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In 2006, the National Cancer Institute took the rare step of issuing a “clinical announcement,” a special alert it holds in reserve for advances so important that they should change medical practice. In this case, the subject was ovarian cancer. A major study had just proved that pumping chemotherapy directly into the abdomen, along with the usual intravenous method, could add 16 months or more to women’s lives. Cancer experts agreed that medical practice should change — immediately. Nearly a decade later, doctors report that fewer than half of ovarian cancer patients at American hospitals are receiving the abdominal treatment. (Grady, 8/3)

"Are you pregnant?" It’s a topic employers generally avoid, since the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 prohibited sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy. But women’s advocates fear these long-standing protections could be undermined by some workplace wellness programs. (Appleby, 8/4)

Heart attacks seem to have a bigger effect on life expectancy for women and African Americans than for white men, a new study shows. Women and men live equally long after heart attack -- but because women in general tend to live longer than men, the women should be living longer after a heart attack, too, according to lead author Dr. Emily M. Bucholz of the Yale School of Medicine and Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Connecticut. (Doyle, 8/3)

She sees it routinely: Women — African-Americans especially — who are so busy taking care of others even as they have no idea it is their own hearts that pose their own greatest risk. Heart disease [affects] about 1 in 2 African-American women 20 years and older, and it kills about 50,000 African-American women each year, according to the American Heart Association. But just 36% of African-American women know their hearts are their biggest killer, said Dr. Kimberli Taylor Clark, a Texas cardiologist who will speak in Detroit Tuesday. (Erb, 8/3)

The American Heart Association said today that more attention needs to be paid to the social factors that influence heart health, such as race, education, and address. Those factors may be partly responsible for the increase in rates of cardiovascular disease expected over the coming decades, according to a statement in the journal Circulation. (Seaman, 8/3)