Author Interviews, JAMA, Opiods, Surgical Research, University of Michigan / 07.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Joceline Vu, MD Resident, PGY-5 Department of Surgery University of Michigan  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: This study examined how much opioid patients use after surgery, and looked at factors that might predispose some patients to use more or less. Patient opioid use after surgery is an interesting question that’s gained a lot of attention recently, because it’s different from other uses for opioids. If you have chronic pain, you’re probably going to use all of your prescription. But if you have surgery, you may not take all of your pills, and this leaves people with leftover pills that can be dangerous later. From this study, we found that patients only use, on average, about quarter of their prescription, meaning that a lot of them are left with leftover pills. Moreover, we found that the biggest determinant of how much they used wasn’t how much pain they reported, or any other factor—it was how big their original prescription was. What this means is that opioid use after surgery isn’t just determined by pain, but also by what surgeons prescribe. It’s important to keep this in mind as we try to reduce unnecessary opioid prescribing after surgical procedures.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, JAMA / 07.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Jean Philippe Empana, MD, PhD Research Director, INSERM U970 Paris Cardiovascular Research Center (PARCC) Team 4 Cardiovascular Epidemiology & Sudden Death Paris Descartes University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?  Response: In 2010, the American Heart Association (AHA) has emphasized the primary importance of the Primordial prevention concept, i.e. preventing the development of risk factors before they emerge, as a complementary prevention strategy for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Accordingly, the AHA has developed a simple 7-item tool, including 4 behavioral (nonsmoking, and ideal levels of body weight, physical activity and diet) and 3 biological metrics (ideal levels of untreated blood pressure, fasting blood glucose and total cholesterol) for promoting an optimal cardiovascular health (CVH). The relevance of the concept and of the tool has been several times reported by individual studies and meta-analyses (combining the results of several studies) showing substantial and graded benefit for cardiovascular disease but also mortality, quality of life and even cancer risk with higher level of CVH. However, most studies relied on one measure of  cardiovascular health. In the present work, using serial examinations from the well-known Whitehall Study II, we described change in CVH over time and then quantified the association of change in cardiovascular health over 10 years with subsequent incident cardiovascular disease and mortality. This analysis is based on 9256 UK men and women aged 30 to 55 in 1985-88, and thereafter examined every 5 years on average during 30 years. (more…)
Author Interviews, Environmental Risks, Social Issues / 07.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: "Cockroaches at night" by Sigurd Tao Lyngse is licensed under CC BY 2.0Changlu Wang, PhD The Urban Entomology lab Department of Entomology Rutgers University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Cockroaches are an important public health pest. They carry pathogens and produce allergens which causes asthma. Some residential communities always have chronic cockroach infestations. This study is designed to understand the environmental and behavioral factors associated with cockroaches in low-income homes occupied by senior citizens. We found 30% of the 388 surveyed homes had German cockroaches. Sanitation and residents’ tolerance are two factors significantly associated with the presence of cockroaches. A dirty apartment is 2.7 times more likely to have German cockroaches. Gender, ethnicity, and clutter level are not associated with presence of cockroaches. People would be bothered by cockroaches when more than 3 cockroaches are caught in sticky traps when 4 traps were placed per apartment over 2 weeks period. A high percentage (36%) of residents were unaware of cockroaches when they were caught in traps in their homes. These findings are important for property managers and policy makers in designing better intervention methods to reduce the cockroach infestations.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Depression, Gender Differences, OBGYNE / 07.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Sarah Myers PhDDr Sarah Myers PhD Honorary Research Associate UCL Department of Anthropology MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Postnatal or postpartum depression is unfortunately common after giving birth; a figure often quoted is 15%, but some studies have found much higher numbers. Postnatal depression is associated with a range of poorer outcomes for mothers and their infants, and the financial costs of treating maternal mental ill health put health services under considerable strain. Studies have found that providing additional emotional support to at risk mothers, for instance via peer support programmes or regular phone calls with health visitors, can reduce the likelihood of them developing the condition. Therefore, it is really important that we understand the full range of risk factors that put women at greater risk of becoming depressed after giving birth. There is increasing evidence for a link between inflammation and depression, with factors that trigger an inflammatory immune response also increasing the likelihood of depressive symptoms. The opens up the possibility of finding new risk factors for postnatal depression based on known associations with inflammation. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Global Health, Pediatrics / 07.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Ngianga-Bakwin Kandala Professor of Biostatistics Department: Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering Northumbria University, UKProfessor Ngianga-Bakwin Kandala Professor of Biostatistics Department: Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering Northumbria University, UK  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: The background “UNICEF (2014) estimates that worldwide more than two hundred million women have undergone some form of FGM/C, and approximately 3.3 million girls are cut each year. Recent estimates show that if FGM/C practices continue at current, 68 million girls will be cut between 2015 and 2030 in 25 countries where FGM is routinely practiced and more recent data are available (UNJP, 2018).” Main findings: The prevalence of FGM/C among children varied greatly between countries and regions and also within countries over the survey periods. We found evidence of significant decline in the prevalence of FGM/C in the last three decades among children aged 0–14 years in most of the countries and regions, particularly in East, North and West Africa. We show that the picture looks different in Western Asia, where the practice remains and affects the same age group. (more…)
Author Interviews, Global Health, Hospital Acquired, Infections, Lancet / 07.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: "Antibiotics" by Michael Mortensen is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0Dr Alessandro Cassini MD Epidemiologist, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control Solna, Sweden MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We published an ECDC study estimating attributable deaths and disability-adjusted life-years caused by infections with antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the European Union and the European Economic Area (EU/EEA). This study is based on 2015 data from the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network (EARS-Net). The study was developed by experts at ECDC and the Burden of AMR Collaborative Group, and published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. (more…)
Author Interviews, Opiods, Pediatrics, Social Issues / 07.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Troy Quast, PhD Associate Professor in the University South Florida College of Public Healt MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: One of the cited repercussions of the opioid epidemic is its effect on families. However, there is considerable variation in opioid misuse across the county. This is the first nation-wide study to investigate the relationship between opioid prescription rates and child removals at the state level. I found that there are significant differences across states in the relationship between opioid prescription and child removal rates associated with parental substance abuse. In twenty-three states, increases in opioid prescription rates were associated with increases in the child removal rate. For instance, in California a 10% increase in the county average prescription rate was associated with a 28% increase in the child removal rate. By contrast, in fifteen states the association was flipped, where increases in the opioid prescription rate were associated with decreases in the child removal rate. There was no statistically significant relationship in the remaining states.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Health Care Systems, Ophthalmology / 07.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Nathan Radcliffe, MD Senior Faculty, Ophthalmology Glaucoma and Cataract surgeon Mount Sinai Health System MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness and the mainstay of therapy is to lower the intraocular pressure (IOP) with topical eye drops. Up to 40% of patients may require more than one eye drop to control the disease, and yet taking more than one eye drop bottle can result in higher costs, more eye irritation, worse therapeutic compliance, and possibly worse outcomes, be sure to consult your eye surgeon before increasing any eye treatment to ensure it won't do any further damage to the eye. Compounded therapies (not FDA approved, but made at the physician’s request by a compounding pharmacy) can be created to contain multiple glaucoma therapies in one bottle. We sought to determine if a compounded solution containing three or four drops in one bottle could control glaucoma as well as three or four separate bottles (standard of care) in patients requiring three or four eye drop bottles to control glaucoma. We performed a multi-center, randomized, observer-masked, parallel-group study comparing a compounded therapy containing latanoprost 0.05%, dorzolamide hydrochloride 2%, timolol maleate 0.5%, brimonidine tartrate 0.2% with 0.01% BAK to standard three or four bottle regaimins. We measured IOP and corneal staining (a sign of preservative toxicity), as well as other safety measures at week one, month one, two and three. (more…)
Author Interviews, Blood Pressure - Hypertension, Duke, Heart Disease, JAMA / 06.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Yuichiro Yano MD PhD Assistant Professor in Community and Family Medicine Duke University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: New blood pressure guidelines, issued in 2017 in the US, lowered the blood pressure thresholds for hypertension from systolic blood pressure/diastolic ≥140/90 mm Hg to systolic/diastolic ≥130/80 mm Hg. This change increased the prevalence of hypertension two- to three-fold among young adults. The guidelines also newly defined elevated blood pressure as, 120-129 mmHg systolic blood pressure over 80 mmHg diastolic or less. However, no study investigated that high blood pressure, as defined by the new criteria, is something that younger people should be concerned about as a potential precursor to serious problems. Our study is among the first to report that people younger than age 40 who have elevated blood pressure or hypertension are at increased risk of heart failure, strokes and blood vessel blockages as they age. (more…)
Author Interviews, Blood Pressure - Hypertension, Heart Disease, JAMA / 06.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: "Blood Pressure Monitor" by Medisave UK is licensed under CC BY 2.0Seulggie Choi MD, (one of the co-first authors) Department of Biomedical Sciences Seoul National University Graduate School Seoul, South Korea MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: In 2017, the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and American Heart Association (AHA) issued a new High Blood Pressure Management Guideline, in which the definition of hypertension was modified as blood pressure of 130/80 mmHg or higher. This new criteria for hypertension was based on a number of previous studies that demonstrated higher cardiovascular disease risk for participants in the systolic blood pressure of 130-139 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure of 80-89 mmHg range, which is now defined as stage 1 hypertension. However, there is a relative lack of evidence on whether this association of higher cardiovascular disease risk among those within the stage 1 hypertension category according to the 2017 ACC/AHA guidelines is also true among young adults aged 20-39 years. Our study consisted of about 2.4 million young men and women aged 20-39 years from the Korean National Health Insurance Service claims database. Compared to those with normal blood pressure, young adults with stage 1 hypertension had higher risk for cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, and total stroke for both men and women. Moreover, among those who were prescribed anti-hypertensive medications within the next 5 years since blood pressure measurement, young adults with stage 1 hypertension had their higher cardiovascular disease risk attenuated to that of normal blood pressure participants. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, ENT, JAMA, Surgical Research / 06.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Evan M. Graboyes MD Otolaryngologist: Head and Neck Surgeon Medical University of South Carolina MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Unfortunately, there is no screening test for head and neck cancer like there is for colorectal, prostate, breast, lung, or cervical cancers. As a result, two-thirds of patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) present with loco-regionally advanced disease, making other aspects of timely treatment that much more critically important. We therefore sought to understand the association between treatment delay at different points along the cancer care continuum and oncologic outcomes for patients with head and neck cancer. (more…)
Allergies, Author Interviews, Pediatrics / 06.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: David Stukus, MD Associate Professor of Pediatrics Associate Director, Pediatric Allergy & Immunology Fellowship Program Director of Quality Improvement, Division of Allergy and Immunology Nationwide Children's Hospital and The Ohio State University College of Medicine Columbus Ohio 43205 Dr. David Stukus discusses the emerging science behind food allergy prevention. MedicalResearch.com: How many US children are affected by food allergies?  Response: Food allergies affect roughly 5-8% of all U.S. children, which is approximately 6 million children. This translates to about 1 in every 13 children, or an average of two children in every classroom.  MedicalResearch.com: Are food allergies becoming more common? Response: Yes, we know that the prevalence of food allergies have doubled over the past two decades. Unfortunately, there is no single or definitive answer as to why this increase has occurred. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cannabis, Diabetes, JAMA / 06.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Viral Shah, MD Assistant Professor of Medicine & Pediatrics Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes, Adult Clinic School of Medicine University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Cannabis use is increasing in Colorado and many patients with type 1 diabetes (which is an autoimmune form of diabetes that requires life insulin therapy) are using cannabis. Therefore, we surveyed adult patients with type 1 diabetes to study the association between cannabis use and glycemic control and diabetes acute complications (such as diabetic ketoacidosis) in adults with type 1 diabetes. Main findings of the study:  The risk for diabetic ketoacidosis (a serious condition where body produces high levels of acids called ketones in patients with diabetes)  was two times higher among adults with type 1 diabetes who reported using cannabis in the past 12 months compared to adults with type 1 diabetes who reported not using cannabis. (more…)
Author Interviews, Electronic Records, JAMA, Outcomes & Safety / 06.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: "Portable Information station, nurse, computer, hand wipes, 9th floor, Virginia Mason Hospital, Seattle, Washington, USA" by Wonderlane is licensed under CC BY 2.0Timothy Ryan PhD This work was performed while Dr. Ryan was at Precera Biosciences, 393 Nichol Mill Lane Frankluin, Tennessee  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: The study design is quite simple.  We measured medication concentrations in patients, then compared empirically detected medications with prescribed medications in each patient’s medical record.  We used this information to estimate how many prescribed medications patients had actually taken and how often they took medications that were not in their medical record.  The later comparison is a particularly novel measure of the number and types of medications taken by patients unbeknownst to healthcare providers who use the medical record as a guide to patient care. Further, the test was performed in blood and not urine, so we could obtain an estimate of how often patients were in range for medications that they did take – at least for medications where the therapeutic range for blood concentrations are well established. In sum, we found that patients do not take all of their medications, the medical records are not an accurate indicator of the medications that patients ingest, and that even when taken as prescribed, medications are often out of therapeutic range.  The majority of out-of-range medications were present at subtherapeutic levels.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Cannabis, Cognitive Issues, OBGYNE / 05.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ryan J. McLaughlin, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Integrative Physiology & Neuroscience College of Veterinary Medicine Washington State University Pullman, WA 99164-7620 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: The use of cannabis during pregnancy is a growing health concern, yet the long-term cognitive ramifications for developing offspring remain largely unknown. Human studies exploring the long-term effects of maternal cannabis use have been sparse for several reasons, including the length and cost of such studies, as well as the fact that experimentally assigning mothers to smoke cannabis during pregnancy is obviously ethically impractical. Animal models of maternal cannabis use have been advantageous in this respect, but they have been limited by the drugs used (synthetic cannabinoids vs. THC vs. cannabis plant) and the way that they are administered. In our study, we used a more translationally relevant animal model of maternal cannabis use that exposes pregnant rat dams to whole plant cannabis extracts using the intra-pulmonary route of administration that is most common to human users. Our preliminary data indicate that twice-daily exposure to a high-dose cannabis extract during pregnancy may produce deficits in cognitive flexibility in adult rat offspring. Importantly, these rats did not experience general learning deficits, as they performed comparably to non-exposed offspring when required to follow a cue in their environment that dictate reinforcer delivery. Instead, deficits were observed only when rats were required to disregard this previous cue-based strategy and adopt a new egocentric spatial strategy in order to continue receiving the sugar reinforcers. (more…)
AstraZeneca, Author Interviews, Kidney Disease / 05.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Danilo Verge MD MBA Vice President, CVRM Global Medical Affairs AstraZeneca MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Dapagliflozin, an SGLT2 inhibitor (sodium-glucose co-transporter 2), has been shown to improve glycemic control by decreasing glucose reabsorption in the kidneys and inducing urinary glucose clearance. SGLT2 inhibitors have also been shown to be effective in lowering albuminuria and stabilizing eGFR (estimated glomerular filtration rate). The effect of dapagliflozin on UACR (urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio) has been shown to vary among patients. The objective of this post-hoc analysis, based on the pooled data from 11 randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials, was to assess baseline characteristics and concurrent changes in cardiovascular (CV) risk markers associated with UACR response to dapagliflozin. (more…)
AstraZeneca, Author Interviews, Blood Pressure - Hypertension, Kidney Disease / 05.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Lei Qin MS Director, Health Economics and Payer Analytics AstraZeneca MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system inhibitors (RAASi) are guideline-recommended therapies for patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), but are commonly prescribed at suboptimal doses, which has been associated with worsening clinical outcomes. The objective of our study was to estimate the real-world associations between RAASi dose and adverse clinical outcomes in patients prescribed RAASi therapies with new-onset CKD in the UK. (more…)
AstraZeneca, Author Interviews, Kidney Disease, Mineral Metabolism / 05.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rahul Agrawal MD PhD VP, Global Medicines Leader AstraZeneca MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?   About the study: HARMONIZE Global is a Phase III, randomized, multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial involving 267 patients with hyperkalemia (mean potassium levels greater than 5.0 mEq/L) in 47 study locations across the Asia Pacific region, which will support registration in Japan, Taiwan, Korea and Russia. Study design: The trial design of HARMONIZE Global is similar to HARMONIZE (NCT02088073) but evaluated two doses of LOKELMATM (sodium zirconium cyclosilicate) instead of three, as well as patients in different geographical regions. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Frailty, Geriatrics, Nutrition, Protein / 05.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: ""Trash Fish" Sustanable Seafood Dinner" by Edsel Little is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0Nuno Mendonça RD, PhD Campus for Ageing and Vitality Newcastle‐upon –Tyne United Kingdom  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Very old adults, those aged 85 and older, are the fastest growing age group in most western societies and are more likely to develop disability. Dietary protein is a sensible candidate because it may slow decreases in muscle mass and functional decline with aging. Although we know that protein intake is, on average, lower in older adults (a mean of 66 grams per day) compared to younger adults (a mean of 91 grams per day), research exploring protein intake and disability progression in very old adults is limited. We found that our participants from North-East England had four different disability trajectories between the ages of 85 and 90: a) a constant very low disability trajectory (difficulty with none or 1 activity of daily living (ADL))  over the 5 years; b) a low disability trajectory (difficulty with 2 ADLs) that steadily progressed to mild disability (5 ADLs); c) a mild disability score (4 ADLs) at 85 that increased to moderate disability (10 ADLs) by age 90; and d) a moderate disability score (9 ADLs) at baseline that progressed to severe disability (14 ADLs) after 5 years. We found that those with higher protein intake, especially those at or above 1 g per kg of body weight per day (70g of protein per day for a 70 kg person), were less likely to belong to a worse disability trajectory. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brain Injury, Gender Differences, JAMA, Pediatrics / 05.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Andrée-Anne Ledoux, PhD Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute Ottawa, Ontario, Canada MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The natural recovery processes from a pediatric concussion remains poorly characterized throughout childhood. Children’s brains go through many phases of growth during development and sex differences exist. Therefore a 6-year-old child may not have the same recovery trajectory as an adolescent because of biopsychosocial differences. Thus, this study explored symptom improvement after concussion while considering these two key demographic factors. Understanding symptom improvement at different stages of development is important in order to provide the best possible care. The study examined data from 2,716 children and adolescents who had presented at nine emergency departments across Canada and were diagnosed with concussion. We examined the natural progression of self-reported symptom recovery following pediatric concussion over the initial three months after injury. Participants in the study were aged 5 to 18 years old with acute concussion, enrolled from August 1, 2013, to May 31, 2015. We examined different age cohorts – 5 to 7 years of age, 8 to 12 years of age, and 13 to 18 years of age, and investigated how sex is associated with recovery. Our study represents the largest study to evaluate symptom improvement trajectories in concussed pediatric population. (more…)
Author Interviews, CMAJ, Geriatrics, Global Health / 05.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: "Drapeau au Parlement du Canada" by abdallahh is licensed under CC BY 2.0Dr. Justin Lang, PhD Research Analyst, Public Health Agency of Canada MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: This study is based on the Global Burden of Disease Study, which is led by the Institute of Health Metrics at the University of Washington. In this study, we present estimates from the Global Burden of Disease Study to describe the major causes of health loss among Canadians, and how these have changed from 1990 to 2016. In 2016, cancers, cardiovascular diseases, musculoskeletal disorders, and mental and substance use disorders, combined, resulted in over half of the total health loss among Canadians as measured by disability adjusted life years. Disability-adjusted life years is a measure that combines both mortality, through years of life lost, and morbidity, through years lived with disability, into a single measure that allows us to compare health loss from different causes using the same metric. The all-cause age-standardized years of life lost rate declined 12% between 2006 and 2016, while the all-cause age-standardized years lived with disability rate remained stable (+1%) and the all-cause age-standardized disability-adjusted life year rate declined by 5%. Finally, between 1990 and 2016, there has been a shift in what contributes to health loss in Canada from premature mortality to disability. In 1990, 45% of total all-cause disability-adjusted life years were due to years lived with disability. By 2016, this proportion grew to 52%.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Dental Research, Heart Disease, Infections / 05.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Martin H. Thornhill MBBS, BDS, PhD, MSc, FDSRCS(Edin), FDSRCSI, FDSRCS(Eng) Professor of Translational Research in Dentistry Academic Unit of Oral & Maxillofacial Medicine Surgery & Pathology, University of Sheffield School of Clinical Dentistry  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?   Response: Infective endocarditis is an infection of the heart valves that has a high death rate (around 30% in the first year). It requires intensive treatment often involving replacement of affected heart valves and frequently results in serious long-term illness and disability in those who survive as well as an increased risk of re-infection and high healthcare costs. In ~40% of cases, bacteria from the mouth are implicated as the causal organism. Because of this, guideline committees around the world recommended that all those at risk of infective endocarditis should receive antibiotic prophylaxis before undergoing invasive dental procedures. Due to a lack of evidence for efficacy, however, guideline committees started to limit the use of antibiotic prophylaxis. And in 2007, the American Heart Association (AHA) guideline committee recommended that antibiotic prophylaxis should continue for those at high-risk but should cease for those at moderate risk of endocarditis. Most guideline countries around the world followed suite. Except in the UK, where the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommended that the use of antibiotic prophylaxis should completely stop in 2008. (more…)
Author Interviews, Biomarkers, Heart Disease, JAMA / 05.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Robin M. Shaw, MD, PhD Wasserman Foundation Chair in Cardiology in honor of S. Rexford Kennamer MD Division of Cardiology, Smidt Heart Institute Department of Medicine, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine University of California, Los Angeles, California MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: At present, doctors do not have a clinical tool that assesses the biochemical health of heart muscle.  Biomarkers are available that tests the amount of fluid in the heart, and whether a heart is overloaded (which can be resolved with diuretics).  However, we don’t have biomarkers that assess the state of heart muscle itself.  As a result, doctors can use biomarkers to determine whether, when a patient has trouble breathing, there is heart failure present. However, biomarkers do not work when the patient does not have symptoms or when we already know the patient has heart failure and are trying to make clinical management decisions about the condition. Current biomarkers also don’t work to assess the health of the heart before symptoms develop which is to detect cellular changes in muscle before overall heart function is impaired. The new biomarker, CS, address the above unmet needs.  CS is based on cBIN1 which is a heart muscle protein that is essential for the heart to both contract and relax.  cBIN1 decrease when hearts are stressed such as in heart failure.  cBIN1 is also released into the blood stream, so it can be detected from a simple blood draw.  CS is determined from the inverse of cBIN1, so low cBIN1 in blood will give a high CS signal.  A low cBIN1, or a high CS, indicates failing heart muscle, and an increased likelihood for being admitted to the hospital with acute heart failure within the next twelve months.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, Critical Care - Intensive Care - ICUs, Electronic Records, JAMA / 03.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Deborah D. Gordon, MBA Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Harvard Kennedy School Cambridge, Massachusetts MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Against the backdrop of rising health care costs, and the increasing share of those costs that consumers bear, studies show people are interested in finding health care cost information and engaging with their providers on issues of cost. We were interested in learning to what extent, if any, discussion or consideration of cost would be documented in electronic health records. Using machine learning techniques to extract data from unstructured notes, we examined 46,146 narrative clinical notes from ICU admissions. We found that approximately 4% of admissions had at least one note with financially relevant content. That financial content included documentation of cost as a barrier to adhering to treatment prior to admission, and as a consideration in treatment and discharge planning.    (more…)
Author Interviews, Gastrointestinal Disease / 03.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: RedHill BiopharmaDror Ben-Asher Co-Founder, Chairman & CEO RedHill Biopharma Ltd. MedicalResearch.com: Your presentation at United European Gastroenterology Week (UEGW) covered top-line data from your recently completed Phase 3 study of RHB-104 in Crohn’s disease. Can you please briefly remind us of the background for this study and what results you previously announced? Response: Crohn's disease is a devastating gastrointestinal disorder that affects millions of people worldwide. Crohn's is a chronic relapsing disorder that plagues people throughout their lives with a variety of symptoms including severe abdominal pain, diarrhea, bleeding, bowel obstruction, fever and weight loss. The existing treatments for Crohn's disease leave a lot to be desired – they are only partially effective in the long-term control of Crohn's and are associated with serious side effects. In addition, the existing therapies only target treating the symptomatic inflammation associated with Crohn's. We began developing RHB-104 with the MAP hypothesis in mind, a theory that suggests Crohn's is caused by infection by a bacteria, Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP), in susceptible patients. RHB-104 is a patent-protected orally-administered combination of three antibiotics (clarithromycin, clofazimine and rifabutin) in a single oral capsule that has demonstrated its potential to benefit Crohn's patients. When we announced top-line results from the MAP US study, our Phase 3 trial of RHB-104 in patients with moderate to severe Crohn's disease, we showed that RHB-104 demonstrated a significant clinical benefit to patients versus placebo control. Patients treated with RHB-104 showed significant increase in remission at 26-weeks post treatment initiation in addition to being generally safe and well tolerated. (more…)
Addiction, Author Interviews, Neurology / 02.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: "Be careful what you wish for #drugs #heroin #addiction #camp #church" by Matthew Kang is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0Michaël Loureiro, PhD Research Assistant - Group Lüscher Dpt. of Fundamental Neuroscience University of Geneva - Faculty of Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Addiction refers to the repeated and irrepressible urge to consume a drug even in the light of negative consequences. All addictive drugs are initially rewarding and have powerful reinforcing properties, which drive users to use the drug again and again. Within the scientific community, it has been repeatedly argued that for opioids, this initial reinforcing effect does not involve dopamine, and no consensus was emerging. In our study we used some of the most advanced genetic tools to observe that in less than a minute heroin strongly increased the activity of neurons in the midbrain causing a release of dopamine in the striatum, a brain region essential for reward seeking. We further used neuroanatomical tracing methods and found that dopamine neurons activated by heroin were projecting to the very medial region of the ventral striatum. Finally, when we silenced dopamine neurons, heroin lost its reinforcing power, confirming the validity of the dopamine activation hypothesis for opioids. (more…)
Author Interviews, Gastrointestinal Disease, Parkinson's / 01.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Viviane Labrie, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Center for Neurodegenerative Science Van Andel Research Institute Grand Rapids, Michigan MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Our lab has an interest in the early events and initiation of neurodegenerative diseases. Parkinson’s disease for a long time was thought to be a movement disorder driven by the destruction of dopamine neurons in a specific area of the brain, the substantia nigra. In the last 10 years it has become evident that Parkinson’s disease is not just a movement disorder but hosts a whole range of non-motor systems. One of the most common non-motor symptoms in Parkinson’s patients is issues with the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. GI symptoms often occur early in Parkinson’s disease; for many patients, GI symptoms precede the onset of motor symptoms by as many as 2 decades. Moreover, the GI is not only involved in the early signs of Parkinson’s but has been proposed to be a place in the body where Parkinson’s disease begins. The hallmark pathology of Parkinson’s disease in the brain is Lewy bodies, which contains a clumped form of a protein called alpha-synuclein. There is evidence that Parkinson’s disease pathology, this clumped alpha-synuclein protein, is detectable in the GI tract, even many years before the onset of Parkinson’s motor symptoms. Clumped alpha-synuclein is also capable of traveling across nerve cells. There is evidence that clumped alpha-synuclein can travel up the nerve that connects the GI tract to the brain and enter the brain. This could be disastrous because clumped alpha-synuclein can seed and spread in the brain, which has neurotoxic effects and can eventually lead to Parkinson’s disease. In fact, in the brain of Parkinson’s patients, one of the first places where alpha-synuclein clumps are detected is at the terminal where the gut nerve connects to the brain, and this pathology advances from this point to other brain areas as the disease progresses. This intriguing connection of the GI tract to the early processes of Parkinson’s disease had us interested in trying to understand how the gut could be involved in triggering Parkinson’s. But the GI tract is a very big place, and we first asked ourselves, where should we look to better understand GI involvement in Parkinson’s disease? (more…)
Author Interviews, CDC, Hospital Acquired / 01.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: "Hospital Room" by Kyle Taylor is licensed under CC BY 2.0Dr. Shelley Magill, MD Medical Officer and CDC lead for the hospital HAI (hospital acquired infections) and antimicrobial use prevalence survey MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The prevalence survey effort began in 2009. The goal was to obtain a snapshot of all healthcare-associated infections affecting hospital patients, not limited to those commonly reported to the National Healthcare Safety Network. We conducted our first full-scale hospital prevalence survey in 2011, in collaboration with the Emerging Infections Program, a network of 10 state health departments and academic and other partners. Data from that survey showed that about four percent of patients had a healthcare-associated infection—or, on any given day, about 1 in 25 patients. We repeated the survey in a similar group of hospitals in 2015 to see whether changes had occurred. (more…)