Old dogs can learn new tricks and so can science. Researchers have recently begun to breathe new life into an established technology, optical coherence tomography (OCT), that ophthalmologists have used for years.

Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) cares for roughly 20% of the nation's retinoblastoma cases, seeing up to 50 new patients a year. But to test for retinoblastoma, a malignant cancer of early childhood that can start growing at any time before birth up until about age seven, pathologists at CHLA had to send samples out to a lab in Toronto and wait anywhere from four to 10 weeks to get the results back.

Medical device companies love being first out of the chute with a new technology, but sometimes it is better to ride into the arena with a second-generation product designed to overcome the limitations seen with those first-to-market devices.

The FDA has approved a new automated breast ultrasound system (ABUS) from GE Healthcare (Chalfont, UK) that could help clinicians find more cancers in women with dense breast tissue. According to GE, the new Invenia ABUS has been shown to find 35.7% more cancers in women with dense breasts than mammograms alone.

When I was first diagnosed with ulcerative colitis 15 years ago my instinct was to learn everything I could about the disease. Unfortunately, my doctor at that time discouraged me from educating myself. He handed me a pathetic little brochure that didn’t answer any of my questions and told me to stay away from the Internet. It seemed that to him, an uninformed patient was an ideal patient. I never knew if that doctor was afraid my wee little layperson’s brain wouldn’t comprehend...

There's still no cure for cancer but advances in gene sequencing technology have made it more possible to identify people with particularly high risk of developing cancer.