FDA: Repairing Pelvic Organ Prolapse With Surgical Mesh Risky

The risks of placing mesh through the vagina to repair pelvic organ prolapse may outweigh its benefits, according to the FDA.
Risks include mesh protruding out of the vaginal tissue (erosion), pain, infection, bleeding, pain during sexual intercourse, organ perforation from tools used in the mesh placement, and urinary problems. Additional surgeries and/or hospitalization may be needed to treat the complications or remove the mesh.
During pelvic organ prolapse, the internal structures that support the pelvic organs such as the bladder, uterus, and bowel drop from their normal position and "prolapse" into the vagina. Pelvic organ prolapse surgery can also be performed through the abdomen or vagina with stitches or surgical mesh to reinforce the repair and correct the anatomy. Surgical mesh is also widely used in hernia repairs and to treat stress incontinence.
In 2010, there were at least 100,000 pelvic organ prolapse repairs that used surgical mesh, and about 75,000 of these were transvaginal. These are the only procedures that the new FDA mesh warning applies to.
The FDA first issued a safety communication in 2008 after they received reports of adverse events associated with the transvaginal placement of mesh. Since then, the number of adverse events has increased, although they don't always differentiate between transvaginal and abdominal procedures. The group also reviewed the literature on the use of mesh for this procedure.
Now, the FDA will convene an outside panel of experts in obstetrics and gynecology to meet in September 2011 and discuss the safety and effectiveness of surgical mesh used to treat pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence.

FDA: Risks Outweigh Benefits

"We do not see conclusive evidence that using mesh for the transvaginal approach to pelvic organ prolapse improves clinical outcomes anymore than transvaginal procedures that do not use mesh," says William Maisel, MD, the deputy center director for science at the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health in Silver Spring, Md. "These devices appear to expose patients to greater risks."
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Doctors must possess six virtues, says Abdul Kalam

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The six virtues, he said, are — generosity, ethics, tolerance, perseverance, concentration and being intelligent.

Dr. Kalam was speaking at a function held at the Meenakshi Mission Hospital and Research Centre (MMHRC) here to commemorate the ‘10 years of operations of Smile Train in India' doing corrective surgeries for persons affected by cleft lip/palate.

The function also marked the completion of 5,000 corrective surgeries at the MMHRC in partnership with Smile Train, USA.

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Health Ministry ropes in IIM-A to promote AYUSH

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IIM-A professor Anil K Gupta said that currently AYUSH makes up barely 0.4 per cent of the total healthcare system in India, so the aim is to integrate AYUSH systems among themselves and also with allopathic medicine.
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In a big relief to government doctors, a Bench of Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra said: “The demand for/receipt of fee while doing private practice by itself cannot be held to be illegal gratification as the same obviously is the amount charged towards professional remuneration. It would be preposterous, in our view, to hold that if a doctor charges fee for extending medical help and is doing that by way of his professional duty, the same would amount to illegal gratification as that would be against even plain common sense.”

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Union health ministry has put three of the best known existing medical institutes — AIIMS Delhi, JIPMER Puducherry and PGI Chandigarh — in charge of helping the six new institutes find their feet.
"It will be like a hand-holding exercise to show them the way," a ministry official said.
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NEW DELHI: India's "invisible doctors" are giving the Medical Council of India (MCI) a major headache.


According to MCI's Indian Medical Register that was last updated in April 2011, the nation supposedly boasts of 840,678 registered medical practitioners.

The data includes names of doctors who were registered way back in 1933. Chances of these doctors being alive is dim, admits MCI.

Till date, neither the Union health ministry nor MCI has strictly pushed for re-registration of doctors, thanks to which, India isn't sure about how many doctors it actually has.

MCI will ask the ministry to make it mandatory for all doctors to re-register with the country's 24 state medical boards, and MCI every five years.Complete Article

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The award for ‘Medical Team in a Crisis Zone' went to ‘Doctors for You' for their flood relief work in Bihar in 2008; and the award for ‘Innovation in Health Care' went to Professor Subhashchandra Daga and his team at the Maharashtra Institute of Medical Education and Research Medical College for their work in neo-natal health.

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