A Navy plan to test a blood substitute on civilian trauma victims should remain on hold, federal health advisers recommended Thursday, saying the experiment's risks outweigh its benefits.

The nonbinding vote appears to be the latest blow to the Navy, which has repeatedly sought FDA approval to test the product, derived from cow blood, on roughly 1,100 trauma victims in emergency situations. It proposes doing so without obtaining the customary informed consent of patients.

Quest Diagnostics Inc. has introduced its newly developed test, the Breast Cancer Gene Expression Ratio, to help physicians predict the risk of disease recurrence in women with estrogen receptor-positive, lymph node-negative breast cancer. Quest Diagnostics is the first company to develop a breast cancer recurrence test based on licensed gene-expression profiling technology from AviaraDx Inc., a molecular cancer profiling company.

Expression of two different proteins taken from primary tumor biopsies is highly associated with the spread of breast cancer to nearby lymph nodes, according to a new study. Researchers say this protein profile could help identify at an early stage those patients whose disease is likely to metastasize.

December 14, 2006 - GE Healthcare released the results of a customer survey showing that nearly all users of the company’s Life Support Systems would recommend GE to their peers, and that more than nine out of 10 would purchase those services again in the future.

For the first time, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network has included hyperthermia therapy and radiation as combination treatments in its 2007 Breast Cancer Guidelines for recurrent cancer of the chest wall and other localized cancer recurrences.