Pill as good as chemo on lung cancer, but costlier
LONDON (AP) -- Some advanced lung cancer patients already treated with chemotherapy might be able to skip some of the bad side effects of another series of chemo by taking a pill instead, a study suggests. An international study showed patients on Iressa, an expensive, newer targeted treatment, survived about as long as those on another course of chemotherapy....

HIV tests not yet as routine as cholesterol checks
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two years after the government urged making HIV tests as common as cholesterol checks, there are small gains but still one in five people infected with the AIDS virus doesn't know it, scientists said Thursday....

Teen lives 4 months with no heart, leaves hospital
MIAMI (AP) -- D'Zhana Simmons says she felt like a "fake person" for 118 days when she had no heart beating in her chest. "But I know that I really was here," the 14-year-old said, "and I did live without a heart."...

Insurers make pitch for health coverage mandate
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The health insurance industry said Wednesday it will support a national health care overhaul that requires them to accept all customers, regardless of pre-existing medical conditions - but in return it wants lawmakers to mandate that everyone buy coverage....

Surgeon who did first US heart transplant dies
DETROIT (AP) -- Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz, a cardiac surgeon who performed the nation's first human heart transplant and who also developed lifesaving medical implants, has died. He was 90. Kantrowitz died Friday in Ann Arbor of complications from heart failure, said his wife, Jean Kantrowitz....

Doctors transplant windpipe with stem cells
LONDON (AP) -- Doctors have given a woman a new windpipe with tissue grown from her own stem cells, eliminating the need for anti-rejection drugs. "This technique has great promise," said Dr. Eric Genden, who did a similar transplant in 2005 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. That operation used both donor and recipient tissue. Only a handful of windpipe, or trachea, transplants have ever been done....

Ginkgo fails to prevent Alzheimer's in large study
CHICAGO (AP) -- The dietary supplement ginkgo, long promoted as an aid to memory, didn't help prevent dementia and Alzheimer's disease in the longest and largest test of the extract in older Americans. "We don't think it has a future as a powerful anti-dementia drug," said Dr. Steven DeKosky of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, who led the federally funded study....

Panel urges revised warning on facial filler risks
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Cosmetic surgery patients who think facial fillers are a magical antidote to aging must be better informed of possible risks, government health advisers said Tuesday....

Family history can trump breast cancer gene test
WASHINGTON (AP) -- If breast cancer runs in the family, women can be at high risk even if they test free of the disease's most common gene mutations, sobering new research shows. The genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 are linked with particularly aggressive hereditary breast cancer, and an increased risk of ovarian cancer, too....