Author: Marie Benz MD FAAD

24 Oct Genes Beneficial To Our Ancestors, May Be Harmful Today

Posted at 17:06h in Author Interviews, Genetic Research

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Toomas Kivsild PhD Department of Archaeology and Anthropology University of Cambridge, Cambridge Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Kivsild: Native populations of Siberia are known to have certain physiological characteristics such as high basal metabolic rate, and high blood pressure and low levels of serum lipids, that have been explained as traits that have evolved as a consequence of the adaptation of Siberians to their cold environment. Genetic basis of cold adaptation is still poorly understood. In our previous study using genome-wide genotyping scans we detected a 3 Mbp region of high haplotype homozygosity in chromosome 11 as a candidate of strong positive selection in Northeast Siberians. There were 79 protein coding genes mapping to this homozygosity region but we could not determine which of the genes was driving the signal we observed. In this forthcoming paper we have used high coverage whole genome sequences from 25 individuals from Northeast Siberia and we were able to determine the most likely SNP that is responsible for the high haplotype homozygosity in the chromosome 11 in Northeast Siberians maps to CPT1A gene which is a key regulator of long-chain fatty-acid oxidation in mitochondria. What makes this finding most interesting is that the same SNP had previously been found in Greenland and Canadian Inuits in association with high infant mortality and hypoketotic hypoglycemia. There are only a few other similar cases, like the sickle cell and APOL1 alleles, where disease associated genetic variants may have risen to high frequency in modern day populations due to the adaptive advantage they have presented in the past populations.

24 Oct After Heart Attack: Women More Likely To Develop Anxiety and Depression

Posted at 16:35h in Author Interviews, Depression, Heart Disease

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Pranas Serpytis Vilnius University Hospital Santariskiu Clinic Vilnius, Lithuania Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Professor Serpytis: The main findings of the study were that women are more likely to develop anxiety and depression after acute myocardial infarction. In our study depression was assessed by HADS scale: no depression (0-7 score), possible depression (8-10 score), definite depression (11+ score). The mean score of assessing depression were 6.87 (± 4.6) among men and 8.66 (± 3.7) among women (p <.05). Cardiovascular disease risk factors such as smoking increases patients anxiety levels, and low physical activity is associated with an increased risk to suffer from depression.

24 Oct Familial Pancreatic Cancer Linked To Increased Melanoma and Endometrial Cancer Risk

Posted at 01:57h in Author Interviews, Cancer, Pancreatic

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jeremy L. Humphris MBBS The Kinghorn Cancer Center, Cancer Research Program, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Darlinghurst, New South Wales, Australia and Andrew V. Biankin Regius Professor of Surgery Director, Wolfson Wohl Cancer Research Centre, University of Glasgow Garscube Estate, Switchback Road, Bearsden, Glasgow Scotland United Kingdom Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Response: Familial pancreatic cancer (FPC) is a family with at least 2 first degree (parent-child or siblings) with pancreatic cancer. We found these patients represent nearly 9% of our cohort. In addition we found those with familial pancreatic cancer were more likely to have other first degree relatives with a history of extra-pancreatic cancer, in particular melanoma and endometrial cancer. Patients with familial pancreatic cancer had more high grade precursor lesions in the pancreas adjacent to the tumour but the outcome was similar. Smoking was more prevalent in sporadic pancreatic cancer and active smoking was associated with significantly younger age at diagnosis in both groups. Long-standing diabetes mellitus (> 2 years duration) was associated with poorer survival in both groups.

24 Oct 25% Infants Do Not Receive Vaccinations On Recommended Schedule

Posted at 00:25h in Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Vaccine Studies

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Louise-Anne McNutt, PhD Associate Director, Institute for Health and the Environment University at Albany, State University of New York Jessica Nadeau, PhD Epidemiologist, University at Albany, State University of New York Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Response: The study found that about 25% of infants consistently deviated from the routine vaccine schedule recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Alterations included either consistently refusing a recommended vaccine or reducing the number of vaccines given at each visit. These deviations are generally associated with intent to use an alternative vaccination schedule. Infants who did not follow the AAP recommended schedule were more likely to be unprotected against vaccine preventable diseases for a longer period of time. Only 1 in10 infants vaccinated on an alternative schedule were up-to-date at 9 months of age.

23 Oct Physicians Frustrated By Administrative Burdens of Medical Practice

Posted at 22:02h in Author Interviews, Health Care Systems

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Steffie Woolhandler MD MPH Professor of Public Health and City University of New York, Lecturer (formerly Professor of Medicine) at Harvard Medical School Primary Care Physician Practicing in the South Bronx Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr. Woolhandler: Physicians like myself are extremely frustrated by the administrative burdens of medical practice. Many hours of physicians’ time each week go to administrative work completely unrelated to good patient care, but mandated by private insurers and other payers. Colleagues often tell me that they love seeing patients but are getting burned out by the paperwork.

23 Oct Pathology Reveals Overlap Between Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder

Posted at 20:45h in Author Interviews, Bipolar Disorder, JAMA, Schizophrenia

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Glenn T. Konopaske, MD McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School Boston, Massachusetts Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Konopaske: Using postmortem human brain tissue this study did reconstructions of basilar dendrites localized to pyramidal cells in the deep layer III of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Tissue from individuals with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or controls was examined. Dendritic spine density (number of spines per μm dendrite) was significantly reduced in bipolar disorder and also reduced in schizophrenia at a trend level. The number of dendritic spines per dendrite and dendrite length were significantly reduced in subjects with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

23 Oct Racial and Ethnic Disparities Continue In Asthma Rates

Posted at 20:35h in Author Interviews, Pulmonary Disease, Race/Ethnic Diversity

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Nandita Bhan, ScD MSc MA Research Scientist & Adjunct Assistant Professor Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Bhan: We found that the last decade in the US has seen a rise in racial/ethnic disparities in asthma. Compared to Non-Hispanic White populations, greater rates of asthma were seen among African Americans and lower rates among Hispanic populations. But more importantly, we found that it is not just a question of who you are, but where you live. Results showed heterogeneity by region and place of origin - highlighting that it will be simplistic to assume that asthma rates for Hispanic populations are the same across all states in the US. While data is unable to explore further granularity by ethnicity, our results add to the developing evidence that state policies and politics have impacts on socioeconomic and racial/ethnic inequalities manifesting in health disparities in the US.

23 Oct Faster Weight Gain in Infancy Predicts Adult Obesity

Posted at 20:01h in Author Interviews, JAMA, Pediatrics, Weight Research

MedicalResearch.com Interview Invitation Dr Ken Ong, Programme Leader & Paediatric Endocrinologist MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge Box 285 Institute of Metabolic Science Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Cambridge Medical Research: What are the main findings of this report? Dr. Ong: We found that genetic factors that predict adult obesity were associated with faster weight gain and growth during infancy – the findings indicate that the biological mechanisms that predispose to later obesity are already active from birth.

23 Oct Analgesics May Enhance Depression Treatment

Posted at 14:24h in Author Interviews, JAMA, Mental Health Research

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Karl Ole Köhler, Research assistant Department of Clinical Medicine The Department of General Psychiatry Aarhus University Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Response: We found that anti-inflammatory drugs and ordinary analgesics, which mainly are used against physical disorders, may have treatment effects against depression when used in combination with antidepressants. Thereby, our results furthermore support the hypothesis regarding a comorbidity between inflammatory diseases and depression, i.e. a connection between somatic and mental disorders.

23 Oct Trans and Saturated Fat Intake Declining, Still Room for Improvement

Posted at 11:23h in AHA Journals, Author Interviews, Nutrition

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Mary Ann Honors, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Research Fellow Division of Epidemiology and Community Health University of Minnesota Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Honors: The American Heart Association and USDA have made recommendations on what we should and should not eat in order in reduce our cardiovascular disease risk. We wanted to know whether Americans are currently meeting these recommendations, as well as how our diets have changed over time. In particular, we were interested in several specific nutrients, including trans fats, saturated fats, and the omega-3 fatty acids, DHA and EPA. We examined trends in fatty acid intake in participants from the Minnesota Heart Survey. The Minnesota Heart Survey is a an ongoing, cross-sectional study of adults in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area that was designed to monitor cardiovascular disease risk factors, including diet. We found that intake of trans fats and saturated fats has declined substantially over the last 30 years. However, intake levels are still above current recommendations. With DHA and EPA, we found that levels of intake were pretty steady over time and below what is recommended. Overall, while we saw some encourage trends, there is still some room for improvement in our diets.

23 Oct Bile Acid Diarrhea May Be Helped By New Drug Class

Posted at 11:16h in Author Interviews, Gastrointestinal Disease

MedicalResearch.com Interview Invitation Julian Walters Professor of Gastroenterology Section of Hepatology & Gastroenterology | Imperial College London Consultant Gastroenterologist Imperial College Healthcare Hammersmith Hospital London W12 0HS | UK Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What is Bile acid diarrhoea (BAD)? Dr. Walters: Bile acid diarrhoea accounts for about a third of the patients who would otherwise be diagnosed as IBS-D (irritable bowel syndrome – diarrhoea predominant). We estimate about 1% of the adult population have this primary disorder; others may have it secondary to previous surgery such as ileal resection in Crohn’s disease or post-cholecystectomy. There are unmet needs to improve diagnosis rates and to improve the current treatment with bile acid sequestrants which can be poorly tolerated and do not address the primary pathology. We have shown that primary BAD patients have reduced levels of Fibroblast Growth Factor 19 (FGF19) the ileal hormone that regulates bile acid synthesis.

23 Oct Internalized Fat Bias Impacts Bariatric Surgery Success

Posted at 10:29h in Author Interviews, Psychological Science, Weight Research

MedicalResearch.com Interview with Dr. Michelle Lent PhD Geisinger Health System Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr. Lent: Previous study findings indicate that weight bias relates to a number of adverse outcomes in overweight and obese populations, including binge eating, psychological disorders and body image issues. In this study, we measured the degree to which people undergoing weight-loss surgery translate “anti-fat” attitudes into negative beliefs about themselves before surgery (known as “internalized weight bias”) and if this influences weight loss outcomes after surgery.

23 Oct Hospital Workers Besieged By Alarms

Posted at 10:11h in Author Interviews, Outcomes & Safety, UCSF

MedicalResearch.com: Interview Barbara J. Drew, RN, PhD, FAAN, FAHA David Mortara Distinguished Professor in Physiological Nursing Research, Clinical Professor of Medicine, Cardiology University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Department of Physiological Nursing San Francisco, CA 94143-0610 Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr. Drew: Physiologic monitors used in hospital intensive care units (ICUs) are plagued with alarms that create a cacophony of sounds and visual alerts causing “alarm fatigue.” Alarm fatigue occurs when clinicians are desensitized by numerous alarms, many of which are false or clinically irrelevant. As a result, the cacophony of alarm sounds becomes “background noise” that is perceived as the normal working environment in the ICU. Importantly, alarms may be silenced at the central station without checking the patient or permanently disabled by clinicians who find the constant audible or textual messages bothersome. Disabling alarms creates an unsafe patient environment because a life-threatening event may be missed in this milieu of sensory overload. To date, there has not been a comprehensive investigation of the frequency, types, and accuracy of physiologic monitor alarms collected in a “real-world” ICU setting. For this reason, nurse and engineer scientists in the ECG Monitoring Research Laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) designed a study to provide complete data on monitor alarms.

23 Oct Skin Cells Converted Into Neurons That Affect Huntington’s Disease

Posted at 01:05h in Author Interviews, Neurological Disorders, Stem Cells

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Matheus Victorm PhD candidate Dr. Andrew Yoo's Lab Graduate Program in Neuroscience Washington University School of Medicine Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Answer: We have described a way to convert human skin cells directly into a specific type of brain cell called medium spiny...

23 Oct Mortality From Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Drops Dramatically

Posted at 00:10h in Author Interviews, Pulmonary Disease

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jared Radbel MD Staten Island, New York Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Radbel: Using ICD 9 coding from the largest all-payer inpatient health care database in the United States, the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) database we identified 174,180 patients with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) from 1996-2011. When expanded to estimate country-wide discharges, our data represents 856,293 patients. We found a decrease in case fatality rate from 46.8% in 1996 to 32.2% in 2011. This corresponds to an absolute mortality reduction of 14.6% and relative reduction of 31%.

22 Oct Metastatic Colon Cancer: Survival Improved With FOLFOXIRI and Bevacizumab

Posted at 22:31h in Author Interviews, Colon Cancer, NEJM

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Alfredo Falcone MD Chiara Cremolini Fotios Loupakis University of Pisa and Azienda-Ospedaliero Universitaria Pisana Italy Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Falcone: In the TRIBE study the main findings are that the use of an initial more intensive therapy with a triplet of cytotoxics (FOLFOXIRI) plus bevacizumab vs a doublet (FOLFIRI) + bevacizumab improves the outcome of metastatic colorectal cancer patients with unresectable metastases. In particular FOLFOXIRI + bevacizumab vs FOLFIRI+bevacizumab improved RECIST response-rate (65% vs 53%, p=0.006), progression-free survival which was the primary endpoint (median 12,1 vs 9,7 months, HR=0,75, p=0.003) and overall survival (median 31,0 vs 25,8 months, HR=0.79, p=0.054). These results, also compared to those reported in previous phase III studies in molecularly unselected patients, represent an important advance in the treatment of this disease.

22 Oct CHEST 2014: Electronic Stethoscope For Evaluation of Lung and Heart Disease

Posted at 22:16h in Heart Disease

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ilina and Medha Krishen Michigan high school students and sisters Ilina and Medha Krishen, have developed screening tools using electronic stethoscopes to detect lung and heart disease. Their research was presented at the 2014 CHEST national meeting. Ilina and Medha have kindly agreed to discuss their work for the MedicalResearch.com audience. Medical Research: Ilina, please tell us a little about you and the background for your study. Ilina: I am a senior at Port Huron Northern High School in Fort Gratiot, Michigan. I was exploring the effects of air pollutants on lungs using frequency analysis of lung recordings. My goal was to see if I could pick up early changes in healthy smokers and firefighters. Dr. Sridhar Reddy, a local pulmonologist and occupational medicine expert mentored me. He lent me his electronic stethoscope. I am a violinist and a clarinet player, so initially had a lot of fun analyzing music frequencies. Later, I moved to lung sounds (a little more difficult!). I used a Thinklabs Electronic Stethoscope for recording lung sounds. The inventor, Mr. Clive Smith, helped me understand the stethoscope. I used the MATLAB program for analyzing frequencies. Mr. Charles Munson, a graduate student at the University of Michigan, helped me write the software program for it.

22 Oct Cow’s Milk May Be Protective Against Childhood Infections

Posted at 19:50h in Allergies, Author Interviews, Infections, Nutrition, Pediatrics

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Georg Loss, PhD Dr. von Hauner Children’s Hospital Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich Munich, Germany Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Loss: In this large population based cohort study we observed that consumption of fresh unprocessed cow’s milk protected from respiratory infections, febrile illness and inflammation of the middle ear during the first year of life. The risk of developing these conditions was reduced by up to 30%, and the effect was diminished if the milk was heated at home before consumption. Conventionally pasteurized milk retained the ability to reduce the risk of febrile illness, while exposure to the higher temperatures used in UHT (Ultra-heat-treatment) processing eliminated the effect altogether. Importantly, the positive impact of fresh milk could be clearly separated from the confounding effects of other elements of the children’s nutrition. Furthermore, infants fed on unprocessed milk were found to have lower levels of the C-reactive protein, which is a measure of inflammation status.

22 Oct CT Angiograms Improve Outcomes and Save Lives

Posted at 17:45h in Author Interviews, Heart Disease, UCLA

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Matthew Budoff, M.D. Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute Torrance California Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Budoff: We evaluated whether patients undergoing coronary CT angiography (non-invasive angiography) had better outcomes than those treated without the test. We found survival was better with CT angiography. Finding atherosclerosis allows cardiologists and primary care doctors to treat the patient better, including more statin therapy, more anti-platelet therapy, more lifestyle modifications. Several small studies showed similar results, but this was by far the most significant and largest study of it’s kind.

22 Oct Air Pollution Exposure During Pregnancy Linked To Childhood Lung Function Risk

Posted at 17:14h in Author Interviews, BMJ, Environmental Risks, OBGYNE, Pulmonary Disease

Medical Research Interview with: Eva Morales, MD, PhD, MPH Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL) Barcelona Biomedical Research Park Barcelona, Spain Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Morales: We aimed to assess the consequences of exposure to outdoor air pollution during specific trimesters of pregnancy and postnatal lifetime periods on lung function in preschool children. We conducted a longitudinal study by using data from 620 mother-child pairs participating in the INfancia y Medio Ambiente (INMA) Project – a population-based cohort study set up in several geographic areas in Spain. We found that exposure to outdoor air pollution during the second trimester of pregnancy in particular raises the risk of harm to a child’s lung function at preschool age.

22 Oct Vitamin D Levels Lower In Children Who Drink Non-Cow’s Milk

Posted at 17:06h in Author Interviews, CMAJ, Pediatrics, Vitamin D

MedicalResearch.com: Interview with: Jonathon Maguire MD MSc FRCPC Pediatrician and Scientist Department of Pediatrics Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute St. Michael’s Hospital University of Toronto Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Maguire: One of the main health benefits of cow’s milk is vitamin D. We were interested to know if non-cow’s milk supports children’s vitamin D blood levels as well as cow’s milk.

22 Oct Smokers’ Homes Have High Air Pollution Levels

Posted at 16:50h in Author Interviews, BMJ, Occupational Health, Tobacco

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. John Cherrie PhD Honorary Professor in Occupational Hygiene Institute of Applied Health Sciences Aberdeen, UK Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Cherrie: We set out to bring together measurements of fine particle levels in homes where smoking takes place, to compare these with smoke-free homes and then to estimate how much of these fine particles are inhaled by people at different stages in their life. We also wanted to look at the exposure to particles of non-smokers living with smokers and compare this with the exposure of people living in heavily polluted major cities around the world.

22 Oct Exercise Improves Brain Blood Flow Up To About Age 70

Posted at 12:10h in Aging, Author Interviews, Exercise - Fitness

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Emrah Düzel Director, Institute of Cognitive Neurology and Dementia Research, OvG Univ. Magdeburg, Germany Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience University College London Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Professor Düzel: We found that even in old age, intensive and long-term (3 months) aerobic exercise can improve blood flow in the hippocampus, a brain structure that is of critical importance for memory. The increase in blood flow is evident during a resting state and this means that the exercise improves the overall perfusion of the hippocampus. Such effects had previously only been reported in young adults. As previously observed in young adults, the change in blood flow after exercise is related to the improvement of specific memory skills. We found the closest relationship between improved blood flow and recognition memory for complex objects. This is interesting because this type of memory is likely to benefit from “pattern separation”, a process that in animal studies of exercise is tightly associated with hippocampal neurogenesis. However, we also found that the exercise-related improvement in hippocampal blood flow and in recognition memory was absent in the older seniors of our study cohort. Those who were beyond 70 did not show any improvement. We reasoned that this may have been due to higher levels of stress in the older seniors. Therefore, we investigated whether elevated serum cortisol levels dampened the benefits of exercise in the older seniors. But this was not the case making it unlikely that stress levels can account for these findings.

22 Oct Shared Savings May Promote Lower Costs With Equally Effective Health Care

Posted at 12:02h in Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, JAMA, University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Harald Schmidt, MA, PhD Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy Research Associate, Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics Perelman School of Medicine University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104-3308

MedicalResearch.com Interview with Dr. Harald Schmidt, MA, PhD Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy , Research Associate, Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics, Perelman School of Medicine University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104-3308 Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Schmidt: We reviewed currently available policies for aligning cost and quality of care. We focused on interventions are similar in their clinical effectiveness, have modest differences in convenience, but pose substantial cost differences to the healthcare system and patients. To control health care costs while ensuring patient convenience and physician burden, reference pricing would be the most desirable policy. But it is currently politically unfeasible. Alternatives therefore need to be explored. We propose the novel concept of Inclusive Shared Savings, in which physicians, the healthcare system, and, crucially, patients, benefit financially in moving more patients to lower cost but guideline concordant and therapeutically equivalent interventions.

22 Oct Recommended Osteoporosis Screening May Not Effectively Screen Younger Patients

Posted at 11:56h in Author Interviews, JCEM, Menopause, UCLA

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Carolyn J. Crandall, MD, MS Professor of Medicine David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California UCLA Medicine/GIM Los Angeles, CA 90024 Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Crandall: Clinical guidelines recommend that women aged ≥ 65 years should be screened for osteoporosis. However, for younger postmenopausal women aged between 50 and 64 years, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends osteoporosis screening for women who have a 10-year predicted risk of osteoporosis fracture that is ≥9.3%. We tested the ability the USPSTF strategy, and two other strategies (called OST and SCORE), to distinguish between women who did and did not experience a fracture in the subsequent 10 years. We found that the USPSTF strategy did not identify the majority of who experienced osteoporotic fracture in the subsequent 10 years. Especially in women aged 50-54 years, the USPSTF strategy identified fewer than 5% of women who experienced fracture over 10-year follow-up.

22 Oct CHEST 2014: Obstructive Sleep Apnea Linked To Cognitive Difficulties in Postmenopausal Women

Posted at 11:51h in Cognitive Issues, Menopause, Obstructive Sleep Apnea

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Chitra Lal, MD. Assistant Professor Medical University of South Carolina Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Lal: We studied the prevalence of cognitive problems in early postmenopausal women (age 45-60 years) with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS+) and without obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS-) using a questionnaire called the Mail-In Cognitive Function Screening Instrument (MCFSI). We found that the mean MCFSI scores after adjusting for depression were significantly higher in obstructive sleep apnea syndrome+ then the OSAS- group, indicating more self-reported cognitive difficulty in OSAS+ women

22 Oct Flu Mutations Led To More Disease Among Middle-Aged Adults

Posted at 11:39h in Author Interviews, Flu - Influenza, Vaccine Studies, Wistar

MedicalResearch.com Interview with Scott E. Hensley, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, The Wistar Institute Philadelphia, PA 19104 Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Hensley: We found that H1N1 viruses recently acquired a mutation that abrogates binding of influenza antibodies that are present in a large number of middle-aged adults. We propose that this mutation lead to increased disease among middle-aged adults during the 2013-2014 influenza season.

21 Oct CHEST 2014: ECMO CPR May Improve Patient Recovery

Posted at 23:28h in Heart Disease

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Graham Peigh, BA Thomas Jefferson University Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Response: The main findings of our study show that extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (E-CPR) can provide recovery when a patient is unresponsive to conventional CPR. In our sample of 24 patients, 13 survived ECMO, and 7 were successfully discharged from the hospital. Major meta analytic studies have shown that in-hospital CPR yields a discharge rate of under 20%, and our study presents results which demonstrate that E-CPR provides a method by which those survival figures can be increased. Importantly, our study also showed that vital organ function among ECMO survivors was maintained. All13 patients had improved or unchanged kidney and liver function, and 12/13 had improved or unchanged metabolic function. After using standard hypothermia protocols, all seven hospital survivors had full neurological recovery. This study differs from the majority of other studies on E-CPR because our institution does not have a dedicated E-CPR/Code team available to perform E-CPR 24/7. We believe that our results are thus generalizable to other academic institutions, which, like ours, have the capability to perform E-CPR, but are only able to do so during on-hours when physicians, perfusionists, and ECMO materials are available.

21 Oct CHEST 2014: Breath Test May Become Accurate Enough For Lung Cancer Detection

Posted at 22:50h in CHEST, Lung Cancer

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Peter J. Mazzone, MD, FCCP MPH Director of the Lung Cancer Program for the Respiratory Institute Cleveland Clinic Medical Research: What are the main findings of this study? Dr. Mazzone: There were 2 parts to this study. In the first part we looked at how the breath collection instrument and sensor were performing and made adjustments to both in order to optimize its performance. In the second part we used the improved device and sensor to see if we could accurately separate a sensor signal of our patients with lung cancer from those without lung cancer. We found good separation of lung cancer from non-cancer breath signals, and very good separation of signals of one type of lung cancer from another. We have concluded that a colorimetric sensor array based breath test is capable of separating those with lung cancer from those without.

21 Oct Metformin May Be Protective Against Cancer

Posted at 21:53h in Author Interviews, Cancer Research

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Iris L. Romero MD MS Associate Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Section of General Gynecology The University of Chicago Medicine Chicago, IL Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Romero: There is increasing epidemiologic and preclinical data indicating that the commonly used diabetic drug, metformin, may have anticancer effects. In ovarian cancer, in 2011 in Obstetrics & Gynecology we reported that in a retrospective cohort ovarian cancer patients that were using metformin had increased survival compared to those not using mefomrin. In this study, we expand on those findings by testing whether metformin can prevent ovarian cancer or improve response to chemotherapy in mouse models. In a prevention study, we found that mice treated with metformin before cancer was initiated developed less tumor than those treated with placebo. In a treatment study, in vitro, metformin increased the cytotoxic effect of paclitaxel. In addition, using a genetic mouse model we show that the combination of paclitaxel plus metformin results in a greater tumor reduction than either drug used alone.