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GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- When it comes to antiepileptic drugs for pregnant women with epilepsy, Depakote (valproate) should be at the bottom of the list, researchers here reported.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Prolonged exposure to ultrasound in the womb causes brain abnormalities in fetal mice -- a finding that raises a cautionary flag about the frivolous use of fetal ultrasound, even though the study is not applicable to humans.

CLEVELAND -- For heart transplant patients, a multidectector spiral CT image could substitute for the annual coronary angiography they need.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The dangers of moving stairs to children can be added to escalating credit card bills as a risk of shopping, according to researchers here.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- America's grassy yards remain a dangerous jungle for children, with the rate of lawnmower-caused lacerations, burns, fractures, sprains, strains and amputations unaffected by the introduction of design safety standards.

BOSTON -- Women whose mothers took the synthetic estrogen DES (diethylstilbestrol) have a sharply increased risk of breast cancer once they are 40 or older, according to researchers here.

NEW YORK -- The summer is barely half over, and much of the country has had enough-enough of heat-related illness, enough heat-related power outages, and enough heat-related misery from a sweltering wave of extraordinary heat that broke records from coast to coast.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Women with a strong genetic predisposition to rheumatoid arthritis aren't exacerbating the problem by smoking, surprised investigators here discovered.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Even though anticoagulation for atrial fibrillation may boost the chance of an intracranial bleed slightly in older patients, the benefits of the therapy outweigh the risk of a hemorrhage, according to researchers here.

PAMPLONA, Spain -- Severe obstructive sleep apnea more than doubled the risk of a first ischemic stroke in persons over age 70, researchers here reported.

BALTIMORE -- Chemicals in curry and onions may put the heat on colorectal cancer, helping to reduce both the size and number of adenomas in patients genetically prone to them.

TORONTO -- Most out-of-hospital cardiac arrests end on the scene, and investigators here have devised a simple clinical prediction rule to help emergency workers know when to stop.

CHICAGO -- High blood pressure appears to impair older patients' ability to walk, and the reason may be more than just peripheral arterial disease.

MAINZ, Germany -- The success of chemoembolization tumor debulking is a better indicator of which liver cancer patients will do well with a transplant than the current standard of size and number of lesions, according to investigators here.

HAMILTON, Ontario -- When women are screened for domestic violence, they'd rather have it done via a private questionnaire than in a face-to-face interview, investigators here found.

ORLANDO -- A mixture of radiation beams -- carefully planned using a sophisticated computer modeling system -- can reduce the dose needed to treat breast tumors, researchers reported here.

BOSTON -- Decreasing tuberculosis treatment to two months from six months and improving case detection would theoretically double or triple the expected decline in TB incidence and mortality, according to a mathematical model.

Smoking cessation programs have been recognized to benefit from standard clinician intervention and telephone counseling, but what are the comparative benefits of these strategies? Researchers examining the relative benefits of telephone care and clinician intervention found that telephone care leads to higher smoking cessation rates.