Healthier cafeteria choices, longer and more intense periods of physical activity and robust in-school education programs can lower rates of obesity and other risk factors for type 2 diabetes, according to a national study called HEALTHY. "We found that innovative PE programs, healthier food choices in school lunches and snacks…
A full-body skin exam is a vital tool in screening patients for benign or cancerous lesions they may not see or recognize on their own, says Dr. Janellen Smith. During a skin exam, patients are inspected for any suspicious growths, moles or lesions, says Smith. These scans are often performed…
Meeting with a genetic counselor can be very helpful for pregnant patients with a family history of inherited disorders. But the best time to seek a genetic assessment is before conception. This allows couples and individuals the time they need to explore their pregnancy-related options and plan a course of…
Minimizing a cancer patient's radiation exposure during diagnostic scanning and treatment is a continuing goal in oncology. As the recent debate over mammograms shows, physicians struggle with the issue of radiation exposure even in preventive procedures. Since January, UC Irvine's Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center has used an innovative radiotherapy…
In 2003, oncologist Dr. Rita Mehta had "the kind of moment everyone lives for" — everyone, that is, who's working to find a cure for cancer. Mehta, a health sciences associate professor of medicine at the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, was one of the first researchers to use chemotherapy…
Kerby Mellott enjoyed being physically active all his life. When he was younger, Kerby loved to play sports. Tall, lean and athletic in his youth, Kerby was a high school state basketball team champion and played for his college’s championship football team. After college, he began steadily gaining weight. A…
John G. Lee, MD, is director of Pancreaticobiliary Services at the H.H. Chao Comprehensive Digestive Disease Center. He is an expert in diagnosis and treatment of disorders of the pancreas and biliary tract using minimally invasive techniques. These include ERCP (endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography, which employs a thin flexible tube called…
Surgery without large, open incisions is a proven advancement offered at UC Irvine, where women may have many treatment options when they face gynecologic conditions such as uterine fibroids, endometriosis and ovarian cysts. The term for such procedures is “minimally invasive surgery,” or MIS. It includes a variety of techniques…
In a brief period of only 280 days, a baby can be conceived and born. During the first three weeks of pregnancy, the fetus grows from a zygote—a one-celled structure—into a blastocyst consisting of about 500 cells. By the fifth week, it’s called an embryo and is about one-seventeenth of…
When Tiffany Chancheya was born in October 2005, she had a quarter-inch reddish mark on one cheek. Tiffany's parents, Tim and Samay Chancheya, grew worried several months later because the small splotch, later diagnosed as a hemangioma, had darkened and was mushrooming in size. Hemangiomas are birthmarks caused by the…
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