Sharon Worcester

Sharon Worcester is an award-winning medical journalist for MDedge News. She has been with the company since 1996, first as the Southeast Bureau Chief (1996-2009) when the company was known as International Medical News Group, then as a freelance writer (2010-2015) before returning as a reporter in 2015. She previously worked as a daily newspaper reporter covering health and local government. Sharon currently reports primarily on oncology and hematology. She has a BA from Eckerd College and an MA in Mass Communication/Print Journalism from the University of Florida. Connect with her via LinkedIn and follow her on twitter @SW_MedReporter.

News

Supplement boosts hair growth in women

Author:: Sharon Worcester

Publish date: January 31, 2013

Major Finding: The mean number of anagen hairs in a prespecified 4 cm2 area of the scalps of 10 women randomized to receive the supplement increas...

News

Low-level laser effective for reducing upper arm circumference

Author:: Sharon Worcester

Publish date: January 28, 2013

Major Finding: The mean combined change in arm circumference was reduced by 2.0 cm after three active treatments and by 3.7 cm after six active tr...

News

Uterine artery embolization effective for fertility preservation

Author:: Sharon Worcester

Publish date: January 25, 2013

Major Finding: Of 44 women aged 26-40 years who desired a future pregnancy and who underwent uterine artery embolization for uterine fibroids betw...

News

Verbal decline in boys during adolescence linked to psychosis

Author:: Sharon Worcester

Publish date: January 16, 2013

Major Finding: Each increase of 1 standard deviation in verbal ability in the 10,717 study subjects was associated with an adjusted hazard ratio f...

News

Don't trust apps to spot skin cancer

Author:: Sharon Worcester

Publish date: January 16, 2013

Major Finding: The overall sensitivity of the four smartphone applications ranged from 7% to 98%; overall specificity ranged from 30% to 94%.Data ...

News

Manometry, esophagram combo detects achalasia posttreatment problems

Author:: Sharon Worcester

Publish date: January 16, 2013

Major Finding: In a study of 31 men and 19 women aged 20-79 years, resolution of the achalasia pattern on HRM-EPT after treatment was associated w...

News

Futility rules defined for telaprevir-based HCV therapy

Author:: Sharon Worcester

Publish date: January 14, 2013

Major Finding: Telaprevir, peginterferon, and ribavirin for the treatment of hepatitis C should be stopped in both treatment-naive and treatment-e...

News

Adolescent depression hinges on perceived adult support

Author:: Sharon Worcester

Publish date: January 10, 2013

Major Finding: Perceived support from adult family members was a significant predictor of adolescents’ depressive symptoms, but perceived su...

News

Social skills, support play role in adolescent depression

Author:: Sharon Worcester

Publish date: January 9, 2013

Major Finding: At ages 12.5 and16.5 years, girls reported significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms than boys, and at age 12.5 they repor...

News

AGA releases new medical position statement on constipation

Author:: Sharon Worcester

Publish date: January 1, 2013

News

Clinical guidelines for hypothyroidism 'take the middle ground' on TSH

Author:: Sharon Worcester

Publish date: December 27, 2012

News

Facial emotion recognition impaired early in schizophrenia, stable across disease course

Author:: Sharon Worcester

Publish date: December 21, 2012

Major Finding: Patients in the ultra-high-risk group did worse than did healthy controls in recognizing sadness and disgust (P < .001), and tho...

News

Lower esophageal electrical stimulation therapy targets GERD

Author:: Sharon Worcester

Publish date: December 19, 2012

News

Deficits in empathic abilities appear to be disorder specific

Author:: Sharon Worcester

Publish date: December 18, 2012

Major Finding: Schizophrenia patients have the strongest impairment in empathic performance, followed by bipolar patients.

News

Late stop to antirheumatics may risk postsurgical infection

Author:: Sharon Worcester

Publish date: December 17, 2012

Major Finding: An increased infection rate was seen in patients who used more than one cDMARD (odds ratio, 2.425) and more than one TNF inhibitor (...