Patients

Hernias are a common ailment among Americans; more than 4 million people develop the painful condition. And although both men and women develop hernias, female patients may be harder to diagnose. Doctors and patients may not realize the abdominal pain a woman is feeling is because of a hernia. Dr. Hien Nguyen, assistant professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said the pain can be mistaken for other conditions with similar symptoms, such as adhesions from prior surgery, endometriosis, fibroids and ovarian cysts.

It is well known that HPV (human papillomavirus) can lead to deadly cervical cancer in women, but the virus is causing cancer in men as well. Throat cancers caused by HPV are showing up typically in men with little or no history of smoking, said Dr. Kevin J. Cullen, an oncologist who specializes in treating head and neck cancers. Cullen, the director of the University of Maryland's Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center, talks about the growing cases of HPV-related throat cancers.

It is well known that HPV (human papillomavirus) can lead to deadly cervical cancer in women, but the virus is causing cancer in men as well. Throat cancers caused by HPV are showing up typically in men with little or no history of smoking, said Dr. Kevin J. Cullen, an oncologist who specializes in treating head and neck cancers. Cullen, the director of the University of Maryland's Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center, talks about the growing cases of HPV-related throat cancers.

I'm pleased to see The Sun revealing the charges by Maryland hospitals to patients. The differences are astounding. ("Costs vary for same treatment," May 9). Recently, I spent three days and two nights at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center for an allergic reaction I had to an antibiotic given to me for a viral infection. I couldn't believe the amount charged for such a short stay. My bill, $4,745, was astounding. Although Medicare and Blue Cross/Blue Shield paid most of it, I still had to pay for some of the charges.

The simple act of trying to keep dentures in place can trigger serious health problems, including neurological damage, a new study by University of Maryland researchers warns. Preliminary studies link the zinc in some adhesives to neurological damage and blood abnormalities, at least among patients who squeeze out too much denture cream, too often, trying to keep their teeth anchored. A review of the scientific literature by faculty members at the University of Maryland Dental School has concluded that these health risks "should be a matter of concern for all dentists caring for denture patients.

Up to half of sexually active young people will get a sexually transmitted disease by the time they are 25, yet many don't seek testing because it may be difficult, costly or embarrassing. Public health officials nationally and in particularly affected cities like Baltimore, however, say they've found a method that seems to address the major hurdles — a website that supplies free in-home testing kits for three of the most commonly reported STDs. "The highest prevalence is in young adults, and we knew we had to reach these kids," said Charlotte A. Gaydos, a professor of infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

At one point Saturday, City Hospital in Martinsburg, W.Va., was so overwhelmed with patients injured on the Tough Mudder obstacle course that it had to turn people away from its emergency room. Two people who participated in the race in nearby Gerrardstown, W.Va., suffered heart attacks, according to Teresa McCabe of West Virginia University Hospitals-East, which runs City Hospital. Ten people had hypothermia, orthopedic injuries or head injuries. And two people were treated for drowning, including Avishek Sengupta, a 28-year-old Ellicott City man who died Sunday.

It's a common refrain in Gia D'Anna's office: Extra inches that childbirth or time left around the middle are resisting diet and exercise. D'Anna is the office manager for a Lutherville plastic surgeon, and, as a mother, she sympathizes with the patients. She just got her own flat tummy back last year. Her boss, Dr. Ronald H. Schuster, had bought a machine that aimed to zap muffin tops and love handles via low temperatures. He was looking for volunteers on the staff before he rolled out the service to patients.

Sometimes men are the ones to take care of birth control through a surgical procedure. But when those men and their partners have a change of heart about children for any number of reasons, they seek to reverse their vasectomies. And that's usually possible, even long after the original procedure, says Dr. Brad Lerner, co-director of the Vasectomy Reversal Center of America a division of Chesapeake Urology. Lerner answers questions about getting and reversing a vasectomy. How common are vasectomies?

Although a brilliant surgeon, Dr. Ben Carson must have realized he would also be judged by his views on gay marriage ("Hopkins chides Carson for gay-marriage remarks," April 6). If he had kept them to himself, his thoughts would have remained his personal opinion, which everyone has a right to. But when someone famous for his medical skills publicly shares an opinion as vicious as his, he has crossed a line. As someone who works with physicians and nurses whom Dr. Carson puts into the same category as criminals, I find his attitude cruel and unbecoming.

The call came into the Baltimore County emergency dispatch center just after midnight. An unidentified woman asked police respond to a home in Parkville. She didn't say why. When officers arrived in the first minutes of Sunday, they found 26-year-old Paul White Jr., who had been released from the county jail less than three months earlier, leaving his family's home, police said. Inside, White's mother was found unconscious and bleeding from at least one stab wound from a kitchen knife, and his sister was also found stabbed and bleeding, police said.

Nearly 250 of the patients who accused cardiologist Dr. Mark Midei of performing unnecessary stent procedures at St. Joseph Medical Center settled their lawsuits against him Thursday, a major step forward in one of the largest medical malpractice cases in state history. The agreement was announced in Baltimore County Circuit Court, where lawyers for Midei, the Towson hospital, its former owner and 21 of the patients have been making arguments for several weeks in the cardiologist's first civil trial.

A Linthicum firm is among several orthotics and prosthetics companies that will offer victims of the Boston Marathon bombing artificial limbs at no charge if their insurance doesn't cover all or some of the costs of the devices. Dankmeyer Inc., founded by an amputee who lost a leg in a childhood skating accident, joined with other firms Tuesday in announcing the Coalition to Walk and Run Again. The companies have agreed not to charge victims who provide a doctor's note proving they don't have insurance to cover the devices, which cost $8,000 to $60,000.

What does it require to get members of Congress to take action quickly and decisively on an issue of federal spending? Now we know. The possibility that they will be delayed in an airport terminal somewhere waiting for a flight out of town is apparently so abhorrent that the usual gridlock and party politics just don't apply. That's the take-away from last week's lightning-fast, lopsided bipartisan votes that transferred more than a quarter-billion dollars to the Federal Aviation Administration budget so that the agency would no longer have to furlough air traffic controllers.

John Jenkins knows the heartache of losing a child. But he and six other families have learned firsthand that such tragic deaths needn't be in vain. Jenkins, 56, lost his 20-year-old son 18 years ago to a motorcycle accident. But when 21-year old Joshua L. Aversano died after being struck by a car last year, Jenkins was one of six people whose lives were dramatically changed by the tragedy. Jenkins had been waiting more than two years for a new heart. Doctors were able to harvest not just Aversano's heart, but his liver, kidneys, pancreas and a lung, which also went to waiting patients.

A Sinai Hospital cardiologist is launching a clinical trial of a type of coronary artery disease drug not yet tested in humans, building on a history at the Baltimore hospital of research to develop more effective treatments to prevent blood clotting. Dr. Paul Gurbel is studying an intravenous drug for patients undergoing cardiac stenting, when mesh tubes are implanted to widen blocked arteries. The drug, known for now as PZ-128, would be given to patients after stent implantation to prevent platelets from sticking together around the device, potentially leading to heart attack.

Do you think your doctor is open and honest with you? Maybe not always, according to a new survey. Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the Mongan Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston surveyed 1,891 physicians nationwide and one-tenth said they had told a patient something untruthful in the last year. Nearly 20 percent of physicians surveyed said they had not fully disclosed an error to a patient in the previous year because they feared a malpractice case.

Maryland's 46 acute care hospitals can now all share information electronically on patients admitted, discharged for transferred. The “encounter level” data can be passed along in real time via the Maryland Health Information Exchange , a statewide system of secure information sharing among hospitals, doctors' offices and health organizations, according to Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, who announced the system recently. Some hospitals also are sharing lab and radiology reports, consult notes and other clinical data.

Linda Fletcher lives in fear of reliving a nightmare: a son dying from a heroin overdose. Her son Kris Klipner succumbed to the drug in 2007. He was 28. Klipner's half-brother battles the same kind of depression as Kris. He suffers the same heroin addiction Kris did. Kirk Fletcher, 29, is in a methadone program to help him avoid the drug. He says he has his addiction under control. But he understands his mother's fear that it will return - just as his brother's did. Linda Fletcher is hopeful that some relief is on the way. New legislation, pushed by Fletcher and other parents, backed by the state health department and passed unanimously this year by both chambers of the Maryland General Assembly, creates a statewide program allowing family members of addicts to be prescribed and trained in administering Naloxone.

At one point Saturday, City Hospital in Martinsburg, W.Va., was so overwhelmed with patients injured on the Tough Mudder obstacle course that it had to turn people away from its emergency room. Two people who participated in the race in nearby Gerrardstown, W.Va., suffered heart attacks, according to Teresa McCabe of West Virginia University Hospitals-East, which runs City Hospital. Ten people had hypothermia, orthopedic injuries or head injuries. And two people were treated for drowning, including Avishek Sengupta, a 28-year-old Ellicott City man who died Sunday.