Hepatitis C is the most common form of chronic hepatitis in the United States, affecting approximately 3.2 million Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Therapy with pegylated interferon and ribavirin remains the...
Systemic lupus erythematosus, or simply lupus, is a long-lasting autoimmune condition. This condition, notes the National Center for Biotechnology Information, typically affects your joints, skin, kidneys and certain other organs. Lupus is many...
The liver is the largest organ in the body, with multiple important functions. A prominent function is how it helps to metabolize and detoxify the body. Liver damage can cause serious illness and impairments on many bodily functions. Tissue damage...
Colitis is defined as a swelling of the large intestine, according to Medline Plus. Colitis can occur due to a number of things including infections, lack of blood flow, prior radiation and chronic inflammatory diseases. The most common symptoms...
Approximately 12 million blood transfusions occur annually in the United States, according to America's Blood Centers. Many medical conditions and diseases can lead to a critically low level of red blood cells, the oxygen-carrying component of the...
A wide range of moods and behaviors that range from extreme depressive lows to energetic manic highs characterizes bipolar disorder. Also called manic depression, the Mayo Clinic reports that screening for bipolar symptoms can be difficult because...
Ovarian cancer is the deadliest of all gynecologic cancers, according to the American Cancer Society, and the fifth most common cause of cancer deaths in women. With fewer than 20 percent of ovarian cancer cases caught before they spread past the...
Toxic chemicals make up chemotherapy medications. Cancer cells grow rapidly and divide uncontrollably, and these medications attack cancer cells and stop their division and growth. Because of the toxic nature of chemotherapy, normal body cells...
The United States Department of Agriculture, or USDA, classifies the Milk group of the Food Guide Pyramid as any fluid milk product or food made from milk that contains calcium, including cheese and yogurt. Milk products are part of a healthy diet...
A common first-line treatment for breast cancer is surgery, in which a surgeon removes all or part of the affected breast to remove the cancerous cells. In many cases, surgery presents an effective treatment for breast cancer, but may require a...
Kidney failure is characterized by a complete loss of kidney function. Hemodialysis is the most common treatment method for permanent kidney failure. During hemodialysis, a machine is used to filter wastes, extra fluid and salts from your blood....
Clostridium difficile infection, or CDI, causes approximately one-third of the cases of infectious diarrhea in hospitals and nursing homes in the United States. The infection frequently strikes after someone receives an antibiotic that disrupts...
Simponi was approved in April of 2009 for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, active psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis, according to Drugs.com. Simponi is the first patient-administered therapy option. The medication reduces...
Mantle cell lymphoma, as reported by The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in January 2007, accounts for approximately 6 percent of all non-Hodgkin's lymphoma cases, and affects the B lymphocytes---a specific type of white blood cell that produces...
Diabetes is a serious metabolic disease that affects the way your body uses glucose. Type 2 diabetics have difficulty processing glucose in the blood, causing high blood sugar levels. If the body cannot properly use glucose, a number of secondary...
As the body's cellular soldiers, white blood cells fight on the front lines against invasions by bacterial and viral threats. A number of different types of white blood cells, or WBCs, exist, each with unique strengths and disease-fighting...
Diabetes is a disease in which the body cannot make enough insulin or cannot properly utilize insulin, a hormone that is responsible for allowing glucose in the blood stream to enter the body's cells and be used for energy. When glucose builds up...
Ankylosing Spondylitis is an autoimmune disease that causes chronic inflammation and pain in the spine. It creates swelling between discs of vertebra and joints of the pelvis. The disease results from the body's immune system attacking itself,...
The Epstein-Barr virus, or EBV, is a member of the family of herpes viruses. It is an extremely common virus, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 95 percent of Americans are infected by the age of 35 to 40. In the...
