Author Interviews, Cancer, CDC, Ovarian Cancer, Race/Ethnic Diversity / 06.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Sherri Stewart, PhD Division of Cancer Prevention and Control CDC MedicalResearch.com: What do women most need to know about ovarian cancer detection and treatment? Response: There is no effective test to detect ovarian cancer at an early stage where treatment is most likely to be effective.  Many women mistakenly believe that the Pap test can detect ovarian cancer, but it does not. The Pap test is recommended only for the detection of cervical cancer.  Recognizing early symptoms of ovarian cancer and seeking timely care may help lead to detection of the cancer at an earlier stage, where treatment is likely to be more effective.  Symptoms – such  as abdominal and back pain, feeling full quickly after eating, and frequent urination – are often present among women with ovarian cancer.  Women should talk with their doctors if they experience any of these symptoms for 2 weeks or longer and the symptoms persist or worsen. If a woman is diagnosed with ovarian cancer, she should seek treatment from a gynecologic oncologist, a physician specially trained to treat ovarian cancer.  Ovarian cancer patients who have been treated by gynecologic oncologists have been shown to survive longer than those treated by other physicians.           (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, CDC, Colon Cancer, Race/Ethnic Diversity / 06.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Arica White PhD MPH Division of Cancer Prevention and Control CDC MedicalResearch.com: What is the likelihood of reaching the 80% CRC screening rate goal by next year? Response: As of 2016, 67% of adults age 50-75 years reported being up-to-date with colorectal cancer screening. The 80% by 2018 initiative represented an aspirational goal that public health, non-profit, and community-based organizations will continue to strive for regardless of the outcome in 2018. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, Social Issues / 06.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Homeless” by Sonny Abesamis is licensed under CC BY 2.0Sarah Hunter, PhD Senior Behavioral Scientist, RAND Corporation Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School Santa Monica, CA 90401-3028 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: In 2014, RAND was contracted by Brilliant Corners in collaboration with the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and Los Angeles County Department of Health Services to conduct an evaluation of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services’ Housing for Health (HFH) program.  The HFH program began in 2012 with the goal of providing permanent supportive housing for frequent utilizers of county health services who were experiencing homelessness.  (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews / 06.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Claude Wischik Co-Founder and Executive Chairman TauRx Pharmaceuticals MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The study TRx-237-005 was the second of two Phase 3 trials conducted by TauRx, and was specifically set up to investigate the efficacy and safety of LMTX® in 800 patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease at a dose of 100 mg twice daily compared to 4 mg twice daily (intended as an inactive control dose) over an 18-month treatment period. Results from this study were found to be consistent with those from the first Phase 3 study in mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease, published in The Lancet [(TRx-237-015) Gauthier et al. 2016], indicating that patients obtained no benefit from LMTX® when it was taken in combination with existing approved drugs for Alzheimer’s disease and supporting the hypothesis that LMTX® might be effective as monotherapy at doses as low as 4 mg twice daily. Please refer to the press release for full study results.   (more…)
Author Interviews, C. difficile, Gastrointestinal Disease, JAMA, Transplantation / 06.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dina Kao, MD, FRCPC Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta, Canada MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We wanted to see what would be the best way to deliver fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT.) There were many controlled studies of FMT delivered by various methods, showing different success rates. Not only were the route of delivery different, but the amount of donor stools also varied greatly from study to study. It appeared that most of the studies delivered by the upper routes gave a smaller amount of donor stool compared to the studies delivering FMT by colonoscopy. Our hypothesis was that given the same amount of donor stool, the effectiveness would be similar by capsules and by colonsocopy. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, Health Care Systems, JAMA / 05.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Allison Kratka MD Candidate 2018 Duke University School of Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: As there are increasing numbers of high-deductible plans and those with high rates of co-insurance, patients are increasingly expected to help contain the cost of their health care by being savvy health care consumers. We set out to determine how easy or hard it is to find healthcare prices online. (more…)
Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Cocaine, Kaiser Permanente, NIH, Race/Ethnic Diversity / 05.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Cocaine” by Nightlife Of Revelry is licensed under CC BY 2.0Dr. Dave Thomas PhD Health Scientist Administrator National Institute on Drug Abuse  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: At the National Institute on Drug Abuse, we support research on all forms of drug use, and are aware that cocaine misuse is on the rise.  We are aware that various forms of drug use can have greater prevalence by race, sex, age and other population characteristics. The main finding of this paper is that cocaine overdose rates are on the rise and that that the group hit hardest is the non-Hispanic black population. (more…)
Author Interviews, Genetic Research, Weight Research / 05.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Scale model” by brett jordan is licensed under CC BY 2.0William Barrington, PhD lead author on the study Recently graduated PhD student from the Threadgill lab David Threadgill, PhD Texas A&M College of Medicine and College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, senior author MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Obesity and diet-induced diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, have reached epidemic proportions. The United States has offered universal dietary recommendations for decades, but they have been largely unsuccessful in reducing diet-induced diseases. These recommendations are largely built upon population-level data, which examines a large number of individuals and determines the average response to a dietary intervention. However, if there is large variation in responses within a population, then population-level data may be inadequate to improve health across genetically diverse individuals. Our study used four genetically diverse types of mice to examine how one’s genetics interact with diet to influence obesity and risk factors for cardiometabolic disease. The study compared four popular human diets (American, Mediterranean, Japanese, and Maasai/ketogenic). While all mice suffered detrimental effects from the American diet, the severity of disease varied widely across the types of mice. In comparison, no single diet improved health across all strains, but there was one or more diets that improved health in each strain. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Rheumatology, Weight Research / 04.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jeffrey A. Sparks, M.D., M.M.Sc. Assistant Professor of Medicine Division of Rheumatology, Immunology and Allergy Department of Medicine Brigham and Women’s Hospital Harvard Medical School MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We compared women diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) during follow-up in the Nurses’ Health Study and matched women without RA during the same index time period. Women with RA had higher mortality than women without RA. In both groups, those that had severe weight loss (>30 pounds), had the highest mortality after the early RA/index period. Weight gain in the early RA period was not associated with mortality for either group. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dermatology, Genetic Research / 04.12.2017

MedicalReseaerch.com Interview with: Alicia R. Martin PhD, Postdoc Department of Genetics Stanford University Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA and Brenna M. Henn, Phd, Assistant Professor Department of Ecology and Evolution SUNY Stony Brook, NY  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Skin pigmentation varies more in Africa than in any other continent, and yet genetic studies of this and other traits are massively underrepresented there. Previous Eurasian study biases have instead focused on populations that vary less and have fewer variants contributing to baseline skin color. In our study, we compiled quantitative skin color measurements from a large, globally diverse set of individuals and populations to show that pigmentation varies more closer to the equator than in high latitude populations. We focused on the ‡Khomani San and Nama populations from South Africa, which diverged early along the modern human lineage from other populations and have lighter skin than equatorial Africans. We showed that skin pigmentation is roughly 100% heritable, but that previously identified genes make up a tiny fraction (~10%) of the variation present in these populations. We identified both known and new genes contributing to this variability. (more…)
Author Interviews, Bone Density, Dermatology, Endocrinology, Osteoporosis, Pediatrics / 03.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Diana L. Cousminer, PhD Division of Human Genetics Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Philadelphia, PA 19104 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Osteoporosis is a significant public health burden, with origins early in life. Later puberty and lower adolescent bone mineral density are both risk factors for osteoporosis. Geneticists have identified hundreds of genetic variants across the genome that impact pubertal timing, and we found that collectively this variation also plays a role in bone mineralization during adolescence. Additionally, we found that later puberty caused lower adult bone density. (more…)
Author Interviews, Psychological Science / 03.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: David Chester, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Psychology Virginia Commonwealth University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We wanted to understand what personality traits define people who tend to seek revenge. We observed that the defining personality characteristic of revenge-seekers is sadism, which is the tendency to enjoy the suffering of others. Put simply, the people who seek revenge are the ones most likely to enjoy it. We also found some other interesting results, namely that revenge-seekers are also prone to premeditation. They like to plan out their actions ahead of time, which settles a long-standing debate about whether revenge seekers act on impulse or plan out their vengeful acts. (more…)
Author Interviews, CDC, Nutrition / 01.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Seung Hee Lee-Kwan, PhD Epidemiologist, Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Seung Hee Lee-Kwan has a PhD in International Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her previous work focused community-based interventions that aimed to promote healthy eating. Dr. Lee-Kwan’s current work at CDC is on fruits and vegetable surveillance, and research of health behaviors and environmental factors associated with obesity.   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The purpose of the study was to update a 2013 report that estimated how many people in each state are meeting fruit and vegetable intake recommendations with the latest data from 2015. These estimates looked at the percent of adults meeting the intake recommendations by age, sex, race/ethnicity, and income-to-poverty ratio for the 50 states and District of Columbia (DC). (more…)
Author Interviews, Psychological Science / 01.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Rugby” by Jim Ceballos is licensed under CC BY 2.0Dr. Yusuke Kuroda PhD Massey University New Zealand MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Similar study, examining motivational personality among rugby players from four different countries (but all from predominantly Anglo-Saxon), was conducted in the late 1980s, and that study showed that elite rugby players, regardless of nationality, possessed serious minded and goal oriented personality. Number of studies examined athletes in different sports and showed similar results. Previously, I had a chance to examine Maori and Japanese people engaged in traditional dance from their own culture; and, the Maori people were predominantly playful and spontaneous oriented, while the Japanese people were predominantly serious minded and goal oriented. Dr Farah Palmer, one of co-authors, and I wanted to examine whether Maori All Blacks and Japanese National Team rugby players and see whether motivational personality of them were driven by being elite athletes or from cultural background. To play for the Maori All Blacks, players have to have a Maori background. The Japanese National Team, on the other hand, was consisted of Japanese and foreign born players. To examine the effect of culture, we also examined cultural identity among players. With the help from Associate Professor Makoto Nakazawa, we got to measure motivational personality and cultural identity from both teams, and results showed that the Maori All Blacks players were more playful minded spontaneous oriented, while the Japanese National Team players were serious minded and goal oriented. Cultural identity showed that the Japanese National Team players, even with foreign born players, showed a greater knowledge of the Japanese culture and higher comfort level in their own culture than the Maori All Blacks players (or their own culture). However, the Maori All Blacks players felt more positive and sustain the Maori culture. (more…)
Author Interviews, NIH, Nutrition, Weight Research / 30.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Herring in high fructose corn syrup” by Ray Sawhill is licensed under CC BY 2.0Paolo Piaggi PhD and Marie Thearle MD Phoenix Epidemiology and Clinical Research Branch National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases National Institutes of Health, Phoenix, Arizona  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Changes in food preparation have occurred over the recent decades including wide-spread availability of convenience foods and use of fructose as a sweetener. In addition, there is a growing trend to label certain foods as “healthy”. As the ingestion of added sugars and the prevalence of obesity have steadily increased over time, it has been suggested that the increased consumption of simple sugars may have contributed to the recent obesity epidemic. We were interested in understanding whether the body responded to overeating foods with a high carbohydrate content differently if the source of the carbohydrate differed. For example, does it matter if we overeat foods containing whole wheat instead of high-fructose corn syrup? To answer this question, we conducted a study investigating changes in metabolism, circulating hormones, and appetite ratings in humans who were overfed a diet containing 75% carbohydrates for 24 hours. The subjects in the study were overfed with a high carbohydrate diet twice – once with a diet where the source of carbohydrates was whole wheat and once with a diet that contained simple sugars, primarily high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Note that the diets were given in random order with at least three days of recovery in between the overfeeding periods. There was no difference in people’s metabolic rate over 24 hours between the whole-wheat versus high-fructose corn syrup diets; however, the diet containing HFCS resulted in increased hunger scores the next morning even though people had overeaten the day prior. These increased hunger scores were comparable to the hunger scores reported after a day of fasting. Also, 24-hour urinary free cortisol concentrations were higher the day after the diet containing high-fructose corn syrup. Cortisol is a hormone released by the adrenal glands in response to physiologic stress. (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, JAMA, Mental Health Research / 30.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Willemijn Jansen, PhD Postdoctoral researcher Department of Psychiatry & Neuropsychology Maastricht University Medical Center School for Mental Health and Neuroscience Alzheimer Center Limburg  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Cerebral amyloid-β aggregation is an early pathological event in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), starting decades prior to dementia onset. About 25% of cognitively normal elderly and 50% of patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) have biomarker evidence of amyloid pathology. These persons are at increased risk for developing AD-type dementia, but the extent to which amyloid-β aggregation affects cognitive function in persons without dementia is unclear. This is important to know for a better understanding of the course of Alzheimer’s disease and for the design of AD prevention trials. We here investigate the association between amyloid plaques and memory scores, using data from 53 international studies included in the Amyloid Biomarker study. Cognitively healthy elderly people with plaques have a low memory score twice as often as these persons without plaques. MCI patients with plaques had 20% more often low memory and low global cognition scores than MCI patients without plaques. We further observed 10- to 15-year intervals between the onset of amyloid positivity and emergence of low memory scores in cognitively healthy persons. (more…)
Author Interviews, Fertility, Heart Disease, OBGYNE, Pediatrics / 30.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “2010 Nobel Prize in Medicine - development of the in vitro fertilization procedure” by Solis Invicti is licensed under CC BY 2.0Paolo Cavoretto MD PhD San Raffaele Scientific Centre Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department Milan Italy MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Congenital heart defects (CHD) are the most common forms of congenital disorders and a relevant cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality involving about 0.8% of pregnancies. IVF pregnancies are very common nowadays with increasing rates in the developed countries worldwide. There is no consensus in current practice guidelines whether IVF/ICSI conception represents an indication for performing a fetal echocardiogram according to different eminent scientific societies due to differences in the estimations of the risk for CHD in the available literature. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, NEJM, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 30.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Kovalam Beach - Obesity : a rising problem in India” by Miran Rijavec is licensed under CC BY 2.0Mr. Zachary Ward Center for Health Decision Science Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Boston, MA 02115 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Although the current obesity epidemic in the US has been well documented in children and adults, less is known about the long-term risks of adult obesity for children given their current age and weight.  As part of the CHOICES project (Childhood Obesity Intervention Cost Effectiveness Study), we developed new methods to simulate height and weight trajectories across the life course based on individual-level data.  We also used a novel statistical approach to account for long-term population-level trends in weight gain, allowing us to make more realistic projections of obesity into the future.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Brain Injury, Imperial College, Pediatrics / 30.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Baby” by Victor is licensed under CC BY 2.0Dr Chris Gale Clinical Senior Lecturer in Neonatal Medicine Imperial College London and Consultant Neonatologist at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust     MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: As part of a drive to make England a safer place to give birth, the Department of Health in England has set a target of reducing the number of babies that incur brain injury during or soon after birth by 20% by 2020 and to halve them by 2030. Before now United Kingdom health services did not have a standard definition of brain injury in babies and there has been no systematic collection of data for this purpose. With colleagues and in collaboration with the Department of Health, we have devised a practical way to measure the incidence rate of brain injury in babies using routinely recorded data held in the National Neonatal Research Database. The research estimated that 3,418 babies suffered conditions linked to brain injury at or soon after birth in 2015, which equates to an incidence rate of 5.14 per 1,000 live births. For preterm births (babies born at or less than 37 weeks) the rate was 25.88 per 1,000 live births in 2015, almost six times greater than the rate for full-term births, which was 3.47 per 1,000 live births. Overall, the research found that the most common type of condition that contributed brain injuries was damage caused by lack of oxygen to the brain, called hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy; this is seen mainly in term babies. For preterm babies, the largest contributor to brain injuries is from bleeding into and around the ventricles of the brain, a condition called periventricular haemorrhage. It is also the first time that brain injuries in babies have been measured using data gathered routinely during day to day clinical care on NHS neonatal units. The use of routine data required no additional work for clinical staff and provides a valuable way to measure the effectiveness of interventions to reduce brain injury. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Geriatrics / 30.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: aaaTara Kelley-Baker PhD Data and Information Group Leader AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Background on LongROAD The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety (AAAFTS) launched the Senior Driver Initiative in 2012 in an effort to better understand and meet the safe mobility needs of older adult drivers. A multidisciplinary research team from six institutions was formed to design and implement the Longitudinal Research on Aging Drivers (LongROAD) study. The aims of the study are to better understand:
  • 1) major protective and risk factors of safe driving;
  • 2) effects of medical conditions and medications on driving behavior and safety;
  • 3) mechanisms through which older adults self-regulate their driving behaviors to cope with functional declines;
  • 4) the extent, use, and effects of new vehicle technology and aftermarket vehicle adaptations among older drivers; and
  • 5) determinants and health consequences of driving cessation during the process of aging.
(more…)
Author Interviews, CDC, Vaccine Studies / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Syringe and Vaccine” by NIAID is licensed under CC BY 2.0Alissa C. O’Halloran, MSPH Immunization Services Division National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Atlanta GA 30329  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Outbreaks of pertussis (whooping cough) can occur in healthcare settings. Vaccinating healthcare personnel (HCP) may be helpful in protecting HCP from pertussis and potentially limiting spread to others in healthcare settings. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommends a single dose of tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccine for all adults, including pregnant women during each pregnancy, to protect themselves and reduce the risk for transmitting pertussis to infants too young to be vaccinated. To assure high Tdap coverage and disease prevention among HCP, patients, and others, ACIP recommends that healthcare employers provide Tdap vaccination to HCP and use approaches that maximize vaccination rates. In this study, we assessed Tdap vaccination coverage among healthcare personnel  by occupation, industry, demographics, access-to-care characteristics, and by the 21 states in the study. (more…)
Author Interviews, Columbia, JAMA, Neurology, Pulmonary Disease / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jinsy Andrews, MD, MS Director of Neuromuscular Clinical Trials Columbia University The Neurological Institute New York, NY 10032  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The importance of respiratory function in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) has long been recognized. Despite ALS being a clinical diagnosis with variable presentation and variable rates of disease progression, all patients experience respiratory symptoms and inevitably die typically from respiratory failure. At present there is no validated biomarker of disease progression or clinical staging system. Direct measure of respiratory function in ALS is important and can be measured using vital capacity. Although the forced maneuver (FVC) has been widely used in patients with ALS, it can underestimate the actual lung capacity by causing fatigue or inducing bronchospasm in patients with ALS. More recently, the slow maneuver (SVC) has been used since it can be obtained from patients with advancing disease which can potentially minimize missing data and may reduce any underestimation of actual lung capacity due to a forceful effort. However, the prognostic value of the decline in SVC is unclear in patients with ALS. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dengue, Lancet, Vaccine Studies / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Vianney Tricou DPhil Takeda Vaccines Pte Ltd Singapore MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Dengue fever is a painful, debilitating mosquito-borne disease caused by any one of the four closely related dengue virus serotypes. Forty percent of the world’s population lives under the threat of dengue, with approximately 390 million infections and 20,000 deaths occurring globally each year. Dengue virus can infect people of all ages and is a leading cause of serious illness among children in some countries in Latin America and Asia. Takeda is developing a dengue vaccine candidate to safely protect children and adults living in, or traveling to, endemic areas against all four dengue virus serotypes, regardless of previous dengue virus exposure.  Takeda’s tetravalent dengue vaccine candidate (TAK-003) is based on a live, attenuated dengue serotype 2 virus, which provides the genetic ‘backbone’ for all four vaccine viruses. Takeda’s ongoing Phase 2 DEN-204 study was designed to assess the safety and immunogenicity of different dose schedules of TAK-003 in approximately 1,800 healthy children and adolescents ages two through 17 years living in dengue-endemic countries in Latin America and Asia. Participants of the DEN-204 trial received either one primary dose of TAK-003, two primary doses of TAK-003 administered three months apart, one primary dose of TAK-003 followed by a booster dose one year later, or a placebo. Eighteen-month interim data showed that that TAK-003 is associated with a reduction in the incidence of dengue in the study participants. Data also showed that TAK-003 induced sustained antibody responses against all four serotypes of dengue virus, regardless of previous dengue exposure and dosing schedule. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Pediatrics / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sonia Kandel PhD Professor at the GIPSA-Lab Université Grenoble Alpes  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: How do we recall a word’s spelling from memory? How do we execute the movements to produce letters? A series of studies conducted by Professor Sonia Kandel at the GIPSA-Lab/University of Grenoble Alpes in France provide evidence indicating that writing is a linguistic process that affects the way we execute the manual movements when we write. For example, the movements involved in writing T-H-R are easier to execute in a word that is pronounced as it is spelled, (e.g. “thrill”) than in a word that is orthographically irregular (e.g. “through”). What happens with writing when spelling processes are impaired like, in dyslexia and dysgraphia? (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Technology / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Nenad Bursac PhD Professor of Biomedical Engineering Associate Professor of Medicine Duke University Durham, NC  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Every year about 1 million new people in US suffers from heart attack, resulting in death of hundreds of millions of cardiac muscle cells. This massive cell loss leads to gradual deterioration of heart function, which for many patients results in the occurrence of heart failure that ultimately will require heart transplant. Heart transplantation is complicated and expensive procedure and donor hearts are in short supply, rendering this disease to be not only highly prevalent but ultimately lethal. For almost 30 years, researchers have been exploring transplantation of stem cells into injured hearts as a means to replace dead cardiac muscle with new muscle cells that would yield improved heart function. However, injections of stem cells in the heart have so far met with limited clinical success and surgical implantation of pre-made heart muscle tissue in a form of a "cardiac patch" has been explored as an alternative strategy with a proven benefit of enhancing transplanted cell survival. Others and we have engineered cardiac tissue patches in a dish starting from human pluripotent stem cells, which have advantage of being able to become bona fide contracting cardiac muscle cells. So far, however, no one has been able to engineer a highly functional cardiac muscle patch of a size that is large enough to be used in human therapies for heart disease. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Lipids, Sanofi / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Jay Edelberg MD, PhD VP Head of CV Development and Head Global CV Medical Affairs Sanofi  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Patients with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HeFH) are often not able to achieve their target low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels, and some may require lipoprotein apheresis (LA) to lower their “bad cholesterol.” Apheresis is a procedure similar to kidney dialysis, where bad cholesterol is mechanically removed from the blood. It is an invasive, expensive, and time-consuming treatment for patients, as well as physicians. The Phase III ESCAPE clinical study looked at the potential effect of LA on total Praluent, free and total PCSK9 concentrations, as well as the combined pharmacodynamics effect of total Praluent on LDL-C-lowering. Praluent levels remained unaffected by apheresis, and Praluent consistently suppressed free PCSK9 levels in patients with HeFH, regardless of LA treatment. This analysis further confirms clinical ESCAPE data that Praluent can be used in conjunction with LA and may reduce or potentially eliminate the need for LA in some patients. (more…)
Author Interviews, Pharmaceutical Companies, Technology / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: HITLab Mr. David Moore MBA Senior Vice President, Commercial Novo Nordisk Mr. David Moore presented the keynote presentation “Breaking Through Barriers in Innovation” at the 4th Annual HITLAB Innovators Summit, NYC November 28, 2017.  MedicalResearch.com: How did you become interested in incorporating technological advances into the sales and marketing end of pharmaceutical delivery? Response: Part of our message today is that we understand that there is an opportunity to improve outcomes if we have a better focus on collaboration and integration through engagement with the patient rather than through medications alone. We continue to innovate in diabetes pharmaceutical care but are also focusing more on meeting the patient in their journey through everyday life. The opportunity to connect, collaborate and integrate is what digital health is all about. As manufacturers, we are still early in the integration process. When we think about technological changes from the patient’s perspective, health care has become much different. The patient no longer just goes to the doctor’s office for a conversation or opinion, with the doctor keeping all the notes. Now the patient has access to a broad range of medical information and usually their own medical records. There is an element of needing things to be user-friendly. As with any consumer product or service with choices, if the choice isn’t user-friendly, the consumer won’t use it. We are looking for ways to make the delivery of pharmacologic products user-friendly to both the patient and provider. (more…)
Author Interviews, Psychological Science, Vanderbilt / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Alex Maier, PhD Assistant Professor of Psychology Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Science Vanderbilt University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We were interested in finding out about how the brain shifts attention from one location to another. We knew that when we attend a certain location, brain activity increases in a specific way. This increase in activity is how we perform better when we use attention. What we knew less about is what happens when attention moves between locations. To our surprise, we found that there is a brief moment in between these attentional enhancements, while attention moves from one location to another, where the brain does the complete opposite and decreases its activity. Shifting attention thus has a brief negative effect on our brain’s ability to process information about the world around us. (more…)
Author Interviews, Lipids, Sanofi / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Jay Edelberg MD, PhD VP Head of CV Development and Head Global CV Medical Affairs Sanofi MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Clinical trials of lipid-lowering therapies (LLTs), including statins, often report variations in treatment response regarding effects on low density-lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels, although LDL-C reductions are fairly consistent between trials. Praluent is generally well tolerated, however hyporesponsiveness exists in few patients. Potential causes for variation in patient responsiveness to Praluent include lack of receipt of active study drug, changes in concurrent LLTs, inaccurate or unrepresentative baseline lipid levels, concurrent acute-phase illness, and biological nonresponsiveness. This analysis evaluated patients pooled from 10 ODYSSEY trials to assess characteristics of patients with hyporesponsiveness to Praluent, defined as <15% LDL-C reduction from baseline at all analyzed time points. Overall, only 1% of patients (n=33) had <15% LDL-C reduction at all time points. Prolonged hyporesponsiveness to Praluent was rarely associated with Praluent antidrug antibodies. Of the 33 patients with <15% LDL-C reduction at all study timepoints, 27 had undetectable or missing alirocumab levels, absence of pharmacokinetics analyses, or early treatment discontinuation. (more…)