Cedars-Sinai neurologist Nancy Sicotte, MD, an expert in multiple sclerosis and state-of-the-art imaging techniques, used a new, automated technique to identify shrinkage of a mood-regulating brain structure in a large sample of women with MS who also have a certain type of depression.

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A team of researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has found that moderate to severe hot flashes continue, on average, for nearly five years after menopause, and more than a third of women experience moderate/severe hot flashes for 10 years or more after menopause. Current guidelines recommend that hormone therapy, the primary medical treatment for hot flashes, not continue for more than 5 years.

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February is American Heart Month. “Top 10 Things Women Need to Do to Protect their Hearts,” from cardiovascular disease by leading female cardiovascular experts of Mount Sinai Heart at The Mount Sinai Hospital.

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Like many active women, Ellen Abramson never gave much thought to her risk of heart disease—until the day she suddenly found herself having a heart attack. Ellen shares her experience as survivor of cardiac arrest in the February issue of Heart Insight, a quarterly magazine for patients, their families and caregivers. Heart Insight is published by the American Heart Association (AHA) and Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

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A new study conservatively estimates that one in five women with ovarian cancer has inherited genetic mutations that increase the risk of the disease, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

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A new study by University of Kentucky researchers shows that women who never or rarely screen for breast cancer are also unlikely to receive screening for cervical cancer. The study also identified four key barriers independently associated with the lack of these cancer screenings in Appalachian women.

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Older women who spend a majority of their day sitting or lying down are at increased risk for cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, cancer and death, finds a new study from the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

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UC San Diego Health System has been featured in the latest Becker’s Hospital Review list of “100 Hospitals with Great Women’s Health Programs.”

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Led by Cornell University nutritional scientist Rebecca Seguin, a new study of 93,000 postmenopausal American women found those with the highest amounts of sedentary time – defined as sitting and resting, excluding sleeping – died earlier than their most active peers. The association remained even when controlling for physical mobility and function, chronic disease status, demographic factors and overall fitness – meaning that even habitual exercisers are at risk if they have high amounts of idle time.

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Virtual reality, dance and fun are not the first things that come to mind when we think of treating urinary incontinence in senior women. However, these concepts were the foundations of a promising study .

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Research evidence shows that symptoms of postpartum depression decrease over time—but depression remains a long-term problem for 30 to 50 percent of affected women, according to a report in the January Harvard Review of Psychiatry. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

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As perceived by both patients and doctors, the cosmetic results after "lumpectomy" for breast cancer differ for African-American versus Caucasian women, suggests a pilot study in the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery—Global Open®, the official open-access medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).

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The symptoms of heart disease are often less obvious in women than in men, and as a result, some experts have recommended changing current medical practice and using separate criteria to identify the disease and predict its progression in women. However, new findings in the “Advancing Women’s Health” issue of Clinical Chemistry, the journal of AACC, suggest that sex-specific criteria do not improve the prognostic accuracy of blood tests for diagnosing heart disease.

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The new special “Advancing Women’s Health” issue of Clinical Chemistry, the journal of AACC, showcases nearly 50 studies that close the gap between men’s and women’s healthcare by shedding light on how heart disease, cancer, reproductive problems, and other common health issues manifest differently in women than in men at the molecular and genetic level.

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• Among women on chronic dialysis, sexual inactivity is common, with the most frequently described reasons being lack of interest in sex and lack of a partner. Rarely is sexual difficulty reported as a reason for lack of interest • Most women on chronic dialysis—including those lacking interest in sex—are satisfied with their sex lives.

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In two separate clinical trials, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have found that periodic meetings with a lactation consultant encourages women traditionally resistant to breastfeeding to do so, at least for a few months—long enough for mother and child to gain health benefits.

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A new study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of Maryland School of Public Health found that while three out of four Americans were aware that Angelina Jolie had undergone a preventive double mastectomy, awareness of her story was not associated with an increased understanding of breast cancer risk. The study, published today in Genetics in Medicine, surveyed more than 2,500 adults nationwide three weeks after Jolie revealed in a New York Times op-ed that she had undergone the surgery because she carried a rare genetic mutation of the BRCA1 gene and had a family history of cancer.

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In a nationwide study of women with “triple-negative” breast cancer, adding the chemotherapy drug carboplatin or the angiogenesis inhibitor Avastin to standard chemotherapy drugs brought a sharp increase in the number of patients whose tumors shrank away completely, investigators will report at the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

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Common breast cancer treatments target tumors by blocking or reducing the levels of estrogen in the body. These treatments may be rendered ineffective in patients with high cholesterol, where tumors can rely on the estrogen-mimicking molecule 27HC as an alternative fuel source.

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Pregnant women and women planning to become pregnant can make use of the holiday season to adjust their diets and reduce the risk of gestational diabetes, according to researchers at the University of Adelaide's Robinson Institute.

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Women being treated with breast cancer drugs known as aromatase inhibitors can markedly ease the joint pain associated with the drugs by engaging in moderate daily exercise, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Yale University investigators report in a study to be presented during the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

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Research findings suggest there may be a simple way to reduce the risk of breast cancer by keeping cholesterol in check, either with statins or a healthy diet. Additionally, for women who have breast cancer and high cholesterol, taking statins may delay or prevent resistance to endocrine therapies such as tamoxifen or aromatase inhibitors.

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A remarkable 98.7 percent of certain lower-risk breast cancer patients were cancer free for at least three years after taking a combination of the drugs Herceptin and Taxol, a study has found.

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In a new study, women with relatively small, HER2-positive breast tumors who received a combination of lower-intensity chemotherapy and a targeted therapy following surgery or radiation therapy were very unlikely to have the cancer recur within a few years of treatment, investigators at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and other research centers will report at the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

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Researchers at the Duke Cancer Institute have found that a byproduct of cholesterol functions like the hormone estrogen, fueling the growth and spread of the most common types of breast cancers.

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Exercise can benefit health and improve mood, and now new research shows that it has the potential to restore sexual desire and function in women adversely affected by sexual side effects related to antidepressant use.

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WASHINGTON DC, December 9, 2013 – New research pertaining to the latest findings on the effects of epilepsy on both the mother and child were presented at the American Epilepsy Society’s 67th Annual Meeting in Washington DC. These studies explore folic acid use, the effect of surgery with intractable focal epilepsy, and antiepileptic drug exposure during breastfeeding.

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A UAB study shows early maturing in adolescent girls can increase aggressive and delinquent behavior.

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Vitamin D decreases pain in women with type 2 diabetes and depression, according to a study conducted at Loyola University Chicago. These findings were presented at an Oct. 24, 2013 research conference at Loyola’s Health Sciences Campus.

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For the past 10 years, U.S. clinicians have been performing unnecessary Pap tests for cervical cancer screening in certain groups of women, according to a researcher from Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah.

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Using chest pain characteristics (CPCs) specific to women in the early diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (AMI, heart attack) in the emergency department does not seem to be supported by the findings of a study published by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.