By Steven Reinberg
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- Direct-to-consumer drug ads on television should include a toll-free phone number that would allow consumers to report adverse side effects, U.S. health experts suggested Friday.

The experts serve on a panel that advises the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Such phone numbers are already mandated by the FDA for print ads. At Friday's meeting, the panel discussed designing a study to determine the most effective way of adding the phone number to TV ads.

FRIDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- Taking activated vitamin D may cut the risk of death for people with moderate to severe chronic kidney disease by about one quarter, a new study suggests.

During a two-year study of more than 1,400 patients, those being treated with calcitriol, an oral form of activated vitamin D, had their overall risk of death lowered by 26 percent when compared with those not on the drug. Those taking calcitriol were also less likely to develop end-stage renal disease, which requires dialysis to replace lost kidney function.

FRIDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- Minimally-invasive laparoscopic surgery and open surgery for colon cancer produce similar outcomes, according to researchers who reviewed findings from 12 international studies involving over 3,300 patients.

FRIDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- New details about the immune cells thought to be responsible for type 1 diabetes are revealed in a study by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

By Amanda Gardner
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- A panel of 15 genes may help determine which patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer will experience a recurrence and, therefore, benefit the most from chemotherapy, a new study shows.

The medical community is still reeling Friday over news that a 9-year-old girl from Greece had a two-inch growth -- believed to be her twin embryo -- removed from her stomach.

"It is a very rare situation to have an embryo inside a twin. I cannot recall anything like that in my practice over the years. I have only heard about it through medical literature,” said Dr. Kathy Anderson, an Obstetrician and Gynecologist located in Costa Mesa, Calif.

FRIDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- Partnerships between major academic cancer centers and community hospitals are a quick and effective way to spread cancer treatment advances, say researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.

By Serena Gordon
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- Transplanted islet cells help people with type 1 diabetes live insulin-free for at least a year or two, and appear to provide longer-term improved metabolic control even after people have to begin using insulin again, researchers report.

By Amanda Gardner
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- Colon cancer patients with a specific subset of the disease don't need to receive chemotherapy. In fact, not only does chemotherapy not benefit this group of patients, it may actually harm them, a new study found.

FRIDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) A treatment that uses natural killer (NK) immune system cells from umbilical cord blood effectively destroys human leukemia cells in mice, researchers say.