Your Health

David De Lossy/Thinkstock(LOS ANGELES) -- Women with a history of endometriosis are at a significantly increased risk of developing several types of ovarian cancers, according to a new study published in Lancet Oncology.

Endometriosis occurs when the cells from the lining of the uterus grow in other areas of the body, according to the National Institutes of Health. About 10 percent of women in their childbearing years experience it. It can cause pain and irregular bleeding and make it difficult to conceive.

The new research found that women with endometriosis have a three times higher risk of developing clear-cell ovarian cancer (which accounts for less than five percent of all ovarian cancer cases) and twice the risk of developing endometrioid tumors.

"Our data, taken with the other published data on the link between ovarian cancer and endometriosis strongly suggests a causal relationship, with endometriosis being a precursor lesion for these three types of ovarian cancer," Dr. Celeste Leigh Pearce, lead author of the study and a preventive medicine researcher at the University of Southern California, told ABC News.

Researchers analyzed the link between endometriosis and ovarian cancer rates from data compiled by the Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium, a forum of investigators of case-control studies on the cancer. Tuesday's published study included data from more than 23,000 women with ovarian cancer.

"This excellent study brings home the point to all primary care physicians that women with endometriosis, surgically proven or self-reported by symptoms, deserve to have available all options to limit this ectopic endometrial growth," said Dr. Diane Harper, director of the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Research Group at the University of Missouri-Kansas.

A woman with a mother or sister with endometriosis is significantly more likely to contract endometriosis than other women, according to the NIH. Other risks of developing the condition include beginning menstruating at an early age, never having children and frequent and long-lasting periods. The most telling sign of endometriosis is pain -- during and before menstruation, sexual intercourse, and found in the abdomen, lower back and pelvic area.

While this is not the first time that a link between endometriosis and ovarian cancer has been studied, Dr. Mark Einstein, director of gynecologic oncology at Montefiore Medical Center, said the combining of studies offers a better understanding of the strength of the association between endometriosis and ovarian cancers.

Authors warned that most women who suffer from endometriosis never develop ovarian cancers, but the findings should alert patients and physicians of the high risks.

Dr. Diane Yamada of the Society for Gynecologic Oncology Communications Committee said that while the study should not be a cause of alarm for women with endometriosis, the research "may allow for an opportunity to identify symptoms associated with another disease process, which may help identify these patients."

Recent studies have even found that ultrasounds and blood tests intended to screen for ovarian cancer actually did more harm than good by undergoing unnecessary follow-up treatments and surgeries. At this point, Yamda said it would be a "leap of faith" to recommend that women should undergo rigorous screening, but the information offers new clues on how and who to screen to prevent the cancer, which causes about 15,000 American deaths each year, according to the American Cancer Society.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Stockbyte/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Talk about adding insult to injury. More and more U.S. emergency rooms won't admit patients until they pony up a fee of $100 dollars or more for non-emergencies.

The fees are meant to discourage people suffering from nothing worse, say, than a sore throat or a skinned knee from taking up time and resources better reserved for the seriously ill.

Both for-profit and non-profit hospitals are levying the charge.

Ed Fishbough, spokesman for the nation's biggest for-profit chain, HCA Healthcare in Nashville, Tenn., says the company first started imposing such fees in 2004, at one of its Houston-area hospitals.

The practice has since spread to 76 other hospitals in the 163-hospital chain. The purpose, he says, is to "help reduce crowding in the ER and to educate people about appropriate use of ER resources."

Critics of ER fees include the American College of Emergency Physicians, which says that two to seven percent of patients determined to have non-emergency conditions are admitted to a hospital within 24 hours.

Patient advocacy groups, likewise, blast the policy, saying it discourages the sick from seeking help. "It seems the point of the policy is to put a financial barrier between the patient and care," Anthony Wright, executive director of advocacy group Health Access California, told Kaiser.

Either way, here's how it works at HCA:

You show up at the ER wanting treatment. A clinician checks you out, and decides whether your case qualifies as a true emergency. If it doesn't, but if you want to stay in the ER and get treated there anyway, you are asked to pay a fee, which at HCA runs between $100 and $150.

Pregnant women, children younger than 6 and people older than 64 are exempt.

HCA says it had six million emergency room visits at its hospitals last year. Of those, 314,000 (about five percent) were from people who, after screening, were determined not to have an emergency condition. They were offered the choice of paying the fee and remaining in the ER for treatment, or leaving and seeking treatment at what HCA calls a "more appropriate setting," such as a clinic or doctor's office. About 233,000 patients chose to stay and pay. About 80,000 didn't, and took a hike. It's unknown where they ended up.

Such ER fees are common now at other big, for-profit chains (including Health Management Associates of Florida, and Community Health Systems of Tennessee) and nonprofit hospitals, as well.

Tomi Galin, vice president for corporate communications at Community Health Systems, says patients who choose to leave "are provided with information about other community health resources for their non-emergency medical conditions." Imposing a fee, she argues, helps reduce costs for the patient and the hospital alike because "the ER is the highest cost environment to receive non-emergency care."

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says patients with non-urgent problems account for about eight percent of ER visits. Other studies have put the figure considerably higher. One by Health Affairs policy journal in 2010 concluded it was closer to 27 percent.

The non-profit Midland Memorial Hospital in Texas implemented a $150 ER fee in 2009, as part of an exercise in cost-control, according to a Kaiser Health News story. Kaiser says the hospital had lost $14 million in 2008, in part because of millions of dollars in ER bills left unpaid.

Since imposing its fee, the hospital has seen a drop in debt, according to its chief financial officer, whom Kaiser quotes. He estimates that about 75 percent of patients with nonemergency conditions leave the hospital rather than pay the fee. "More people now know," he says, "that our ER is not a walk-in clinic or a primary-care office."

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved new suppliers for two cancer drugs Tuesday in an effort to curb the largest nationwide drug shortage in nearly a decade.

The FDA said its approval of a new supply method would increase production of the injection form of the drug methotrexate, which is used to treat children with the most common form of childhood leukemia.

The agency also said it would allow temporary foreign imports of the cancer drug Lipodux, an alternative to the drug doxorubicin, sold under the name Doxil, which is used to treat ovarian cancer, multiple myeloma and AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma. Temporary foreign importation is a rare move for the agency.

"In different circumstances we have to apply different tools," said FDA Commissioner Peggy Hamburg in a statement, adding that the quality of the drug was evaluated by the agency before its temporary approval.

The FDA's actions follow President Obama's executive order issued in October 2011 to reduce the dire drug shortage. The order instructed the FDA to broaden its reporting of potential drug shortages, expedite regulatory reviews that can help prevent shortages and investigate whether potential shortages have led to price gouging.

The drug shortage has compromised or delayed care for some patients and may have led to otherwise preventable deaths, say many oncologists.

All five pharmaceutical companies that make the injection drug methotrexate, which treats acute lymphoblastic leukemia by slowing the growth of cancer cells, have either slowed or stopped manufacturing of the drug, according to the FDA. The companies have blamed shortages on high demand or manufacturing delays.

Drug manufacturers APP Pharmaceuticals and Hospira Inc. announced at the press briefing Tuesday that within four to six weeks, both companies would have made enough methotrexate, including the preservative-free form, to meet the nationwide demand.

Next week Hospira plans to release 34,000 vials of methotrexate, or a month's supply of the drug, Michael Ball, CEO of Hospira Inc., told reporters at Tuesday's briefing.

According to Michael Link, a pediatric oncologist and president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, some hospital pharmacies reported having only a couple of weeks of supplies left.

Many oncologists are especially worried about the shortage of the preservative-free form of methotrexate, which is considered less toxic.

Only the preservative-free methotrexate can be injected into the spinal fluid of cancer patients to prevent the spread and recurrence of the disease.

"There are couple other drugs that can be injected into the spinal fluid, but none that are as effective," said Link. "As for the high dose version of the drug, there's no workaround for it."

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Digital Vision/Thinkstock(VANCOUVER, British Columbia) -- New research is proving that humans are naturally pretty nice with “pro-social tendencies” and are not as “nasty” as previously thought, according to a top primate behavior expert.

Frans de Waal, a biologist at Emory University in Atlanta, told a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that new research was helping to challenge earlier beliefs -- popular until more than a decade ago -- that humans were competitive, aggressive and plain-old mean, according to the Discovery Channel.

He showed videos from laboratories of a monkey displaying emotional distress after being denied a treat that another had received as well as a rat turning down a snack to help another rat escape from a trap.

De Waal, the author of The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society, said the new research revealed that animals were naturally capable of “reciprocity, fairness, empathy and consolation.”

He told the audience in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Monday that human children and most higher animals, such as primates and elephants, are “moral” because they need to cooperate with each other to reproduce and pass on their genes, the Discovery Channel reported.

But he told reporters that animals empathized with those within their “in group” but that courtesy was not so easily extended in the human world.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

ABC News(MEMPHIS, Tenn.) -- David Andrews plays for his freshman basketball team at Germantown High School outside of Memphis.

He wears the number 40. He leads the pregame chant. He swishes threes. And he has Down syndrome.

When Andrews’ mother, Maureen, asked coach Wes Crump if her son could be part of the team that his brother was already on, the coach immediately agreed. But she never expected to see her son practice, let alone play.

“Maureen wasn’t asking for anything other than David maybe getting a sweatsuit, team shoes, and for him to be on the bench with the team,” Crump told ABC News.

What Crump and the team soon realized was Andrews, 18, was going to have a bigger impact than anyone could have imagined. Andrews started participating in practice and during the team’s fourth game he took to the court to chants from the crowd of “We want David! We want David!”

“During the first offensive play, David ran down the left side of the floor into the deep corner. Our point guard passed David the ball, and without hesitating, he shot. Swish!” Crump wrote. “From that game on, it seemed our team had a new goal of getting so far ahead of the other team, that David would have an opportunity to play some minutes.”

Fortunately for Andrews, the Red Devil’s were more than pretty good. They lost only one game all season and he was able to play quite a bit.

Crump said Andrews has put the game into perspective for him. One time after he received a technical foul going into halftime, Andrews’ antics during warmups prior to the second half lifted his mood.

Andrews was hitting shot after shot from the top of the key and the crowd took notice.

“The CBHS parents were applauding his every basket,” Crump told ABC News. “David turned to the stands every time they applauded and flexed for them. As I watched that exchange, I realized just how little the game meant, and how much David means to me and to the people who get to be around him. It completely changed my attitude. I sat there and just smiled.”

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio