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The American Academy of Pediatrics recently updated their guidelines to include recommendations for cholesterol screening and treatment in children. To prevent heart disease in adulthood, the physician group is advising pediatricians to aggressively address dyslipidemia in at-risk children and adolescents. Click here for more information.

For the first time, a panel of medical experts has suggested a specific age for ceasing prostate cancer screening with prostate specific antigen (PSA) and digital rectal exams. In guidelines published in the August 5 Annals of Internal Medicine, the government-appointed U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that such screening stop at age 75.

A coalition of international organizations will distribute in several developing countries a new test that quickly identifies multiple drug-resistant tuberculosis. The assay gives results in two days or less, which can be important in settings where the risk of infection with MDR-TB is high.

In a report released in June, the CDC reiterated its position that all positive screening results from both rapid oral and blood HIV assays should be confirmed with supplemental tests, such as Western blot.  Data from New York City, in which unusual and unexplained spikes in the number of false-positive results on oral rapid HIV tests were observed in 2005 and 2007, were used to suppport this position.