FRIDAY, April 24 (HealthDay News) -- Few people who are at risk of an abdominal aortic aneurysm are getting preventive screenings, a new study has found.

An abdominal aortic aneurysm is a weak area in the main blood vessel that carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body. As blood passes through, the weakened area can bulge. Most abdominal aortic aneurysms initially have no symptoms but can be deadly if they rupture.

Symptoms of a rupture include sudden and increasing back and abdominal pain.

An estimated 1.5 million to 2 million Americans have this condition, but most are unaware of its potential threat to their lives, the researchers noted.

In the study, the researchers found that only two of 43 people -- or 4.6 percent -- identified as being at risk of abdominal aortic aneurysm had received the proper screening. The findings were to be presented Friday at the American Heart Association's 10th Scientific Forum on Quality of Care and Outcomes Research in Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke in Washington, D.C.

Guidelines, based on available evidence and cost effectiveness, recommend one-time screening of men 65 to 70 years old who have ever smoked. Screening is done by a physical examination of the abdomen and ultrasound.

The researchers reviewed medical charts of 43 randomly selected men who were older than 65 and had used tobacco products. Other data collected included family history of heart disease. The participants' average age was 67. About 28 percent were white, 47 percent were black and 14 percent were Hispanic.

"Our analysis clearly shows that, despite current U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations, at-risk patients are not receiving appropriate screening for abdominal aortic aneurysms," the researchers said.

Reasons for the lack of screening are unclear, they said. Possibilities might include doctors' being unaware of screening benefits, difficulty in ordering ultrasound, or people not following through on doctors' requests that they be screened.

By comparison, 51 percent of the participants had had a colonoscopy for cancer screening, and 65 percent had received a pneumonia vaccine or other preventive screenings.

More information

The Society of Interventional Radiology has more on abdominal aortic aneurysm  .

FRIDAY, April 24 (HealthDay News) -- Simponi (golimumab) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat three forms of arthritis that occur when the body's immune system attacks the joints.

The injected drug, administered once a month, was sanctioned to treat moderate-to-severe rheumatoid arthritis, active psoriatic arthritis, and active ankylosing spondylitis, the agency said in a news release.

It's among a class of drugs that target tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α). When overproduced, this protein can cause inflammation and damage to bones, cartilage, and tissue. As with similar medicines, Simponi's label will include a so-called "black-box" warning that users face an increased risk of tuberculosis and invasive fungal infections, the FDA said.

Common side effects of the drug include upper respiratory tract infection, sore throat, and nasal congestion.

Simponi is marketed by Pennsylvania-based Centocor Ortho Biotech Inc.

More information

The FDA has more about this approval.

TUESDAY, Feb. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Any bone fracture that occurs in people over age 60 needs to be taken seriously, a new study concludes.

That's because the Australian researchers found the risk of dying goes up for at least five years following any low-trauma fracture, and for at least 10 years after a hip fracture.

"All low-trauma fractures are associated with premature mortality, not just hip fractures," said study senior author Dr. Jacqueline Center, an associate professor and senior research officer at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, in Sydney.

"Thus, all low-trauma fractures in the elderly need to be regarded as important events," she noted, adding, "Anti-osteoporosis treatment -- assuming a low bone density -- should be instituted following any low-trauma fracture to at least decrease the risk of a subsequent fracture, although we have yet to see whether it will decrease mortality."

Results of the study were published in the Feb. 4 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Each year, more than one-third of Americans aged 65 and older will experience a fall, and nearly 16,000 of those people will die as a result of those falls, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Statistics for the new research came from a large study of 32,000 people living in Dubbo, Australia. Slightly more than 4,000 of the people were over age 60 at the start of the study, and were community-dwelling, which means they weren't in a hospital or residential care facility.

Between 1989 and 2007, 952 women and 343 men experienced low-trauma fractures. Some time after their fracture, 461 of the women and 197 of the men died.

The researchers found the risk of death increased more than twofold for women and more than threefold for men following a hip fracture. The risk of death after other major fractures increased by 65 percent for women and 70 percent for men. Even after minor fractures, such as a wrist fracture, the mortality risk increased by 42 percent in women and 33 percent in men, although this increase was only statistically significant for those over 75.

The increased risk of death persisted for five years for all fractures and up to 10 years after a hip fracture, the study found.

Increased age and a second fracture also increased the risk of death, as did lesser strength in the quadriceps -- the large thigh muscle.

Dr. David Markel, chief of orthopedics at Providence Hospital in Southfield, Mich., said he believes most fractures indicate other underlying problems.

"As people age, having a fall or other things that lead to fracture should be looked at as a cue that there are other health issues. It's important to not minimize osteoporotic fractures overall, and we should use these events as an indicator for health intervention and prevention," he said.

This study also confirms what a lot of other research says, Markel noted: "Continued physical activity and a healthy lifestyle is good for you as you age."

More information

Learn more about who's at risk for falls and learn ways to prevent falls and fractures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

THURSDAY, Jan. 29 (HealthDay News) -- A combination of bone cement and antibiotics may help fight dangerous infections that can develop in compound (open) fractures suffered by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a study conducted by a team of orthopedic, military and pharmaceutical researchers.

A bacteria called Acinetobacter baumannii is common in the Middle East and present in more than 30 percent of soldiers recovering from open fractures in field hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan. This kind of infection can lead to amputation, according to background information in the study.

It's believed that A. baumannii may "prime" an open fracture site and make it more vulnerable to potentially deadly methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

"If you apply the findings from two small studies to the entire U.S. military, which is a leap, perhaps 2,000 soldiers come into field hospitals with compound fractures each year that become infected with A. baumannii," study author Edward Schwarz, a professor or orthopedics at the Center for Musculoskeletal Research at the University of Rochester Medical Center, said in a university news release. "About a third of them go on to get a staph infection after they reach the hospital, with about a third of those, perhaps 200 soldiers, suffering infectious complications that could cost them a limb."

In this study, Schwarz and colleagues used bone cement infused with an antibiotic called colistin -- one of the last-resort antibiotics for drug-resistant A. baumannii -- to treat mice infected with samples of the bacteria taken from soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. After 19 days, only 29.2 percent of the mice still had detectable levels of A. baumannii.

The study was published Jan. 27 in the Journal of Orthopedic Research.

The findings make a case for a human clinical trial to test the effectiveness of colistin-laced bone cement, the researchers said.

More information

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons has more about fractures  .