California skateboarder Jared Hager has become the first person to receive a transparent skull replacement, which allows doctors to better view the function of his brain.

The window has allowed doctors to both monitor his progress and test new and better scanning methods for assessing brain health.

Hager, 39, of Downey, Calif., sustained a traumatic brain injury from a skateboarding...

A 4,000-year-old skull provides evidence that ancient Egyptians might have tried to treat cancer, a new study claims.

Microscopic observation of the skull revealed 30 or so lesions scattered across its surface that are consistent with cancer, researchers report.

T...

Heading for surgery? The ratio of women to men in the operating room could influence your recovery, new research shows.

Hospitals in Canada that had 35% or more surgeons and anesthesiologists who were female on staff tended to produce better outcomes for patients undergoing surgery, ...

Chicago resident Arthur "Art"Gillespie fell ill in early March 2020 with COVID, after he and his father went to visit an uncle in a nursing facility.

"I was hospitalized for 12 days with a high fever and cough, and during that time, they were taking scans of my lungs, which showed stage 1 lung cancer on my right lung,"Gillespie, 56, recalled in a news release. "I had no symptoms of lung c...

Robot-assisted total knee replacements tend to have better outcomes on average, a new study reports.

Unfortunately, there's a downside"having a surgical robot assist a human surgeon can make the procedure much more costly.

Patients who had a robot-assisted knee replacement stayed i...

A blood test could help doctors spot the signs of knee osteoarthritis at least eight years before it shows up on X-rays, a new study claims.

After analyzing the blood of 200 white British women, half diagnosed with knee osteoarthritis and half without, researchers discovered a small number of biomarkers distinguished the women with osteoarthritis from those without it.

"We found we ...

Each year, thousands of Americans head home after a surgery clutching prescription opioids to help ease post-surgical pain.

Trouble is, most won't use all those pills, and that could lead to a lot of misuse and addiction, one study found.

And with National Prescription Drug Take Back Day slated for Saturday, it's time yet again to rais...

Most seniors probably view any emergency surgery with a certain level of anxiety.

Now, a new study seeks to sort out who might be at highest risk for a complication from such surgeries -- and which surgeries are more prone to trouble.

Two key factors emerged: How frail any patient over 65 was prior to their emergency procedure, and whether the surgery was deemed to be high- or low...

New Jersey native Lisa Pisano was staring down the end of her days.

The 54-year-old had heart failure and end-stage kidney disease, but several chronic medical conditions excluded her as a candidate for heart and kidney transplants.

"All I want is the opportunity to have a better ...

It's long been documented that women have a slimmer chance of surviving heart bypass surgery compared to men, and researchers believe that they now know why.

Women tend to be more vulnerable to blood loss during surgery -- red blood cells, specifically -- than men are, concluded a team from Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City.

They published their findings recently in the

Early-onset arthritis may hit as many as one in every four young people who undergo anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction surgeries, new research warns.

The arthritic pain emerges within 6 to 12 months post-surgery, according to Michigan State University (MSU) researchers.

Many of these cases occur in people under 40 and go unrecognized and untreated.

"We're trying...

Researchers say they are close to perfecting a bioengineered, 3D printed replacement human ear that looks, feels and resists injury like the real thing.

Such an advance would greatly benefit people with congenitally malformed ears from birth, or those who have had an ear lost or damaged through injury, says a team at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City.

Right now, "ear reconst...

People taking weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy need to drop them in the days or weeks prior to surgery, a new study warns.

Folks on one of these drugs -- known as GLP-1 receptor agonists -- have a 33% higher risk of developing pneumonia by breathing in their own vomit during surgery, researche...

Dr. Gary Gibbon didn't have long to live.

A harsh cocktail of chemotherapy, radiation and immunotherapy for his advanced lung cancer had permanently destroyed his lungs and caused irreparable damage to his liver.

But Gibbon, a 69-year-old resident of Santa Monica,...

A surgical treatment used to treat conditions like carpal tunnel syndrome and back sciatica might also help relieve the pain of patients with diabetic neuropathy, a new study finds.

Surgical nerve decompression significantly eased pain among a small group of people with diabetic neuropathy for up to five years, researchers report.

In the surgery, researchers removed inflexible tissu...

THURSDAY, March 21, 2024 (HealthDay news) -- For the first time ever, doctors have transplanted a genetically edited pig kidney into a human suffering from advanced kidney failure.

Such pig kidneys, altered to lower the risk of rejection and disease, have been successfully placed into monkeys and brain-dead human donor bodies.

But Rick Slayman, 62, is the first living patient to rec...

Weight-loss surgery may help patients struggling with obesity and kidney failure become eligible for a lifesaving transplant, researchers report.

Obesity is a key reason why some kidney patients are turned down for a transplant.

But weight-loss surgery "not only helps in reducing the patients' weight to a level where they can safely receive a transplant, but also addresses the broad...

Nurses who specialize in anesthesia have issued new guidelines to reduce the risk that patients taking weight-loss drugs like Ozempic or Wegovy throw up during surgery.

"These medications have exploded in popularity," said