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Cancer could be caught before it develops

An article published in the journal BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making describes the creation of the first comprehensive listing and classification of precancers, drawn from the medical literature. Using this classification, the precancers have been organized into groups that share similar biologic profiles and, hopefully, similar treatments. Precancers precede invasive cancers. They are localized changes in tissue ? lesions – identifiable by their morphologic structure. During carcinogenesis, when normal cells are transformed into cancerous cells, it is possible to identify precancers. Treating or removing precancerous cells at this early stage could prevent the prolonged, painful treatment and deaths of cancer sufferers. According to the authors of the article.

DNA Demands Chimps Be Grouped in the Human Genus

Proposed changes in the primate order are stirring up evolutionary debate. Humans and chimpanzees should be grouped in the same genus, Homo, according to WSU researchers in a May 19 article (#2172) published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Although WSU’s Morris Goodman, PhD, has already proven with non-coding DNA sequences that chimpanzees are closest in kinship to humans rather than to gorillas, evolutionary traditionalists say chimps and humans are functionally markedly different and therefore belong on different branches of the family tree.

Competition among Medicare health plans not a cure-all

Competition among private-sector Medicare health plans may be a useful tool to reconfigure care delivery but is unlikely to generate the savings necessary to help the program withstand the retirement of the baby-boom generation, according to a Health Affairs Web-exclusive article posted today. Marsha Gold, a senior fellow with Mathematica Policy Research Inc., in Washington, D.C., makes this conclusion in an article that reviews Medicare+Choice’s performance under the payment and regulatory constraints of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, as well as the lessons it has for the current debate on whether and how to expand Medicare benefits and modernize the Medicare program.