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The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends women aged 65 and up be screened for osteoporosis, without saying exactly how often that should happen.

But new research offers some guidance, suggesting that women with a good bone density score may be able to wait 15 years before their next screening because they are unlikely to develop osteoporosis before then. A poor score, however, might suggest a test the next year.

On TV crime shows, when people who have been stabbed or shot in the abdomen get to the hospital they’re inevitably rushed into surgery. (Which is why Lennie Briscoe often had to wait for witness statements until after the operation.)

Are chimpanzees necessary for medical research?

A report from the Institute of Medicine out today answers that question with a very qualified “yes,” saying that most biomedical experiments don’t require the use of chimps and that given the genetic ties and physical traits the animals share with humans, the NIH should fund such research only in certain specific circumstances.

The environmental risk factors for breast cancer supported by “consistent scientific evidence,” according to a new report by the Institute of Medicine and commissioned by Susan G. Komen for the Cure, will sound pretty familiar to anyone who has been paying attention to breast-cancer prevention.

In that corner: unnecessary medical radiation, combination hormone therapy for menopause, excess alcohol consumption, being overweight, lack of exercise and tobacco use.

The Food and Drug Administration’s decision to revoke approval of Roche’s Avastin for advanced breast cancer is likely to curtail use of the $6 billion-a-year drug for such patients. But it’s not likely to put an end to prescribing.

Today’s action doesn’t affect the drug’s other approved uses, which include certain types of colon, lung, kidney and brain cancers, the FDA said. And physicians are free to prescribe an approved drug for any use they see fit.

The federal government is spending billions to encourage hospitals and doctors to use electronic medical records.

But a report out yesterday from the Institute of Medicine finds that digitized records and other health IT products are expected to improve patient safety — but only when the products are well-designed and correctly used.

When you roll up your sleeve for an annual flu shot, have you ever stopped to consider how well vaccination against the disease actually works?

The answer, according to a review of previous research published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases, is pretty well –  but with plenty of room for improvement. Researchers found the flu vaccine “can provide moderate protection” against the flu, “but such protection is greatly reduced or absent in some seasons.”

Frail elderly patients who have advance directives through a program to communicate treatment preferences have fewer unwanted hospitalizations, according to a new study published online in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

The WSJ reports today on the two-decade quest to develop drugs for cystic fibrosis following the discovery of the gene responsible for the respiratory disease.

In addition to the scientific hurdles, a big challenge facing those seeking treatments was finding a company willing to make the investment. “Very few returned my call,” recalls Robert Beall, chief executive of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.