A.
Ethics Consultations Found Useful in Resolving Conflicts
about Care
Narrator:This
is Science Today. At some point in our lives, many
of us will be faced with difficult and confusing
decisions about medical treatment for a seriously
ill loved one or for ourselves. To help us make
those decisions, every hospital offers professional
guidance in the form of an ethics consultation.
Felicia Cohn, director of medical ethics at the
University of California, Irvine, participated in
a study that found ethics consultations were beneficial
for intensive care patients.
Cohn:
What ethics consultations are designed to do is
to help families, patients, and health care team
members make difficult decisions about treatment
plans.
Narrator:
Ethics consultations are also useful in resolving
disputes that may result in inappropriately prolonged,
non-beneficial or unwanted treatments.
Cohn:
We come in and assess the medical situation and
the preferences of everyone involved to determine
if it's ethically appropriate to withdraw certain
treatments in a particular situation.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
A Gene that Controls a Cell's Life or Death Switch
Narrator:
This
is Science Today. Everyday, a large number of our
cells are committing a preprogrammed process of
cell suicide, or apoptosis. It's a process that's
essential to life, as it kills off dangerous, toxic
cells or those, which if not stopped, will go on
to become cancer. But it's a delicate balance, as
too much cell death leads to degenerative diseases.
Now, researchers at the University of California,
Santa Barbara, have discovered a new gene that controls
this life or death switch. Molecular biologist Joel
Rothman led the team.
Rothman:
If we eliminated the function of this particular
gene, which we call ICD-1, for Inhibitor of Cell
Death Gene 1, that resulted in widespread cell death.
In fact, we were able to cause what is very much
like a neurodegenerative disease of the type that
occurs in humans.
Narrator:
This finding led to the further discovery of up
to one hundred similar genes.
Rothman:
Some of the genes that we've identified themselves
are already known to be involved in degenerative
diseases and in cancer.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
Exploring the Link Between Air Pollution and Heart
Disease in the Elderly
Narrator:
This is Science Today. The National Institutes of
Health will fund the nation's first public health
study to explore the link between ultrafine particles
in air pollution and the severity of heart disease
in the elderly. Dr. Ralph Delfino, an epidemiologist
at the University of California, Irvine will lead
the study, which is set to begin next summer in
Southern California.
Delfino:
It's the first study of its kind to follow elderly
subjects with coronary heart disease in relation
to personal exposures to ultra-fine particulate
matter in the air by actually following individuals
repeatedly over time, including a component in which
the subjects will wear electrocardiograms and blood
pressure monitors.
Narrator:
Ultrafine air particles are produced by engine combustion
and have been associated with mortality from cardiovascular
disease - but there are currently no local and federal
regulations for these emissions.
Delfino:
There aren't any anticipated for a long time
and one of the reasons, of course, is we need more
research.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
When Breast Cancer Strikes Younger Women
Narrator:
This is Science Today. The average age of breast
cancer diagnosis in the United States is sixty-two,
yet twenty-five percent of women will be fifty years
or younger at the time of diagnosis. In a recent
study, Patricia Ganz, director of Cancer Prevention
and Control at UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center, found
the youngest women - those between 25 and 34 - were
more vulnerable to psychological and physical hardship
years after diagnosis.
Ganz:
For a 30-year old woman who may have just gotten
married or has started a new job or is thinking
about having a family - is kind of in the prime
of her life in terms of many life goals - to feel
a lump in her breast and then be told it's cancer,
or have some other symptom that brings her to the
doctor, is really not expected at that age. Whereas
the older women at least have had more contact with
the health care system and realize that they could
indeed get an illness.
Narrator:
This study supports previous findings about
quality of life issues and Ganz hopes it may lead
to better support therapies for this particular
group of patients. For Science Today, I'm Larissa
Branin.
E.
What Women Should Know about Certain Cancer Screening
Tests
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Most people begin getting
colorectal cancer screenings at age fifty and while
many physicians consider the colonoscopy to be the
gold standard test, there are other options. But
some tests may be better suited for certain patients.
Dr. Louise Walter, of the University of California,
San Francisco's Veterans Affairs Medical Center,
explains.
Walter:
As a geriatrician, a lot of my older patients were
coming to me and saying "what's the best test
if I want to have a colorectal screening test?"
And currently there's the fecal occult blood test,
there's the flexible sigmoidoscopy and colonoscopy.
None of those tests are thought to be better than
any of the others, except I thought - well, maybe
there's a difference as people get older.
Narrator:
Walter found there was a difference - women were
twice as likely as men to have an inadequate flexible
sigmoidoscopy exam, most probably due to anatomical
differences of the colon.
Walter:
Even an inadequate exam has some benefit -but if
you are an older woman, I think I would lean towards
either colonoscopy or fecal occult blood test, given
the choice of the three tests.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
