Multiple sclerosis (MS), is a disease of the central nervous system. It occurs due to damage to a tissue called myelin, which protects nerve fibers. When myelin gets damaged, it can affect the functioning of the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerves. The World Health...
As an increasing number of people are diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, research into new treatments has accelerated. Parkinson’s disease, a progressive neurological condition, is the fastest-growing brain disorder in the world. About 8.5 million people around the world have Parkinson’s, according to the World Health Organization. The...
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disorder. As an autoimmune disease, rheumatoid arthritis causes the immune system to attack healthy cells throughout the body. This, in turn, leads to inflammation which then causes joint pain. Sometimes, however, it can damage organs, too, including the...
Pancreatitis is a condition where the pancreas becomes inflamed and irritated. Lifestyle factors that increase the risk of pancreatitis include heavy alcohol use, smoking, obesity, diabetes, and a diet high in processed or fatty foods. Rates of pancreatitis have increased over the past 50 years in most...
Hashimoto’s thyroiditis is an autoimmune disease that can cause thyroid levels to dip to unhealthy levels. A healthy immune system targets disease to keep the body healthy, but with this condition, the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy cells in the thyroid gland. This affects the...
Here’s what you need to know about advanced kidney disease, which affects millions of people each year. Renal failure is the fifth and most severe stage of chronic kidney disease. It occurs when the kidneys can only function at 10-15% of their normal rate, which is...
While the incidence rates of diabetes are climbing, new therapies and technologies help patients better manage the condition. The statistics surrounding diabetes can be overwhelming. About 10.5% of the adult population around the world has diabetes—that’s about 537 million people—and almost half of them are unaware...
More than 38 million people around the world live with HIV or AIDS, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). About 1.5 million were diagnosed in 2021, their last year of full data at this time. Healthcare professionals have a much greater understanding of HIV than...
As people live longer, neurological diseases are becoming more common. About one billion people worldwide are affected by neurologic disorders, according to the World Health Organization. As a result, these diseases have been the focus of increasing and intense medical research over the past few...
At a time of rapid healthcare advances, liver health has worsened. As processed foods become more prevalent, as obesity rates rise, and as alcohol consumption increases, so, too, have rates of liver cancer and disease. Rates of liver cancer have tripled since 1980, and deaths...
As reported in The Insurance Journal, Lux Med signed on with WorldCare in September 2020 to provide Medical Second Opinions (MSOs) for LuxMed customers facing serious health conditions such as cancer or coronary artery disease. The MSO service enables covered customers in Poland to receive a...
According to the World Health Organization, cancer is the second leading cause of death globally. It was responsible for approximately 9.6 million deaths in 2018. That means 1 in 6 deaths is a result of cancer. When you are diagnosed with a serious medical illness,...
When a partner, family member or friend has been diagnosed with a serious medical illness, they may feel uncertain about what to do next. They may feel discouraged, anxious even, fearful. Naturally you want to help. But how? Sometimes, the best support isn’t obvious. One...
Roughly 600,000 people across the United States and Canada suffer from Parkinson’s disease and researchers have long been aware of the increased risk that comes with age. Men and postmenopausal women have a higher risk of developing Parkinson’s than premenopausal women do, which lead researchers to examine the link...
Leukemia treatment often proves to be more complicated in comparison to treatment for other types of cancer. For leukemia patients, researchers at Northwestern Medicine believe multiple overactive protein complexes may be to blame. Thus, by moving away from the idea that one particular protein complex,...
From successfully achieving the first remission of a pediatric cancer case in 1948, to creating the most revolutionary medical achievements WorldCare Consortium® medical second opinion (MSO) providers, Dana-Farber and Massachusetts General Hospital have successfully created a molecular tool that helps study the accumulation of...
It is safe to say that many of us fear hearing the word ‘cancer.’ But, with the continued evolution of cancer research, we have begun to see many breakthroughs in cancer treatment and detection methods. One such example is Dr. David Wong's, Associate Dean of...
Researchers and doctors alike recognize the importance of preventing or reversing cancer before patients are in the position of having to treat more advanced cases. Michael Goldberg, Ph.D., of Dana-Farber has contributed to a collaborative group effort into research that demonstrates how particular cancer cases...
Ben Smith, a 25-year-old resident of New South Wales, Australia, was concerned about a hard lump on his left testicle in December of 2017, when his general practitioner told him that the swelling and pain was probably just hormonal and that the lump did not...
Researchers at the Mayo Clinic have discovered that genetically engineered bacteria show promise as a new treatment for constipation, after a study in mice was conducted at the Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine and published in Cell Host & Microbe. The gut microbiome, the community of...
A study led by doctors at WorldCare Consortium® member Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has found that a test analyzing free-floating DNA in the blood may be able to detect early-stage lung cancer. A preliminary report from the on-going Circulating Cell-Free Genome Atlas (CCGA) study, which is...
In November 2016, Jacqueline Dibb and her husband Rob were told by consultants at Hull Royal Infirmary in the United Kingdom that Jacqueline had frontotemporal dementia, a neurodegenerative disease classified as the “worst” type of dementia that “makes you violent” and “lose recognition of the...
Fibromyalgia is a complex chronic pain disorder that affects an estimated 10 million people in the U.S. and an estimated three to six percent of the world population. The disorder causes widespread pain and tenderness to touch that can occur body-wide or migrate over the body....
A benign brain tumor begins as a growth that arises from normal cells, but the growth of these cells is not rapid enough to qualify the tumor as malignant. The most common kind of these tumors is known as a meningioma, a tumor that arises...
A study published earlier this year from WorldCare Consortium® member Mayo Clinic found that more than 20 percent of patients who sought a second opinion had initially been misdiagnosed by their primary care providers. The study found that only 12 percent of patients who asked specialists...
At WorldCare, we are sometimes asked if medical second opinion (MSO) services as part of an employee benefit plan are subject to ERISA. MSOs may or may not fall within ERISA's reach - this is complicated stuff and the rules are not all that clear...
Medical second opinions have the capacity to save lives. By utilizing the expertise of a multi-disciplinary team of medical specialists and sub-specialists, misdiagnosis can be prevented and the optimal treatment plan can be identified and implemented. However, not all medical second opinion providers are the...
When symptoms lead to a medical diagnosis that is serious, rare, or complex, one of the first things patients often do is wonder whether the diagnosis is accurate. A second opinion provides an opportunity to have a specialist or a team of specialists review your...