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Public-health experts cheered last month when a pivotal study showed GlaxoSmithKline's experimental shingles vaccine is much more effective than the established Merck vaccine. In the long run, the prospect of a better shingles shot could improve vaccination rates among people 60 and older, currently a disappointing 24 percent. But in the short run, the good news creates a bit of a quandary: Should older adults who want protection wait, probably a few years, for approval of the new vaccine, and hope the herpes zoster virus doesn't rear its excruciating rash in the meantime? (McCullough, 5/17)

When a suspicious lesion shows up in the lungs on a CT scan, the first thing your doctor wants to know is whether it's cancerous. A specialist will pass a long, thin bronchoscope into your airway in the hope of grabbing a few cells of the growth so they can be examined under a microscope. But some of these lesions or nodules are deep in the small branches of the lungs, out of reach of the bronchoscope, which is about the diameter of a pen. ... But now, according to a study published Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine, there appears to be a new, much less invasive way of determining whether a growth is malignant. (Bernstein, 5/17)

Two large clinical trials co-led by a Seattle researcher find that a new drug may help nearly half of people with cystic fibrosis — and reduce the leading cause of death from the disease. Paige Ellens, 17, of Lynden, is among the first to benefit. (Aleccia, 5/17)

I wrote recently about Sedasys, a machine that automates anesthesia. ... But Sedasys, in development for 15 years, is no longer on the true cutting edge of what’s possible with automated anesthesia. A machine with the clunky name of iControl-RP is. It's an experimental device that pushes the boundaries of how much responsibility is turned over to technology. (Frankel, 5/15)