Medical Tests

Re "The testing glut," Opinion, May 2 Kudos to the medical specialty boards for recommending limits to unnecessary testing. A patient without symptoms who undergoes a routine exam will have at least 15 different blood tests done in addition to a number of radiological studies. These tests are usually negative, or they may be borderline and provoke further testing. Medical specialty boards are informing, but physicians must be receptive. Furthermore, patients should know that excessive testing is not good medicine.

Re "Border drones have yet to prove worth," April 29 The looming proliferation of drones is chilling. How is a country that values freedom seemingly OK with this? As someone who has never been arrested, I don't want these creepy unmanned things buzzing over my head. As they become cheaper, drones will fill the skies, and anyone from the neighborhood busybody to a suspicious spouse will employ them. That walk you love in the wilderness will no longer be guaranteed to be yours alone and surveillance-free.

As U.S. physicians face an impending crisis caused by lack of a crucial isotope used in many diagnostic procedures, a U.S. company said Wednesday that it had reached an agreement with the Polish nuclear energy agency to obtain the isotope from a reactor in that country. Covidien, a St. Louis company that processes a radioisotope produced by reactors into a form that can be used in the medical tests, said that Poland's Institute of Atomic Energy will provide enough molybdenum-99 from the agency's Maria Research Reactor to meet the needs of about 1 million patients annually.

Re "San Onofre may never run full bore," May 4 Regarding the $55 million to $65 million cost of returning the San Onofre nuclear power plant to service: How many homes could that money outfit with solar panels? How much energy would that expenditure put into the grid? What tax program benefits could Southern California Edison draw from funding solar installations? What would the return on investment be for such a project? San Onofre's federal license expires in only 10 years.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir underwent medical tests Thursday after being admitted to a hospital complaining of fatigue, an aide said. Shamir, 73, taken to Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital on Wednesday, was expected to be discharged today, his media adviser, Avi Pazner, said. Shamir accidentally bumped his head at home Tuesday but initially continued with his official engagements.

Worldwide Medical Corp., an Irvine provider of medical tests, reported profit of $79,429, contrasted with a loss of $82,587 for the comparable period last year. Revenue rose 340% to $855,367.

After examining ailing Azerbaijani President Heydar A. Aliyev, doctors in Turkey have said that his condition is not serious and that he should be back in this capital before the end of the week. Aliyev, who had seemed in robust health, flew to Ankara, the Turkish capital, on Sunday for medical tests after suffering from bronchitis and a viral infection over the weekend, his doctor said.

The United States could save $20 billion to $30 billion annually by cutting out medical tests and other procedures that doctors carry out solely to avoid malpractice lawsuits, the top U.S. health official said Sunday. "We know that it is in the billions, 20 or 30 billion dollars at the minimum and probably a lot more," Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis W. Sullivan said.

Ronnie Biggs, the ailing former fugitive serving a sentence for Britain's "Great Train Robbery," returned to prison after spending two nights in a London military hospital. Biggs, who spent more than three decades on the run before returning to England in May, left Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where he had received an emergency blood transfusion and undergone medical tests. He was taken back to the medical wing of top-security Belmarsh Prison in southeastern London.

Partial results from medical tests of about 100 bus drivers and other workers following the June fire at the Larry Fricker Co. pesticide warehouse show that "everything (is) fine," a spokeswoman for the Orange County Transit District said. Results from the pulmonary screenings indicate nothing irregular, but officials are still awaiting blood test results, district spokeswoman Joanne Curran said.

Re "The testing glut," Opinion, May 2 Kudos to the medical specialty boards for recommending limits to unnecessary testing. A patient without symptoms who undergoes a routine exam will have at least 15 different blood tests done in addition to a number of radiological studies. These tests are usually negative, or they may be borderline and provoke further testing. Medical specialty boards are informing, but physicians must be receptive. Furthermore, patients should know that excessive testing is not good medicine.

Daniel Ackerman had just completed a grueling physical fitness test required for all Buena Park Police SWAT officers when he became disoriented and stared off into space. An on-site doctor noticed something was wrong and by 8:15 a.m. on Friday, Ackerman was in a squad car heading toward the hospital. The next morning, the 31-year-old was dead. The Irvine resident had no preexisting medical condition and appeared to be in his prime, according to his sister. "He's the healthiest person in the family," said Christie Thompson, 19. "He works out every day, he eats healthy.

Midlife brings with it a host of health concerns — the risk of heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes and osteoporosis, to name a few. So as people reach middle age, they're bombarded with an overwhelming number of recommendations for screenings, tests and to-be-on-the-safe-side preventive measures. But patients and doctors alike are reconsidering screenings once thought to be must-haves for everyone — even mammograms and prostate cancer screenings. The American Cancer Society recommends that women begin yearly mammogram screenings at age 40, but the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force doesn't believe regular screening is necessary for women younger than 50. Both the organization and the task force are more nuanced in their approach to prostate cancer screenings.

Midlife brings with it a host of health concerns — the risk of heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes and osteoporosis, to name a few. So as people reach middle age, they're bombarded with an overwhelming number of recommendations for screenings, tests and just-to-be-on-the-safe-side preventive measures. The list includes mammograms, prostate cancer screenings, colonoscopies, CT scans, cardiac stress tests, thyroid tests, bone density tests, calcium scores and carotid artery ultrasounds.

Nuclear reactors don't just create energy; a few also create medical isotopes vital to medical tests that doctors have come to rely on. The Radiological Society of North America estimates at least 80% of the nearly 20 million nuclear medicine procedures performed in the U.S. each year use technetium-99m, also known as Tc-99. The worldwide radiopharmaceutical shortage, as its called, has affected the ability of doctors to perform cardiac stress tests that use nuclear tracers.

A Canadian nuclear reactor that normally supplies about a third of the world's technetium-99m for medical imaging came back online this week after a 15-month shutdown for repairs that severely impaired physicians' ability to perform many needed tests. The situation was made even worse by the shutdown of a second reactor in the Netherlands that also produced significant amounts of the radioisotope. That reactor is expected to reopen next month. The National Research Universal reactor in Chalk River, Canada, produces radioactive molybdenum-99, which has a half-life of only 66 hours and must be shipped immediately to hospitals and dispensing pharmacies throughout North America.

Beckman Coulter Inc. on Friday posted a better-than-expected fourth-quarter profit, helped by stronger demand for its medical diagnostic tests. "What this highlights is that clinical diagnostics is a very steady business," said Quintin Lai, an analyst with financial services firm Robert W. Baird & Co. "It's not a cyclical business, so all of these macroeconomic issues don't affect it. People still get sick and need treatment."

Angel bench coach Joe Maddon, suffering symptoms similar to the ones that sent him to a St. Petersburg, Fla., hospital in April, returned to Orange County Wednesday for a series of medical tests. The 46-year-old Maddon, who has served two stints as the team's interim manager the past four seasons, told Manager Mike Scioscia in Toronto that he was feeling weak and lightheaded, and experiencing shortness of breath and a tingling sensation in his arms.

As U.S. physicians face an impending crisis caused by lack of a crucial isotope used in many diagnostic procedures, a U.S. company said Wednesday that it had reached an agreement with the Polish nuclear energy agency to obtain the isotope from a reactor in that country. Covidien, a St. Louis company that processes a radioisotope produced by reactors into a form that can be used in the medical tests, said that Poland's Institute of Atomic Energy will provide enough molybdenum-99 from the agency's Maria Research Reactor to meet the needs of about 1 million patients annually.

President Obama on Wednesday night called for a new look at how medical malpractice lawsuits were handled as a possible way of containing spiraling healthcare costs. During his address to Congress, Obama said that fears of lawsuits had driven doctors to practice "defensive medicine," which some think has led to expensive and unnecessary medical tests and procedures. "I don't believe malpractice reform is a silver bullet, but I have talked to enough doctors to know that defensive medicine may be contributing to unnecessary costs," Obama said.