TUESDAY, Jan. 14, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. cancer survivors have surprisingly high rates of alcohol use, researchers say. "This study highlights the prevalence of current alcohol use among cancer survivors, including an increase in alcohol intake over time and higher rates among younger cancer survivors," said Dr. Crystal Denlinger, chief of GI Medical Oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. "As alcohol intake is a risk factor for cancer development and may contribute to worse outcomes following a diagnosis, this behavior is ripe for education and intervention in the survivor population," said Denlinger, who was not involved with the study. Alcohol is a risk factor for several cancers and contributed to almost 6% of cancer deaths in 2012, the researchers...

TUESDAY, Jan. 14, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- New drugs are being approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for patients based on less and less solid evidence, thanks to incentive programs that have been created to promote drug development, a new study shows. Researchers report that more than 8 out of 10 new drugs in 2018 benefitted from at least one special program that streamlines the approval process. The result is that patients are being prescribed pricey new medications that have not been tested as rigorously, said lead researcher Jonathan Darrow, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. "The evidence standards have changed, but it's not clear that physicians, let alone patients, understand either the basic FDA approval standard or that requirements have become...

TUESDAY, Jan. 14, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Far too many U.S. children with autism are waiting too long for a diagnosis, new research shows, and those delays can greatly affect their quality of life. About one in every four 8-year-olds assessed in the new study was found to have undiagnosed autism and wasn't receiving autism services. Most of those kids were black or Hispanic, according to the report published online recently in the journal Autism Research. It's not clear why minority kids, especially, aren't getting the diagnoses and services they need, the investigators noted. "There may be various reasons for the disparity, from communication or cultural barriers between minority parents and physicians to anxiety about the complicated diagnostic process and fear of stigma," said...

TUESDAY, Jan. 14, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers report they have developed a machine that can repair injured livers and keep them alive outside the body for up to a week. They said the machine could one day increase the number of livers available for transplant and save the lives of many people with severe liver diseases or cancer. Until now, it was only possible to store livers safely outside the body for a few hours. But this new technology -- a complex perfusion system that delivers blood to the injured livers -- can extend safe outside-the-body storage of livers to up to seven days and offers a wide range of possibilities, including repair of liver injury, cleaning of fat deposits in the liver, and even regeneration of partial livers, according to the researchers from the...