Computed Tomography

Does your brother or sister have heart disease? That may be a better predictor of whether you are at risk than your parents' health history. A study of nearly 8,500 healthy adults in Ohio found that people were 2.5 to three times more likely to have coronary atherosclerosis -- heart and artery disease -- if a brother or sister had already been diagnosed with heart disease.

Researchers in the Netherlands have reported that low-dose computed tomography (CT) scans used for lung cancer screening may also help physicians detect chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, known as COPD, in smokers. Their study was released Tuesday by the journal JAMA. COPD is one of the major causes of death among heavy smokers, and usually presents as chronic bronchitis or emphysema.  Quitting smoking can keep the disease from progressing, but often people don't know they have COPD in the first place.  If looking at CT scans helps physicians catch the disease early, it might prevent illness and death.

A drug used to combat the nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy may provide the first effective treatment for bulimia nervosa, the eating disorder characterized by binge eating followed by vomiting. Dr. Patricia Faris and her colleagues at the University of Minnesota Medical School studied the drug odansetron in 26 women with severe, long-term bulimia. Fourteen received the drug, 12 a placebo.

* Gordon R. Dierks has been named senior vice president of aerospace for Derlan Inc., a Santa Ana manufacturer of aerospace products. Dierks joined Derlan in 1996 as vice president. Before that, he was vice president and general manager of HR Textron's Control Systems Operation. * Pettus Gibbons has joined Kettley Publishing, a Newport Beach provider of software products, sales tools and services for financial professionals, in the newly created position of director of education and training.

Yeeowwwww. You've got a painful feeling in your upper abdomen that goes through to your back. You might also be nauseated and vomiting, have a fever and a rapid pulse. You may also have abdominal swelling and tenderness. And these symptoms came on suddenly. A possible diagnosis is acute pancreatitis, which means your pancreas has become irritated or inflamed. Gallstones and alcohol abuse are the most common culprits behind this condition.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has started construction of the center's new S. Mark Taper Foundation Imaging Center, a 121,000-square-foot medical imaging facility at San Vicente Boulevard and Gracie Allen Drive on the medical center's campus in Los Angeles. Newport Beach-based McCarthy Building Cos. is general contractor for the $34-million project. Construction on the new imaging center is slated to be completed in early 2002.

For busy people, time is money. And when you've got more money than time, the cost of an executive physical examination is kind of like the price of a yacht. If you have to ask, you can't afford it. Tom Gilmore arrived at L.A.'s Good Samaritan Hospital on a bright Friday morning, sporting a dark blue Nike warmup suit the hospital had sent.

For patients who visit an emergency room with chest pains, but who don't have an abnormal EKG or elevated troponin levels, a CT scan can send them home earlier than conventional diagnostic procedures, doctors reported Wednesday. The patients are exposed to higher levels of radiation and the cost is slightly higher, but those effects are offset somewhat by the increased peace of mind associated with leaving the hospital sooner, the team reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Children who are brought to a hospital's emergency department after a blow to the head are often rushed into a CT scanner so physicians can rule out dangerous bleeding in the brain. But when emergency doctors wait to see if a child's dizziness, nausea, headache or disorientation subside, they can reduce the use of potentially risky CT scans without raising the risk they will miss a problem requiring immediate surgery, says a new study . The research, published in the journal Pediatrics , comes against the backdrop of two trends: the rising rate of concussion-related ER visits by younger kids , and the exploding use of CT, or computed tomography , scans, despite growing concerns about the high dose of radiation and heightened cancer risk they pose.