Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:

More Hospitals Misusing Some Medical Devices to Save Money

A growing number of U.S. hospitals are cutting costs by reusing medical devices that are meant to be used only once, according to a special report in the Sunday edition of the Washington Post.

The institutions are not required to inform patients when they use a reconditioned device during surgery, and it is not uncommon for the doctor performing the surgery to be unaware of that fact, the Post reported. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration oversees this practice, but the agency only last year began requiring that hospitals report a malfunctioning device that had been reprocessed.

More companies are producing one-time use medical devices because they don't have to be built to last long, legal liability drops after a first use, and they are guaranteed refill orders from hospitals, the Post reported. In response, many hospitals are now reprocessing these devices because they have resterilizing measures already in place and they regard the one-time designation as a ploy by the companies to force them to buy more devices, the Post report said.

Although the Post reported that exact numbers were almost impossible to amass, the article stated that hospitals in all 50 states and the District are believed to reprocess at least some single-use devices.

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CDC Officials Plan Changes to Oral HIV Test Because of False Positives

Federal health authorities plan to issue new guidelines on how to use an oral HIV test after clinics in San Francisco and New York City reported a high number of false positives with the fast-acting screen in recent months, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday.

Approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in March 2004, the Oraquick Advance was considered a breakthrough in HIV detection because it produces results within 20 minutes using a swab from the mouth. It is currently being considered for over-the-counter sales use because of its convenience and ease of use.

But San Francisco officials have recorded at least 49 instances since May where people tested positive for HIV with the oral test, but were later found to be free of the virus. In New York City, health officials recorded 10 false positives in October and 30 in November alone, the Chronicle reported.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will issue an advisory that clinics start offering patients who test positive on the oral test an immediate follow-up blood droplet test to doublecheck the results, Dr. Bernard Branson, associate director for Laboratory Diagnostics at the federal agency, told the paper.

"What we intend to suggest is that if someone is tested with oral fluid and is positive, that person -- if it is possible at the clinic -- should get a finger stick test," he told the paper. Even if that second test is negative, the person would still need the more sophisticated lab test for a definitive diagnosis, he noted.

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Experimental Drug Helps Leukemia Patients When Gleevec Fails

A new compound shows promise in patients with forms of leukemia that resist the powers of Gleevec, Texas researchers reported Saturday.

The agent, called AMN107 for now, led to marked improvement in all three phases of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and a form of acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) that shares the same genetic abnormality as CML, scientists from the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas told those attending the American Society of Hematology annual meeting in Atlanta.

"This drug is very promising and appears at this point to offer an effective option for patients who do not achieve an optimal response to Gleevec therapy," said Dr. Hagop Kantarjian, chairman of the Department of Leukemia at the cancer center. The study involved 119 patients.

If future studies confirm these latest findings, the compound, which can be taken in pill form, "will either replace Gleevec as the standard of care in the future or will be used in combination with it," Kantarjian said.

In recent studies, some leukemia patients have started to show resistance to Gleevec, so experts say alternative treatments are a welcome option.

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Stopping Tamoxifen Early May Save Lives of Breast Cancer Patients

Women with breast cancer might have a better chance of beating their disease if they are switched from tamoxifen to one of the newer aromatase inhibitors after two to three years instead of the current standard of five years, the Associated Press reported.

Researchers who presented the findings at a breast cancer symposium in San Antonio Friday noted this is the first time that aromatase inhibitors have been shown to actually save lives, not just prevent recurrences.

"This is a first attempt to get a grip on duration" of treatment, Mayo Clinic researcher Dr. James Ingle told the wire service. "Longer is better."

Tamoxifen has been a mainstay of breast cancer treatment for decades, but aromatase inhibitors have emerged as a potentially more effective way of keeping estrogen from fueling the cancer.

The biggest qustion now is whether women would be better off taking an aromatase inhibitor first, or switching to one after a couple of years on tamoxifen, Dr. Eric Winer, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, told the AP.

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Breast Cancer Study Boosts Herceptin's Promise

New research shows it may be possible to avoid the heart damage sometimes caused by the breast cancer drug Herceptin, a finding that makes the drug look more promising as a treatment for early- and late-stage breast cancer.

Finnish doctors said they found that nine weeks of Herceptin treatment, instead of the usual year of treatment, prevented cancer recurrence and did not increase the risk of heart failure. The research was presented Thursday at a breast cancer conference in San Antonio, the Associated Press reported.

The finding that Herceptin may also be effective when given for a shorter period of time could reduce the cost of the expensive treatment.

The Finnish study supports the use of the drug earlier in breast cancer treatment, said Stanford University breast cancer expert Dr. Robert Carlson. "The jury is in, and the jury has a very strong verdict," Carlson told the AP.

He said the findings suggest that virtually all women with breast cancer tumors of the type targeted by Herceptin should be given the drug, which is designed to act against a gene that's overactive in about 25 percent of breast cancers, the AP reported.

Herceptin is approved for treatment of late-stage breast cancer. The drug's maker, Genentech, wants to get approval to market Herceptin for treatment of early stage breast cancer. Most women have early-stage disease when they receive their diagnosis.