Today's Globe: personalized cancer care, 'octo-mom' debate, stillbirth autopsies, ailing hospitals, graffiti

Cancer doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital plan within a year to read the genetic fingerprints of nearly all new patients' tumors, a novel strategy designed to customize treatment.

"Octo-mom" Nadya Suleman has managed the rare feat of getting the American people to think of something other than their declining economic fortunes. Her tabloid-fueled tale no doubt reached more people than a thousand bio-ethics reports, and, for many people, she is now the troubling face of assisted reproduction in this country.

More than 25,000 US babies a year are stillborn, and in more than a third of the cases doctors can't find an explanation. New guidelines for obstetricians aim to help change that with a too often taboo recommendation: Gently urge more parents to accept an autopsy to help unravel this mystery killer, so that maybe doctors can start preventing it.

The economic decline is continuing to ravage US hospitals, with half operating in the red and planning cuts, two new reports show.

The graffiti painted on a Harvard Medical School building late last week were probably the work of street vandals, not gang members, police said yesterday (second item).