Minnesota tops state health rankings for the fourth straight year, according to the annual United Health Foundation report -- which also shows Americans are 0.3 percent healthier in 2006 than they were in 2005. The United Health Foundation survey has been around for 17 years -- and for 11 of these years, Minnesota has been at the top of the healthy list.
Rankings are based on factors such as access to health care, incidence of preventable disease, smoking rates, child poverty rates, and motor vehicle deaths. Minnesota boasts a low rate of uninsured (8.4 percent), a low rate of child poverty (10 percent), and a low infant mortality rate (5.1 deaths per 1,000 live births).
The other states in the top five are Vermont, New Hampshire, Hawaii, and Connecticut. Louisiana was rated the least-healthy state and shares this spotlight with Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas.
A few states -- New Mexico, Idaho and West Virginia -- show declines in overall health. And others -- Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Kansas -- show the most improvement.
A new tool to monitor bladder cancer is four
times more effective than the conventional laboratory test in detection of the disease. According to the January
edition of the Journal of American Medical Association, researchers led by The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer
Center, at 23 clinical sites, enrolled 668 patients with a history of bladder cancer, to look at how NMP22 assay effects
the detection of recurrences. It in now apparent that the NMP22 assay detected 49.5 percent of recurrences (51 out of
103) when urine cytology detection was only 12.2 percent (12 out of 98). When combined with cystoscopy NMP22
assay detected 99 percent of bladder cancers and an improvement of 8 percent when using cystoscopy alone.%uFFFD Bladder
cancer is the 5th most common cancer in the United States, and the possibility of it recurring is as high as 50 percent.
These improvements in detection will help prevent the advancement of the bladder cancer before it requires aggressive
treatment.
