Health/Science/Tech

When you go in for a mammogram, you now have a choice to make. Approved last year by the Food and Drug Administration, a 3-D mammogram is touted as a more accurate check for breast cancer. But it’s also more expensive. In a KERA Health Checkup, Dr. Jim Schroeder, a radiologist at Lake Pointe Breast Center in Rockwall, compares the two choices – beginning with the usual mammogram.

You might think your home is safe for a small child. But you’d be surprised at the dangers to children lurking inside. 

The most common chronic childhood disease is almost invisible. You don’t see it like the chicken pox, or hear it like a sneeze. It’s tooth decay.

Paul Huljich had it all. His organic foods business brought him wealth and luxury. But he lost it all after a nervous breakdown and a bipolar diagnosis.

More than 1200 uninsured people have scheduled appointments for Saturday’s Dallas CARE Clinic. Organizers hope that first visit is just the beginning for those without coverage.

Results of a new study of nearly six thousand men with prostate cancer indicate those treated either with surgery or radiation could benefit from taking aspirin regularly. In a KERA Health Checkup, Sam Baker talks with Dr. Kevin Choe of U.T. Southwestern Medical Center about the study.

Like the U.S. overall, Texas is seeing more cases of pertussis or whooping cough – nearly 1100 people have come down with it this year. Six have died. 

The North Texas Poison Control Center says its hotline has received very few calls about health problems following aerial spraying for mosquitoes.

Doctors at Heart Hospital in Plano have combined two technologies in a new approach to treating atrial fibrillation. It’s the most common form of irregular heart beat and affects three to five million Americans. Dr. J. Brian DeVille talked about this in a KERA Health Checkup.

The state of Texas is warning about an increase in whooping cough, or pertussis. Six deaths are reported so far this year, the most since 2005.

Some North Texas hospitals will lose Medicare money starting in October. They’re being penalized because certain elderly patients were readmitted to the hospital soon after being discharged.  

The idea of counties expanding Medicaid with the Affordable Care Act is getting some traction in North Texas. Governor Perry has said the state won’t do it.

It appears aerial mosquito spraying over Dallas worked. City officials say there were no West Nile infected mosquitoes in a small sample of traps retrieved afterwards. That’s good preliminary news, but Dallas City Council members want better planning for next year’s West Nile virus season.

As student athletes begin a new school year, players, staff and parents need to be mindful of staph infections.  They’re the result of bacteria we all have on our skin and in nasal passages. But the director of primary care sports medicine at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center says contact sports raise the potential for an infection. Dr. Robert Dimeff explains in this KERA Health Checkup.

Scientists from the Centers for Disease Control are in Texas this week trying to figure out why West Nile Virus is so prevalent in the Lone Star State.

The Centers for Disease Control put North Texas at the center of a national conference call on West Nile Virus. While Dallas, Fort Worth is clearly the most infected area in the country… the reason why, is not so clear.

Parkland Hospital is ready to put another new name on the top office door. Parkland’s Board is expected to name a hospital turnaround expert as the new Interim CEO.

Some Dallas County cities are getting ready to launch aerial mosquito spraying, to combat West Nile virus. School districts are also faced with protecting students from the disease-carrying mosquitoes.