MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Dr. Geoffrey S. Marecek, MD
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery
University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine
Los Angeles, CA
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Marecek:There were several main findings:
1. It is not safe to drive while wearing a sling or splint on the upper extremities
2. It is not safe to drive while wearing a brace, cast, or boot on the lower extremities
3. Braking function does not return to normal for at least 4 weeks after knee arthroscopy, total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and total hip arthroplasty (THA), for 9 weeks after ankle fracture repair, and for 6 weeks after weight bearing begins for a fracture (up to 18 weeks for articular fractures).
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Dr. Christopher Jones MD
Attending Physician
Department of Emergency Medicine,
Cooper Medical School of Rowan University
One Cooper Plaza, Camden, NJ 08103, USA
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Jones: We identified a group of 585 clinical trials with at least 500 participants which had been prospectively registered with ClinicalTrials.gov and completed prior to 2009. Following an extensive search of the medical literature, we were unable to identify published manuscripts for 171 (29%) of these studies. For these unpublished studies we also determined whether results were available in the ClinicalTrials.gov results database, and we found that 133 studies had no results available either in the published literature or on ClinicalTrials.gov. (more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:David Walega, MD
Chief of the Division of Pain Medicine
Northwestern Memorial Hospital and
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Walega: Patients who underwent a single stellate ganglion injection with a local anesthetic had a 50% decrease in moderate -to- very severe hot flashes and this effect appeared to last thru the 6 month duration of the study; the placebo or "sham control" group had injections of saline and they did not demonstrate long-term improvements in hot flash symptoms
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Adam D M Briggs
Academic Clinical Fellow
British Heart Foundation Health Promotion Research Group, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7LF, UK
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Answer: For the first time this study estimates the impact of a
sugary drinks tax in the UK on obesity. We estimate the
tax would reduce the number of adults with obesity by
around 180,000 or just over 1% of all adults who are
obese, and the number of adults who are either overweight
or obese by 285,000. The greatest reductions are seen in
young adults. We also estimate that the effects of the tax
will be similar across all income groups.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Hon-Yen Wu, Lecturer
Department of Internal Medicine, Far Eastern Memorial Hospital, New Taipei City, Taiwan
Department of Internal Medicine,...
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Dr. Laura Coates
Division of Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Disease
Chapel Allerton Hospital Chapeltown Road Leeds
NIHR Clinical Lecturer at the University of Leeds
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Answer: The TICOPA study showed that treating patients with early psoriatic
arthritis to an objective target with regular review improved
patient's clinical outcome both in terms of arthritis and skin
psoriasis. There was an increase in adverse events in the tight
control arm but only 4 serious infections seen in the tight control
arm that were thought to be related to treatment (2 cases of
cellulitis, 2 cases of chest infection).
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with :Dr Belén Pedrique
Epidemiologist
Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative
DNDi, 15 Chemin Louis Dunant
1202 Geneva, Switzerland
MedicalResearch.com : What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Pedrique: Of the 850 new drugs and vaccines approved for all diseases in 2000-2011, 4% (37) were for neglected diseases, defined broadly as those prevalent primarily in poor countries: malaria, tuberculosis, 17 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), 11 diarrheal diseases, and 19 other diseases of poverty, excluding HIV/AIDS. Globally these neglected diseases represent an 11% health burden, based on a recent assessment of 2010 disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs).
Most newly developed therapeutic products were repurposed versions of existing drugs. Of the 336 brand-new drugs (new chemical entities, or NCEs) approved for all diseases in 2000-2011, only four, or 1%, were for neglected diseases; three were for malaria, and one for diarrheal disease. None were for any of the 17 WHO-listed NTDs
Of 148,445 phase I-III clinical trials registered as of Dec 31, 2011, only 1% (2,016) were for neglected diseases.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Steven J. Frank, M.D., associate professor of Radiation Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Proton Therapy Center discusses the findings of his latest study, “Gastrostomy Tubes Decrease by Over 50% with Intensity Modulated Proton Therapy during the Treatment of Oropharyngeal Cancer Patients.”
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Frank: The study found that the use of feeding tubes in oropharyngeal carcinoma (OPC) cancer patients treated with intensity modulated proton therapy (IMPT) decreased by more than 50% percent compared to patients treated with intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). This suggests that proton therapy may offer vital quality of life benefits for patients with tumors occurring at the back of the throat.
Of the 50 OPC patients enrolled in the study:
Twenty-five patients were treated with IMPT and 25 received IMRT.
Five patients treated with IMPT required the use of feeding tubes (20%) compared to 12 patients treated with IMRT (48%).
IMPT patients were spared from serious side effects, usually a result of IMRT, such as loss of taste, vomiting, nausea, pain, mouth and tongue ulcers, dry mouth, fatigue, and swallowing difficulty.
IMPT patients could better sustain their nutrition and hydration levels, often leading to faster recovery during and after treatment.
IMPT is an advanced form of proton radiation therapy and a treatment currently only offered in North America at The University of Texas MD Anderson Proton Therapy Center. It delivers protons to the most complicated tumors by focusing a narrow proton beam and essentially “painting” the radiation dose onto the tumor layer by layer. Unlike IMRT, which destroys both cancerous and healthy cells, IMPT has the ability to destroy cancer cells while sparing surrounding healthy tissue from damage. Therefore, important quality of life outcomes such as neurocognitive function, vision, swallowing, hearing, taste and speech can be preserved in head and neck patients.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Reina Haque, PhD, MPH
Research scientist, Kaiser Permanente Department of Research & Evaluation
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Answer:The main study findings are that men who are overweight or obese when they are diagnosed with prostate cancer are more likely to die from the disease than men who are of healthy weight. In patients with more aggressive forms of prostate cancer, the researchers also found an even stronger correlation between obesity and mortality.
The study was restricted to patients undergoing surgical treatment for prostate cancer, rather than other treatments such as radiation or hormone therapy.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Kumar Sharma, M.D.
Professor of Medicine
Director, Institute of Metabolomic Medicine
Director, Center for Renal Translational Medicine
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA 92093-0711
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Sharma:Main findings are that diabetes is associated with reduced superoxide production in the kidney and heart and that stimulation of superoxide production with AMPK led to improvement in organ function.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Diewertje Sluik, DrPH
Postdoctoral fellow | Division of Human Nutrition | Section Epidemiology & Pubic Health | Wageningen University
Postal address: PO Box 8129 | NL-6700 EV Wageningen| The Netherlands
Visiting address: Agrotechnion, Building 309, Room 1019 | Bomenweg 4 | 6703 HD Wageningen
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Response: The main finding of the study is that lifestyle advice with respect to mortality for patients with diabetes should not differ from recommendations for the general population.
Diabetes status did not substantially influence the associations between lifestyle and mortality risk. People with diabetes may benefit more from a healthy diet, but the directions of association were similar. These results highlight that the difficulties in recognizing and diagnosing diabetes and its different stages are of minor importance with respect to healthy diet and lifestyle recommendations, because no difference in recommendations depending on the stage of the disease seems necessary.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Dr. W.M. Lijfering, MD, PhD
Department of Clinical Epidemiology, C7-P-89
Leiden University Medical Center
PO Box 9600
2300 RC Leiden
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Lijfering: In this study we found that the risk of a first venous thrombosis* is two-fold higher in men than in women once female reproductive risk factors for venous thrombosis are taken into account (odds ratio 1.9, 95% CI 1.7-2.2). These results were found in all age categories (18-70 years) and were not affected by adjustment for body mass index and smoking, or by excluding participants with malignancy.
(more…)
MedicalResearh.com Interview with: Gianluca Iacobellis MD PhD
Professor of Clinical Medicine
Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine,
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, USA
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Iacobellis: Our study suggests that epicardial fat, the fat pad in direct contiguity to the heart, is a good predictor of liver steatosis in obese subjects
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com InterviewJennifer M. Poti
PhD Candidate, Nutritional Epidemiology
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Answer: Consumption of solid fat and added sugar (SoFAS) by children exceeds recommendations, but it was not known where kids obtain these “empty calories.” Analyzing data from over 22,000 US children, we found that children consumed about 1/3 of their calories as solid fat and added sugar for foods consumed from retail food stores (including grocery stores and supermarkets), schools, or fast food restaurants in 2009-2010, despite significant decreases from 1977 to 2010 at each location. These mean levels of empty calorie intake greatly exceeded recommended amounts not just for fast foods, but also for foods consumed from schools and from stores. For all survey years, foods consumed by children from schools were higher in solid fat content than foods obtained and consumed from retail food stores.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Linda Brzustowicz, M.D.
Professor and Chair
Department of Genetics
Rutgers University,Piscataway, NJ 08854
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Brzustowicz: The objective of this study was to search for locations in the human genome that impact language ability in individuals with autism as well as in their family members without autism. To do this, we recruited families with an individual with autism and at least one other family member without autism but with a language learning impairment. We identified two locations in the human genome that are linked to language ability in these families. Importantly, these locations do not appear to be specific to language impairment in the individuals with autism, but are related to language ability in other family members as well. This suggests that while individuals with autism may have new, or de novo, genetic variations that are important for risk of illness, they may also carry inherited genetic variation that influence the expression of their illness. The effects of these inherited variants can also be seen in the language performance of family members without autism.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Peter Mazzone MD, MPH
Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine
Cleveland Clinic Main Campus
Cleveland, OH 44195
MedicalResearch.com: What are the...
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Eric Matteson, M.D.
Rheumatology Chair
Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the studies?Dr. Matteson: “The main finding is that patients with severe rheumatoid arthritis have a higher risk of heart disease. Further, women who experience early menopause also have a higher risk of heart disease.”
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: George Mammen, PhD Candidate
Health & Exercise Psychology Unit
University of Toronto
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Answer:
25 out of the 30 studies found PA to protect against depression; majority of these were of high methodological quality
Decreasing PA overtime can increase the risk of developing depression; increasing PA overtime can reduce the risk of developing depression
In terms of dosage, the review highlighted studies that showed even low levels, such as 20 mins of walking a day, can prevent the onset of depression. (more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Lotta Ljung, MD, PhD
Umeå University, Umeå and Karolinska Institute
Stockholm, Sweden
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Ljung: In this observational study we observed a lower risk of acute coronary syndromes in a cohort of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) exposed to tumor necrosis factor inhibitors (TNFi) compared with the risk among patients without this exposure. The adjusted relative risk (HR) was 0.73-0.82 among TNFi exposed patients compared with the biologics-naive RA cohort, depending on the time frame evaluated, which can be concluded as a moderately lower risk.
Compared with the risk in the general population, the risk in RA patients was higher, whether exposed to TNFi or not.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with Dr. Ketil Stordal
Researcher/consultant paediatrician
National Institute of Public Health
Norway
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Stordal: Mothers who used iron supplementation during pregnancy had an increased risk for having children with a diagnosis of celiac disease. This association was not caused by maternal anemia during pregnancy, anemia was not a predictor of celiac disease in the offspring. The risk for celiac disease when the mother had used the highest doses and for the longest period.
(more…)
MediclResearch.com Interview with:John W. Ayers, PhD, MA
Graduate School of Public Health
San Diego State University, San Diego, California
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Ayers: Our study, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Internal Medicine was the first to describe daily rhythms in health behaviors.
Because trends in quitting contemplations are usually described annually using telephone surveys, we had to use a novel data source that could capture daily patterns. By monitoring aggregate Internet search queries we can see precisely what the population is thinking about by the content of their queries and that the population is engaged in the issue by searching. We therefore analyzed daily search volumes for smoking cessation queries (e.g., "quit smoking") in six languages across the entire globe.
We found that people search about quitting smoking more often early in the week, with the highest query volumes on Mondays, using a daily measure representing the proportion of quit smoking searches to all searches. This pattern was consistent across all six languages, suggesting a global predisposition to thinking about quitting smoking early in the week, particularly on Mondays.
English searches, for example, showed Monday query volumes were 11 percent greater than on Wednesdays, 67 percent greater than on Fridays, and 145 percent greater than on Saturdays. In total for all six languages, Monday query volumes were 25 percent higher than the combined mean number of searches for Tuesday through Sunday.
Practically these findings are very meaningful. For example, in English alone there are about 150,000 more quit smoking queries on Monday than on a typical day; about 8,000,000 over an entire year.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Lauren Block, MD
Assistant Professor, North Shore–LIJ Hofstra School of Medicine
2001 Marcus Ave., Suite S160
Lake Success, NY 11042MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Block: Our goal was to look at how often doctors in training were performing basic niceties with their patients, such as introducing themselves and sitting down. We found that while the doctors usually asked open-ended questions and touched patients, resident physicians were unlikely to introduce themselves, explain their role, or sit down when talking to patients.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Raber: The main finding of the clinical study is that the benefit of a biolimus-eluting stent using a biodegradable polymer (Biomatrix, BES) regarding MACE (cardiac death, target vessel MI, TLR) continued to accrue during the second year of follow-up, actually with a similar relative risk reduction as observed during the first year. After one year, the timepoint at which most patients stopped dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT), no difference in safety (cardiac death, myocardial infarction, stent thrombosis) was observed between BES and the control group (bare metal stent, BMS). This largely confirms the principle concept of biodegradable polymer stent platforms.
The results of the imaging substudy provide a mechanistic explanation for the observed benefit with BES. Specifically, BES showed a lower neointimal thickness, a low frequency of uncovered and malapposed stent struts (OCT) and the absence of positive remodeling (IVUS) at 13 months follow-up.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Stefano Volpato MD MPH
Department of Medical Sciences, University of Ferrara
Ferrara, Italy
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Volpato: In this study we evaluated clinical value of handgrip strength assessment in older patients admitted to the hospital for hip fracture. We observed 504 older patients admitted to 4 Italian hospitals for hip surgery, able of walking independently before fracture, and we found a strong, graded and independent association of grip strength, assessed before hip surgery, and the likelihood of functional recovery over the one-year follow-up. The findings reported in our manuscript can be summarized as:
a. handgrip strength significantly correlated with several prognostic factors traditionally considered in clinical practice, such as age, gender, neuro-psychological and functional status, comorbidity level, vitamin D plasma levels, and time before the surgical procedure;
b. logistic regression models showed that handgrip strength was directly associated with higher probability of walking recovery, both at any follow-up (incident walking recovery), and for at least 2 consecutive follow-ups (persistent walking recovery);
b. Kaplan-Meier survival estimates showed that lower grip strength was related to increased mortality after hip surgery;
c. the association between grip performance and walking recovery was clinically relevant and statistically independent of potential confounders.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Karen K. Wong, MD MPH
Community Interventions for Infection Control Unit
Division of Global Migration & Quarantine
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Wong: There were 830 pediatric influenza-associated deaths reported to CDC during the 2004–2005 through 2011–2012 seasons; deaths occurred in children of all ages, and 43% had no high-risk medical conditions. Of children 6 months of age or older whose vaccination status was known, only 16% had been fully vaccinated with seasonal influenza vaccine.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Marcin Sadowski
Świętokrzyskie Cardiology Center, Kielce, Poland
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Sadowski: In multivariable analysis, diabetes was an independent risk factor of in-hospital and 1-year mortality in women treated for STEMI.
In women with STEMI and diabetes one-year mortality was significantly lower in those treated with primary percutaneous coronary intervention than in those on optimal medical therapy.
Early and long-term prognoses after STEMI were the worst in diabetic women, compared with non-diabetic women and diabetic men.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Lucia Kerti MA
From the Departments of Neurology
Charité–University Medicine, Berlin
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Answer: The results of our study on 141 healthy older people suggest that chronically higher blood glucose levels may have a negative influence on memory performance even in the absence of type 2 diabetes or even pre-diabetes. Moreover, our findings indicate that elevated blood glucose levels impair the functioning of brain areas like the hippocampus, a structure particularly relevant for memory. An important novel aspect in our study was the additional analysis of diffusion tensor imaging-based mean diffusivity within the hippocampal, which allowed us to obtain information on microstructure. We here provided first-time data of an association between higher blood glucose levels and lower hippocampal microstructure. Decreased hippocampal microstructure as measured by mean diffusivity may reflect a disruption of neuronal membranes and increased extracellular water content, leading to decreased signaling within and between hippocampal cells. Thus, information transfer between cells, indispensable for memory encoding, storage and retrieval, would be compromised. In sum, our data suggest that chronically higher blood glucose levels even within the "normal range" may decrease memory functions, possibly in part mediated by microstructural changes within the hippocampus.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Dr. Jian-Jun Liu
Shangdong Provincial Institute of Dermatology and Venereology
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Answer:
· HLA-B*13:01 is associated with the development of dapsone hypersensitivity syndrome.
· Carrying one copy of HLA-B*13:01 increases one’s risk by 34 times of getting DHS, while carrying two copies increases risk by 100 times as compared to not carrying this allele.
· HLA-B*13:01 has a sensitivity and specificity of above 85% in predicting the risk of DHS, theoretically reducing the risk of DHS by 7 fold when implemented in clinical screening.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Andrew S. Lim MD MMSc FRCPC DABPN
Assistant Professor and Clinician Scientist
Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
University of Toronto
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Lim: Alzheimer disease (AD) is the result of a confluence of genetic, behavioral, and environmental risk factors. The Apolipoprotein E (APOE) e4 allele is the most common and well established genetic risk factor for Alzheimer Disease. 10-20% of the US population carries the high risk APOE e4 allele, which confers up to a 30% lifetime risk of AD. Meanwhile, previous work had suggested that poor sleep may be a risk factor for AD and that APOE genotype and poor sleep may amplify each other's negative cognitive effects.
We asked the question whether good sleep consolidation (i.e. sound sleep without repeated awakenings) may reduce the effect of APOE on the risk of incident AD and the burden of AD pathology. We studied 698 individuals without dementia participating in the Rush Memory and Aging Project - a longitudinal cohort study of aging and risk factors for AD. We measured sleep consolidation using wrist-watch like devices called actigraphs, and followed participants for up to 6 years, examining them annually for the development of AD. Autopsies were perfumed on 201 participants who died during the follow-up period and we quantified the burden of AD pathology.
During the follow-up period, 98 participants developed AD. As expected, carrying the APOE e4 allele was associated with a higher risk of AD, faster cognitive decline, and a higher burden of AD pathology (amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles) at death. However, better sleep at baseline significantly reduced the negative impact of APOE e4 on the risk of AD, rate of cognitive decline, and burden of neurofibrillary tangle pathology.
(more…)
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Geoffrey S. Marecek, MD
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery
University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine
Los Angeles, CA
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Marecek: There were several main findings:
1. It is not safe to drive while wearing a sling or splint on the upper extremities
2. It is not safe to drive while wearing a brace, cast, or boot on the lower extremities
3. Braking function does not return to normal for at least 4 weeks after knee arthroscopy, total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and total hip arthroplasty (THA), for 9 weeks after ankle fracture repair, and for 6 weeks after weight bearing begins for a fracture (up to 18 weeks for articular fractures).
(more…)
