The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that influenza was associated with 10,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths in the United States during the 2021-2022 season. What’s noteworthy, is that these figures represent a remarkable decrease in hospitalizations and deaths due to influenza, when compared to the previous eight years in the U. S.
From January to December 2022, COVID-19 was the primary or contributing cause of approximately 244,000 deaths in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is a type of chronic inflammatory arthritis that causes joint swelling, pain and stiffness. It’s associated with psoriasis, a skin condition characterized by red, thick, itchy, scaly patches. Both inflammatory arthritis and psoriasis are an autoimmune disease, meaning the immune system mistakenly attacks its own healthy tissues leading to joint inflammation and skin lesions. Approximately eighty per cent of the time, psoriasis precedes the onset of arthritis. PsA can occur at any age, but most commonly presents in people between the ages of 30 and 50.
Years ago, I was examining a young woman whom I had known since she was a teenager. She was happily employed as a social worker. “How are you doing? How’s the family?”
Breast cancer is the second common cancer in the United States after skin cancer. It’s more common than lung, prostate, or colorectal cancers. It accounts for 14% of cancers in the U. S. with 300,900 new cases anticipated in 2023 according to the National Cancer Institute.
In January of 2023, the American Cancer Society estimated there’ll be about 82,290 new cases of bladder cancer, and about 16,710 deaths from bladder cancer in the United States. Men are about three times more likely to be stricken by bladder cancer (BLCA) than women. A previous article discussed the symptoms, and diagnosis of bladder cancer. This article will discuss how grading and staging of the tumor predict your survival, and treatment.
Bladder cancer ranks as the fourth most common form of cancer among men, and sixth among women. Men get it three times more frequently compared to women, although women may be diagnosed when their cancer is at a more advanced stage. Smoking is the most significant risk factor for bladder cancer; and the presence of blood in the urine is a red alert, a danger sign, signaling doctors to rule out cancer as the underlying reason for this bloody finding.
With warmer weather, outdoor activities have become more popular. On a summery day, you can see men and women in their tennis whites swinging their racquets and hear the “booms and pops” the tennis balls make. Occasionally a player complains of discomfort and pain in the elbow and wonders, “Might this be the beginning of tennis elbow?”
An anxious mother takes her child to the Pediatrician concerned about a bump that appeared “out of nowhere” on one the side of the neck. Another mother is worried about swollen lymph nodes on both sides of her child’s neck that haven’t gone away after two months.
In 1951, Johns Hopkins was the only hospitals in Baltimore that treated African American patients. Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman, was examined by the doctors at the hospital after she felt a “knot” in her “womb.” After a series of tests at the hospital, Mrs. Lacks was informed she had cervical cancer. She received various treatments which included radiation therapy. But nine months after the diagnosis, Mrs. Lacks was dead.