Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Imperial College / 21.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Olivier E Pardo PhD Team Leader Imperial College Division of Cancer Hammersmith Hospital London UK  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Pardo: Metastatic dissemination, the ability of tumour cells to go and colonise organs distant from the primary disease site, is the principal cause for failing to cure patients with cancer. This is particularly true in the case of breast cancer where resection of local disease offers good chances of cure but metastatic dissemination that may appear at a later stage carries very poor prognosis. Surgical resection is also the only true curative strategy for localised lung cancer. Hence, a better understanding of the mechanisms controlling the dissemination of tumour cells is likely to propose novel targets for combination therapy that will improve the survival of cancer patients. Here, we showed that an enzyme, named MARK4, controls the ability of lung and breast cancer cells to move and invade. When we lower MARK4 levels, it prevents cancer cells from moving by changing their internal architecture, making them unfit to invade. Consequently, these cells were unable to efficiently form metastasis in mouse cancer models. Confirming the role of this enzyme in cancer, we show that breast and lung cancer patients with increased levels of MARK4 in their tumours have poorer prognosis. We found that what controls the levels of MARK4 in cells is miR-515-5p, a small oligonucleotide sequence called a microRNA. When present in the cells, miR-515-5p prevents the expression of MARK4. Incidentally, the loss of miR-515-5p correlates with increased metastasis and poorer prognosis in mouse cancer models and patients, respectively. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Obstructive Sleep Apnea / 21.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Stefanos N. Kales, MD, MPH, FACP, FACOEM  Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School & Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health Director, Occupational Medicine Residency Division Chief OEM, Cambridge Health Alliance MedicalResearch: What is the background for this study? Dr. Kales: Up to 20% of all large truck crashes are due to drowsy or fatigued driving, which would account for almost 9,000 fatalities and up to 220,000 serious injuries. OSA is the most common medical cause of excessive daytime sleepiness or fatigue, and has been linked with negative impacts on attention, working memory, vigilance, and executive functioning. Past studies primarily of passenger car drivers have linked untreated OSA with a several-fold increased risk of motor vehicle accidents. They have also shown that effective treatment with CPAP reduces this risk close to that of unaffected drivers. Although commercial truck drivers undergo a biennial examination to determine their medical fitness to safely operate a vehicle, there are currently no mandatory standards for OSA screening or diagnosis, in part because there have been no large-scale studies evaluating the crash risk of commercial drivers diagnosed with OSA. Our study examined the results of the first large-scale employer program to screen, diagnose, and monitor OSA treatment adherence in the U.S. trucking industry  (more…)
Author Interviews, Depression / 21.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Theodore Henderson, MD, PhD Neuroluminance Ketamine Infusion Centers MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Henderson: Depression is a widespread problem. Psychotropic medications or therapy are the standard treatments, but they are often disappointing. Some studies have shown that the response rate to antidepressant medications is only 12-17% better than placebo response rate. Newer non-pharmacetical treatments, like transcranial magnetic stimulation, appear to have only a 50% response rate at best. The seminal study by Berman and colleagues in 2000 showed that sub-anesthetic dose infusions of the anesthetic, ketamine, produced a rapid antidepressant response. Many clinics across the United States focus on these rapid effects. Our clinic has been treating patients with treatment-resistant depression (defined as failing five or more antidepressants) for over three years. Our response rate is 80% based on multiple depression rating scales. We report here on 100 of the over 300 patients in our clinic who agreed to share their data in a research study. We treated patients with ketamine infusions no more frequently than once per week, unlike the clinical studies and many other ketamine clinics. We found our patients did equally well or better and received fewer treatments. The neurobiology of ketamine and its mechanism of action hold the key. Ketamine is a potent activator of the growth factor, brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). This growth factor reverses the damage that depression causes to the brain – loss of synapses, dearborization of dendrites, and neuronal death. Ketamine’s ability to activate BDNF over time is responsible for a persistent antidepressant effect upon the brain. (more…)
Author Interviews, Biomarkers, Breast Cancer / 20.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Lan Ko MD PhD Augusta University Cancer Center Augusta, GA 30912, USA MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Lan Ko: Cancer development hijacks normal cell differentiation. Understanding the normal is where we could begin to unlock the secret of cancer. In normal breast tissue, stem or progenitor cells produce supporting stromal cells in normal breast development. In breast cancer, the progenitor cells are mutated leaving mutant stromal cell offspring with altered activities to induce tumor. Mutant stem or progenitor cells may have longer lifespan than their mutant descendents so that they can fuel cancer growth for years. Eliminating those mutant progenitors at the source, at least in theory, will efficiently stop cancer. Each subgroup of breast tumor stromal cells has been previously described by other scientists. However, the connections among these cells were unclear in the past. Like blind men feeling elephant, we scientists are often obscured from seeing the entire picture. The finding of mutant breast tumor stromal cells using GT198 as a marker provides a critical puzzle piece that fits the rest of puzzle together. When cancer problems can be viewed in multiple aspects with great simplicity, their connections emerge. We now know why breast cancer stromal cells are important, and how should we target them. (more…)
Author Interviews, Depression, Omega-3 Fatty Acids / 19.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Roel JT Mocking Program for Mood Disorders Department of Psychiatry Academic Medical Center University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid supplementation (popularly referred to as fish oil) is being promoted as (add-on) treatment for depression. Thus far, many studies have been performed that tested the effects of omega-3 fatty acids in depression. In order to overcome differences between these results of individual studies, a meta-analysis can be performed. A meta-analysis pools the results of all individual studies, and thereby provides a more definitive conclusion regarding the effect of omega-3 fatty acids in depression. Moreover, using the differences between the individual studies, a meta-analysis can point to factors that are associated with a better effect of the supplementation, for example supplementation dose or duration. There have been meta-analyses performed previously, but they seemed to contain several inconsistencies. For example, they accidentally included the same study two or three times, which results in errors. In addition, these meta-analyses did not only include studies performed in patients with the psychiatric disorder "major depressive episode", but also subjects from the general population with less severe depressive complaints. This makes it more difficult to interpret the results. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis that included only studies performed in patients with major depressive disorder, and corrected errors from earlier meta-analyses. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research / 19.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Douglas.A. Lauffenburger PhD Ford Professor of Biological Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Biology Head, Department of Biological Engineering Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 02139  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Lauffenburger: We aimed to advance understanding concerning causes of tumor resistance to kinase inhibitor drugs, which limits effectiveness for many therapeutics even when indicated by specific genetic mutations in the new ‘personalized medicine’ paradigm.  We discovered a new mechanism underlying this resistance at least for a number of otherwise promising drugs currently in clinical use as well as further clinical trials.  Our discovery was based on realizing that the same oncogenic signaling driving tumor cell proliferation and invasiveness at the same time activates proteolytic shedding of receptor tyrosine kinases not involved in the targeted oncogenic pathway, shutting down additional signaling inputs.  Thus, when the targeted pathway is inhibited by the intended drug, this shedding is concomitantly diminished — now permitting “bypass" pathways to be activated downstream of these alternative receptor inputs.  Moreover, we showed that measurement of a set of key shed receptors (primarily AXL and MET, in our examined case of MEK pathway inhibitors for melanoma and triple-negative breast tumors) in patient blood serum samples could predict effectiveness of these inhibitors: when the shed levels were high, the drugs were less effective because of the correspondingly great potential for bypass signaling upon drug treatment.  In follow-up mouse experiments, we demonstrated increased effectiveness of a MEK inhibitor when combined with either an AXL inhibitor or a proteolysis inhibitor, thereby confirming the mechanism and proving an avenue for overcoming it. (more…)
Author Interviews, Immunotherapy / 19.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Emerson C. Perin MD, PhD Texas Heart Institute Medical Director, BSLMC Catheterization Laboratory Director, Research in Cardiovascular Medicine Medical Director, Stem Cell Center  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Perin: Critical limb ischemia (CLI) is a devastating and debilitating disease characterized by reduced blood flow to the legs, frequently as a consequence of atherosclerosis. Patients with CLI have a poor prognosis and live with chronic pain and disability. The disease manifests clinically as pain during rest and compromised wound healing, often resulting in ulcers that don’t heal, which can lead to amputation. Moreover, Critical limb ischemia is a deadly disease, with an annual mortality rate of about 20%. The only effective treatment option is revascularization, but not all CLI patients are good candidates for this approach, and even for those who are, procedures can fail. These patients face a dismal prospect as no other effective treatment options are available. Clearly, new therapeutic strategies are desperately needed for this group of patients. One of the most exciting new approaches for Critical limb ischemia patients who have no options is the concept of therapeutic angiogenesis—improving regional blood flow by facilitating the growth of blood vessels. This can be accomplished by delivering angiogenic factors to the area in need of improved blood supply. Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) is a promising novel biologic for use in this way because it’s a powerful angiogenic agent that stimulates cell proliferation and migration. Delivering HGF into the ischemic limbs of patients with CLI may result in beneficial effects that help restore compromised blood flow to the area and encourage better healing of wounds. VM202 is a plasmid DNA that simultaneously expresses two isoforms of HGF, mimicking the way the body produces HGF. On the basis of favorable results from phase 1 clinical trials showing that gene therapy with VM202 was safe, well-tolerated, and potentially beneficial in patients with ischemic diseases, we conducted a phase 2, dose-escalation clinical trial in patients with Critical limb ischemia. (more…)
Author Interviews, NEJM, Pharmacology / 18.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prof. Bruce Guthrie Primary Care Medicine and Honorary Consultant NHS Fife University of Dundee Dundee, Scotland MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Guthrie: Most drug-related harm is caused by commonly prescribed drugs with moderate risk. This prescribing is not always inappropriate, because risk of harm may be outweighed by benefit in an individual, but we have previously shown that high-risk prescribing like this is common and highly variable between primary care practices, consistent with it being improvable. We therefore developed a complex intervention combining education, informatics to make it easy to identify and review patients, and a small financial incentive to review. We evaluated this intervention in a cluster-randomised trial in 33 Scottish primary care practices, targeting nine measures of high-risk non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) and antiplatelet prescribing (for example, prescription of an NSAID to someone with chronic kidney disease; prescription of an antiplatelet to someone taking an anticoagulant without also prescribing a gastroprotective drug). The intervention reduced the targeted prescribing by just over one third, and this reduction was sustained in the year after the intervention (including the payment to review) ceased. We also observed reductions in related hospital admissions with gastrointestinal bleeding and heart failure, although not acute kidney injury which was reduced but not statistically significantly. (more…)
Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, Lancet / 18.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Jack Cuzick, PhD, FMedSci, FRCP(hon) Director, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine and Head, Centre for Cancer Prevention Queen Mary University of London. MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Cuzick: Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is a very early form of breast cancer, where cancer cells are present in milk ducts, but have not spread to the surrounding breast tissue. It is estimated that approximately a fifth of all screen-detected breast cancers are DCIS, with around 4,800 people diagnosed with DCIS in the UK each year. Our IBIS-II DCIS trial looked at 2,980 postmenopausal women with DCIS in 14 countries, who were either given anastrozole or tamoxifen for five years after surgery. The two groups had a similar number of cases of the disease recurring, whether they took tamoxifen or anastrozole. Those who took anastrozole had an 11 per cent lower rate of recurrence of DCIS or invasive cancer than those who took tamoxifen, but this difference was not significant. The similar NSABP B-35  trial found a 29% reduction with anastrozole and the combined analysis of the two trials indicated a significant 21% reduction. The key difference between the two groups were in the side effects of the medication. Women who took anastrozole experienced fewer womb and ovarian cancers and non melanoma skin cancers, and fewer deep vein thromboses and gynecological issues, compared with those who took tamoxifen. However more fractures and musculoskeletal side effects were seen among those receiving anastrozole. (more…)
Author Interviews, Mental Health Research, PTSD / 18.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Donna L. Littlewood PhD Student School of Psychological Sciences University of Manchester, UK MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Every year over 800,000 people die by suicide, and for every individual’s death, it is estimated that another 20 people will make a suicide attempt. Therefore, to be able to prevent suicide, we need to understand the different factors that can combine to make an individual think about ending their own life. Recent research indicates that nightmares are associated with suicidal thoughts and behaviours, and that this association is independent of other related suicide risk factors, such as, depression and PTSD. However, it is now important for research to examine the mechanisms that underpin this association, as this information will support the development of clinical interventions to prevent subsequent suicide attempts and deaths (more…)
Alcohol, Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, Genetic Research, PLoS / 18.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Chin-Yo Lin, Ph.D. University of Houston Center for Nuclear Receptors and Cell Signaling Department of Biology and Biochemistry Science and Engineering Research Center (SERC) Houston, TX 77204-5056  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Lin: Many studies have established that alcohol consumption is a risk factor for breast cancer. Breast cancers associated with drinking tend to be hormone receptor-positive, the type is commonly treated with the drug tamoxifen which blocks the actions of estrogen in driving tumor growth in pre-menopausal women. Alcohol consumption has also been shown to increase the risk of disease recurrence in patients. Our study shows that alcohol can enhance the effects of estrogen by increasing cancer cell division and also reduce the efficacy of tamoxifen. The key mechanistic insight from the study is that alcohol treatment of breast cancer cells increased the expression of BRAF, a cancer-causing gene that is commonly mutated and activated in other types of cancers. (more…)
Author Interviews, Critical Care - Intensive Care - ICUs, Pulmonary Disease, Surgical Research, Technology / 18.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Ariel Drori MD Hadassah Medical Center  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for the ThoraXS device? Dr. Drori: The initial recognition of the need for a device like ThoraXS first came to me on an operational deployment during my reserve service where I serve as a military doctor. While serving on the Gazan border, I was called to a battle scene to treat a soldier who was suffering from pneumothorax after being shot in the chest.  A quick evacuation by helicopter meant that I didn't have the time to perform the entire procedure and I was forced to hand over a partially-treated patient whose condition was unstable. The reality of constant combat injuries mixed with a rising number of daily civilian terror attack casualties led us to understand that we need to provide a cheap, easy to use, robust and reliable solution that on the one hand can withstand the most extreme combat conditions and on the other, be used by any paramedic and in any pre-hospital and hospital setting. This line of thought eventually led to the adoption of ThoraXS's simple yet sophisticated mechanical mechanism that ticks all the boxes. (more…)
Author Interviews, Gastrointestinal Disease, Heart Disease, Pharmacology / 18.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Giuseppe Gargiulo MD Research fellow in Cardiology Inselspital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Gargiulo: Every year millions of people with coronary artery disease are treated worldwide with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Consequently, they receive a dual  (DAPT) in order to prevent thrombotic life-threatening complications, such as stent thrombosis. DAPT often consists of aspirin and clopidogrel, but some studies have questioned the efficacy of clopidogrel in case of concomitant therapy with proton-pump inhibitors (PPI) due to pharmacodynamic interactions. Indeed, clopidogrel is a pro-drug needing to be activated, and this could be potentially affected by PPI. This is a relevant topic given that many patients treated with DAPT commonly receive also a PPI to prevent gastrointestinal complications (ulceration and bleeding) or due to pre-existing gastric disease. Some studies demonstrated that the use of a PPI, mainly omeprazole, was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular adverse events, indeed the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicine Agency (EMA) discouraged the concomitant use of omeprazole and clopidogrel. On the contrary, some other studies did not confirm this finding. We performed a detailed analysis of the impact of PPI therapy on the 2-year clinical outcomes of 1970 patients undergoing PCI with stent implantation enrolled in the PRODIGY trial (a randomized trial comparing 2 DAPT regimens: 6-month versus 24-month DAPT). In our study population, 738 patients (38%) were treated with a PPI (lansoprazole 90%) concomitantly to DAPT. We found that the ischemic and bleeding events at 2 years of follow-up were similar in patients treated with or without a PPI, irrespective of DAPT duration (6-month or 24-month). These findings support the concept that the concomitant use of PPI, when clinically indicated, in patients receiving clopidogrel is not associated with adverse clinical outcomes. (more…)
Author Interviews, Genetic Research, Heart Disease / 18.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jonathan P. Davis , Ph.D. Associate ProfessorThe Ohio State University Medical Center Department of Physiology & Cell Biology. Columbus, OH 43210 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Davis: Myocardial infarction (MI) is a leading cause of heart failure and death in the US. Since the infarcted heart does not contract as well, therapeutics have been designed (i.e. positive inotropes) to help the heart contract better. While current positive inotropes help the patients in the short-term, they have detrimental long-term effects (“feel better but die sooner”). There is a dire need to be able to increase cardiac contraction without the deleterious side effects. We have achieved this goal by engineering the Ca2+-dependent switch in the heart, troponin C, to be able to better bind Ca2+. Combining gene therapy with our smartly formulated TnC, we demonstrated that our novel strategy not only protected the mouse from the negative consequences of an MI, but was also therapeutic when given after the MI. (more…)
Author Interviews, Frailty, Geriatrics, Mayo Clinic / 18.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Alanna Chamberlain, PhD Assistant Professor of Epidemiology Mayo Clinic College of Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Chamberlain: The number of elderly individuals in the US will double by the year 2050 and these individuals will become increasingly frail as they get older. Frailty has been recognized by doctors and researchers as an important contributor to poor health and declines in quality of life among older adults. However, it is difficult to measure frailty because it’s not due to a single condition. Instead, multiple health problems tend to accumulate over time until a person becomes increasingly frail. It is important to understand how frailty develops as patients age and how changes in frailty are related to outcomes. To address these questions, we followed individuals over 8 years to identify changes in frailty over time, to describe how people cluster (follow similar trajectories of frailty over time), and to examine how these changes relate to emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and death in a large population from Olmsted County, MN. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, JAMA / 18.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ruut Laitio, MD, PhD Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Division of Perioperative Services, Intensive Care Medicine and Pain Management Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Laitio: Numerous animal studies with different types of brain injury (hypoxic, toxic,stroke, traumatic brain injury) have established the neuroprotective effect of xenon during the last 15 years. We designed a proof-of-concept study to find out whether xenon has neuroprotective effect in humans. An important finding from animal studies was that xenon has at least additive or even synergistic neuroprotective interaction with hypothermia and the results were based on histopathological and functional outcomes. These putative neuroprotective properties had not been reported in humans until now. (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Depression, JAMA, UCSF / 18.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Allison R. Kaup, PhD Assistant Adjunct Professor, UCSF Department of Psychiatry Clinical Research Psychologist / Clinical Neuropsychologist and Kristine Yaffe MD Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology and Epidemiology Chief of Geriatric Psychiatry and Director of the Memory Evaluation Clinic San Francisco VA Medical Center  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Previous research has shown that older adults with depression are more likely to develop dementia.  But, most studies have only examined an older adult’s depressive symptoms at one point in time.  This is an important limitation because we know that depressive symptoms change over time and that older adults show different patterns of depressive symptoms over time.  For the present study, older adults were followed for several years.  We assessed what patterns of depressive symptoms they tended to have during the early years of the study, and then investigated whether these different patterns were associated with who developed dementia during the later years of the study. MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings? Response: Older adults in this study tended to show one of 3 different patterns of depressive symptoms.  Most tended to have few, if any, symptoms over time.  Some tended to have a moderate level of depressive symptoms at the beginning of the study, which increased over time.  And others tended to have a high level of depressive symptoms at the beginning of the study, which increased over time. We found that older adults with the high-and-increasing depressive symptoms pattern were almost twice as likely to develop dementia than those with minimal symptoms, even when accounting for other important factors.  While older adults with the moderate-and-increasing depressive symptom pattern were also somewhat more likely to develop dementia, this association was not as strong and did not hold up in our statistical models when we accounted for what individuals’ cognitive functioning was like during the early years of the study. (more…)
AHA Journals, Author Interviews, Genetic Research, Heart Disease, Lipids / 18.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Sarah de Ferranti MD MPH Boston Children’s Hospital Director, Preventive Cardiology Program Assistant Professor of Pediatrics Harvard Medical School MedicalResearch.com:  What are the main findings? Dr. de Ferranti: Familial hypercholesterolemia, or FH, is a genetic condition that causes severely elevated cholesterol levels from birth and is a leading cause of early heart attack. It is generally slowly progressive without symptoms until there is serious heart disease in the 3rd and 4th decade of life, making it important to look for it at a young age. Prior to this analysis it was thought that FH affected about 1 in 500 adults. The current study used data from 36,949 adults who took part in the 1999-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and extrapolated to the 210 million U.S. adults aged 20 years and older. We identified cases of probably or definite Familial hypercholesterolemia in our analysis by using a combination of high levels of low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol (considered “bad” because it contributes to plaque buildup in arteries) and early heart disease in a person or close relative. (more…)
AHA Journals, Author Interviews, Cognitive Issues, Heart Disease / 18.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Hannah Gardener, ScD Department of Neurology, Miller School of Medicine University of Miami Miami, FL MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: At the beginning of the study, 1,033 participants in the Northern Manhattan Study (average age 72; 65 percent Hispanic, 19 percent black and 16 percent white), were categorized using the American Heart Association’s “Life’s Simple Seven®” definition of cardiovascular health, which includes tobacco avoidance, ideal levels of weight, physical activity, healthy diet, blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose. The participants were tested for memory, thinking and brain processing speed. Brain processing speed measures how quickly a person is able to perform tasks that require focused attention. Approximately six years later, 722 participants repeated the cognitive testing, which allowed us to measure performance over time. The cardiovascular health factors, which have been shown to predict risk of stroke and myocardial infarction, were then examined in relation to cognitive performance and impairment over time. (more…)
Author Interviews, Blood Pressure - Hypertension, Diabetes, JAMA, Weight Research / 18.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Debbie Lawlor PhD School of Social and Community Medicine University of Bristol, Oakfield House, Oakfield Grove Medical Research Council Integrative Epidemiology Unit University of Bristol, UK and Rachel Freathy PhD, University of Exeter, Institute of Biomedical and Clinical Science, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital,  Exeter  UK MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: A healthy birth weight is important for babies’ health and wellbeing in the first year of their life. It reflects how well the baby has grown and developed in the womb. The experience of fetuses in the womb and how well they grow and develop might also determine their future health, even into adulthood. Both being too light or too heavy at birth is not good for the baby. Lots of studies have shown that mothers who are fatter at the start of their pregnancy have babies who are more likely to be heavier. But is it not clear whether the mother being fatter causes their baby to be bigger at birth. If mothers’ fatness does cause their baby to be heavier at birth, why this happens is not clear. We used genes to find out whether being fatter in pregnancy causes babies to be born heavier. We also tested whether risk factors in the mother that are affected by her fatness, such as her blood pressure, and the level of glucose (sugar) and lipids (fats) in her blood stream affect how heavy her baby is. Our results showed that being fatter during pregnancy did cause a mothers’ baby to be born heavier. We also showed that having higher blood levels of glucose in pregnancy also caused a mothers’ baby to be heavier. But we did not find any effect of mothers’ blood levels of lipids in pregnancy on their baby’s weight. Whilst mothers who are heavier in pregnancy will tend to have higher blood pressure in pregnancy we found that higher blood pressure caused the women’s babies to be lighter. (more…)
Author Interviews, Medical Imaging, NYU, Orthopedics, Radiology / 18.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sanjit Konda, MD Assistant professor of Orthopaedic surgery NYU Langone Medical Center MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Konda: We serendipitously found that we could identify periarticular fractures associated with deep knee wounds with the use of a CT-scan. We published a study in the Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma showing that a CT scan could identify a traumatic arthrotomy of a joint better than a saline load test, which at the time was considered the diagnostic gold standard. When we presented that work, we received criticism that we were subjecting patients to a high dose of radiation for a diagnostic test; however, our rationale at the time was that the saline load test was a painful, invasive procedure using a needle, and that we would trade a bit of radiation for lack of invasive procedure. This got us thinking of ways we could decrease the amount of radiation in the CT yet maintain the same diagnostic accuracy of identifying penetrating joint injuries. Collaborating with Dr. Soterios Gyftopoulos, an assistant professor in the Department of Radiology at NYU Langone, we were able to successfully reduce the amount of radiation in these CT scans and still get good bony images. We then thought, if we can get a CT scan that shows us good bony detail and is safer, then why shouldn’t we be doing it on every joint fracture, not just these arthrotomy cases? We then applied this to our current research protocol, REDUCTION(Reduced Effective Dose Using Computed Tomography In Orthopaedic Injury) in which we reduced the average amount of radiation from 0.43 msV to 0.03 msV, or down to the average dose given in a routine chest X-ray. After running a comparison study with our ultra-low dose radiation protocol compared to conventional CT scans, we found we were able to obtain nearly the exact same types of images for various joint fractures and locations without sacrificing any diagnostic accuracy in most cases. We gave sets of these CT scans to orthopaedic surgeons to analyze, and found we achieved 98 percent sensitivity and 89 percent specificity with the ultra-low dose CT scans when occult fractures, or those that could not be seen on an X-ray, were removed from our analysis. (more…)
Author Interviews, Lifestyle & Health, Weight Research / 17.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Ellen Flint Lecturer in Population Health MRC Strategic Skills Fellow Department of Social & Environmental Health Research London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine London MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Flint: Globally, physical inactivity is a major cause of obesity, chronic disease and premature mortality. Improving population levels of physical activity is therefore a key public health policy aim, in high and middle income countries. In the past, functional active travel was a key source of physical activity for many people. However, since the mass adoption of private motorised travel in the 20th century, the vast majority (63%) of working adults in the UK commute to by car. Using UK Biobank data from more than 150,000 middle-aged adults, we found that those who commuted to work via cycling or walking had significantly lower body fat percentage and lower body mass index (BMI) compared to adults who commuted by car. The strongest associations were seen for adults who commuted via bicycle. For the average man in the sample (age 53 years; height 176.7cm; weight 85.9kg), cycling to work rather than driving was associated with a weight difference of 5kg or 11lbs (1.71 BMI points). For the average woman in the sample (age 52 years; height 163.6cm; weight 70.6kg), the weight difference was 4.4kg or 9.7lbs (1.65 BMI points). Even people who commuted via public transport also showed significant reductions in BMI and percentage body fat compared with those who commuted only by car. This suggests that even the incidental physical activity involved in public transport journeys may be important. The link between active commuting and obesity reduction was independent of other factors such as income, area deprivation, urban or rural residence, education, alcohol intake, smoking, general physical activity, dietary energy intake and overall health and disability. If you're often using public transport, particularly around the New York Area, check out this babylon schedule. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Karolinski Institute, Mental Health Research, Schizophrenia / 16.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Anna-Clara Hollander PhD Division of Social Medicine, Department of Public Health Sciences Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The humanitarian crises in Europe, the Middle East, north Africa, and central Asia have led to more displaced people, asylum seekers, and refugees worldwide than at any time since the second world war. Refugees are known to be at an increased risk of mental health problems, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and other common mental disorders, compared to non-refugee migrants, but little is known about their risk of psychosis. The aim of the study was to determine the risk of schizophrenia and other non-affective psychotic disorders among refugees, compared to non-refugee migrants, and the general Swedish population. We used a linked national register data to examine more than 1.3 million people in Sweden, and tracked diagnoses of non-affective psychotic disorders among the population. The cohort included people born to two Swedish-born parents, refugees, and non-refugee migrants from the four major refugee generating regions: the Middle East and north Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Russia. Results showed 3,704 cases of non-affective psychotic disorders during the 8.9 million person years of follow up. Refugees granted asylum were on average 66% more likely to develop schizophrenia or another non-affective psychotic disorder than non-refugee migrants. In addition, they were up to 3.6 times more likely to do so than the Swedish-born population. Incidence rates for non-affective psychosis were 385 per million in those born in Sweden, 804 per million in non-refugee migrants, and 1264 per million in refugees. The increased rate in refugees was significant for all areas of origin except sub-Saharan Africa, for whom rates in both groups were similarly high relative to the Swedish-born population. One possible explanation is that a larger proportion of sub-Saharan Africa immigrants will have been exposed to deleterious psychosocial adversities before emigration, irrespective of refugee status. Alternatively post-migratory factors, such as discrimination, racism, and social exclusion may explain these high rates. Overall, our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that increased risk of non-affective psychotic disorders among immigrants is due to a higher frequency of exposure to social adversity before migration, including the effects of war, violence, or persecution. (more…)
Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Flu - Influenza, Kaiser Permanente, Surgical Research, Vaccine Studies / 16.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sara Y. Tartof, PhD, MPH Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Tartof: The flu is a highly contagious respiratory infection that can cause serious complications, hospitalizations and, in some cases, even death. Some people, such as older adults, young children and people with certain health conditions, are at high risk for serious complications. In addition to recommending annual flu vaccination for people 6 months of age and older, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that hospitalized patients who are eligible receive the flu vaccine before discharge. Historically, inpatient rates of vaccination have been low. There has been concern among surgeons that vaccinating patients while they are in the hospital can contribute to increased risk of vaccine-related fever or muscle pain, which might be incorrectly attributed to surgical complications. However, there have been no data to support that concern. The objective of this study was to provide clinical evidence that would either substantiate or refute concerns about the safety of perioperative vaccination. (more…)
Author Interviews, Lifestyle & Health / 16.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Nipun Shrestha MBBS, MPH Health Research and Social Development Forum Thapathali, Kathmandu, Nepal MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: These days our work in the offices isn't the same as it used to be. Almost everybody is working with a computer nowadays and that makes you sit still all day. We do not need to move from our chair to do most of the things. This is not just the case in developed countries but for developing countries as well. One would argue though we are sitting in the office hours but we are regularly doing lots of exercises. However researchers have found that sedentary behavior is an independent risk factor for many chronic diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. So breaking up time that we spend sitting is important. There are many commercial innovations available in the market which are being advertised heavily by the manufacturers. The evidence on effectiveness of such innovation is however not available. We found that there is limited evidence on effectiveness of interventions that aim to reduce sitting at work. There is some evidence that sit-stand desk may reduce sitting at work between 30 minutes to 2 hours without any adverse effects. (more…)
Author Interviews, Urinary Tract Infections / 16.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Maureen Maurer, MS  American Institute for Research Makawao, HI   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Complications from UTIs are a serious medical problem for many people with neurological impairment such as spinal cord injuries. Detection is often difficult in these patients, resulting in delayed diagnosis and more serious infections such as pyelonephritis and sepsis.  UTIs are also the most common hospital acquired infection for all patients. Given the prevalence of UTIs, their complications, and increasing drug therapy resistance, improved early detection methods are needed. The olfactory acuity of dogs is over 100,000 times stronger than humans. Dogs’ superior olfactory capabilities have been employed to assist humans by detecting bombs, drugs, and more recently, cancer. Trained dogs may present a novel method for early UTI detection. Our objective was to determine whether canines could be trained to discriminate culture-positive from culture-negative urine samples.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Electronic Records, JAMA, Primary Care / 16.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Daniel R. Murphy MD MBA Assistant Professor - Interim Director of GIM at Baylor Clinic Department of Medicine Health Svc Research & General Internal Medicine Baylor College of Medicine Houston, TX, US MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Murphy: Electronic health records (EHRs) have enabled a large number of messages to be transmitted to physicians each day, including new types of messages that were not present in the pre-EHR era. Lack of support and policies to assist physicians with this workload creates opportunities for important information, such as abnormal tests results, to be missed among the vast amount of other information. We found that primary care physicians (PCPs) at three clinics using commercial EHRs received an average of 77 messages per day, of which only about 20% were test results. Specialists received an average of 29 total messages per day. Extrapolating time needed to process these messages from prior work suggests that PCPs would require an average of 67 minutes per day to process these messages. (more…)
Author Interviews, OBGYNE, Pediatrics, PLoS, Surgical Research / 16.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Mairead Black MBChB, MRCOG, MSc Clinical Lecturer, Obstetrics and Gynaecology School of Medicine and Dentistry, Division of Applied Health Sciences University of Aberdeen Aberdeen Maternity Hospital, Cornhill Road Aberdeen MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Black: The commonest reason for performing a planned Cesarean Section (CS) in high-income countries is a history of a previous CS. However, there is very little information available on childhood health outcomes of birth after a previous . MedicalResearch.com: Why might vaginal birth be beneficial? Dr. Black: If a baby is born naturally, it is exposed to various processes of labour and birth which may help their immunity and ability to avoid or fight future illness. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease / 15.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Michael D. Miedema, MD, MPH Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation Abbott Northwestern Hospital Minneapolis, MN MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Miedema: Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. With increasing risk factors like obesity and diabetes more population level prevention efforts are needed. Heart of New Um Project (HONU) was created as a demonstration project to test prevention of cardiovascular disease by reducing modifiable risk factors across the entire community. HONU interventions focus on improving health by reaching individuals in health care, worksites, and the community settings but also creating healthier environment and a social movement around being healthy to enable individuals to make healthier choices. Example interventions in health care, worksite, and the broader community include:
  • Health care: Comprehensive free heart health screening held every few years to identify risks (results shared with providers and follow up was done in clinics to address medication needs). We also used the electronic health record to apply some algorithms to calculate risk of heart disease and were able to offer health coaching to people who did not yet have heart disease or diabetes but who were at high risk.
  • Worksites:  we developed and partnered with over 40 worksites in the community to conduct health screenings of employees, to identify ways companies could improve their wellness policies, and offering onsite behavior change programs.
  • Community: work with restaurants to improve healthy options, increasing farmers market participation by farmers and by consumers, creating run/walk events, community wide health challenges, and creating a social movement through social marketing and community organizing.
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