Blog – Medical Research News and Interviews
13 Aug Acute Atrial Fibrillation: Embolism Complications Lowered By Avoiding Cardioversion Delay
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Juhani Airaksinen, MD, PhD
Heart Center, Turku University Hospital
Turku, Finland
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Airaksinen: The main result of our study is that the risk of thromboembolic complications in general was low (0.7%). However the risk rose to a 3.7-fold level when the delay to cardioversion exceeded 12 hours. The time-dependent increase in the risk of thromboembolic complications was more pronounced in female patients. In addition, as expected, old age, heart failure and diabetes were the other significant predictors of postcardioversion thromboembolic complications.
13 Aug Financial Incentive Improved Operating Room Efficiency
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Thomas M. Scalea, MD
R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, Program in Trauma
University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore
Medical Research: What are the main findings of this study?
Dr. Scalea: The main findings of the study was that putting this financial incentive program in place had immediate and dramatic effects on first cases starting on time and turnaround times decreasing in our operating room.
13 Aug Cardiovascular Risks Remain Higher For Women, African Americans
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Susan Cheng MD
Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Boston, MA 02115
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Cheng: We've known for some time that smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity all contribute to a person’s risk of being at risk for heart disease. The goal of our study was to look back over the last two decades and see how we've been doing in reducing the impact of these major cardiovascular risk factors on the actual risk for developing heart and vascular disease. We found that, not surprisingly, we've been doing generally better over time at lowering the overall impact of some risk factors such as smoking and high cholesterol. On the other hand, the impact of hypertension and diabetes has been high and has remained high over time.
13 Aug Even Modest Exercise May Decrease Breast Cancer Risk
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Sylvie Mesrine, Gynecologist, MD Inserm, CESP Centre for Research in Epidemiology and Population Health, U1018, Nutrition, Hormones and Women's Health Team, Villejuif, France. Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Answer: We wanted to disentangle the effect of recent physical activity (within the previous four years) from the effect of past physical activity (5-9 years earlier) on postmenopausal breast cancer risk. Our most important finding was that recreational/transport physical activity (including walking, cycling and engaging in other sports), even of modest intensity, seemed to have a rapid impact on breast cancer risk: it was quite rapidly associated with a decrease in breast cancer risk, which was however attenuated when activity stops. To our knowledge, our study is the first to independently assess the association between breast cancer risk and recreational physical activity both 5 to 9 years earlier and within the previous 4 years. Furthermore, the association of recent recreational physical activity and breast cancer risk decrease was observed whatever the recent levels of gardening or do-it yourself activities.13 Aug Most Heart Disease Patients May Not Have Angina
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Professeur Philippe Gabriel Steg
Département de Cardiologie
Hôpital Bichat, Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris
Université Paris-Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France
Medical Research: What are the main findings of this study?
Prof. Philippe Steg:
- Due to increasing use of angiography and revascularization, as well as improved drug therapy, the prevalence of angina and ischemia has diminished.
- Most of the events (Cardiovascular death or Myocardial Infarction) occur in patients without angina or ischemia. This is very novel and important and stresses the importance of proper secondary prevention over "testing". We cannot be reassured by having a negative test for angina and ischemia.
- Additionally, angina appears associated with a consistently greater risk than ischemia alone (having both is worse), so we need to pay attention to angina as a dire prognostic marker.
- Findings should be no different in the US.
- Most studies of silent ischemia antedate the advent of modern effective therapies or used very liberal definitions for "silent ischemia". (see our discussion)
13 Aug Postoperative Outcomes Using Tranexamic acid
MedicalResearch.com Interview with
Stavros G. Memtsoudis, MD, PhD, FCCP
Clinical Professor of Anesthesiology and Public Health
Weill Cornell Medical College
Senior Scientist and Attending Anesthesiologist
Hospital for Special Surgery
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Memtsoudis: In this large population based study we found that perioperative tranexamic acid administration significantly reduced the need for blood transfusions in joint arthroplasty patients, while not increasing the risk of major complications, including thromboembolic, cardiac and renal events.
11 Aug Breast Cancer Incidence Lower Among Physically Active Women
MedicalResearch.com Interview with
Lynn Rosenberg, ScD
Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University
1010 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Response: With prospective data from the Black Women’s Health Study, we assessed vigorous exercise and walking in relation to incidence of invasive breast cancer . We found that the overall incidence of breast cancer was lower among women who exercised vigorously or walked briskly than among women who were sedentary. The reduction was most apparent among women who exercised at least 5 hours per week. The association of exercise with breast cancer risk did not differ by estrogen receptor status of the breast tumor, but further study is needed to firmly establish this. Sitting for long periods at work or watching television was not significantly associated with breast cancer incidence.
11 Aug Children May Be Inundated With Television Food Ads
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Professor Clodagh O'Gorman
MB BCh BAO MSc MD FRCPI FPAEDS
Foundation Chair & Professor of Paediatrics,
Graduate Entry Medical School,
University of Limerick, Ireland.
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Professor O'Gorman: 1155 cues for food and beverages (BBC=450; RTE=705), were recorded over 82.5 hours; thus, on average one cue was recorded every 4.2 minutes. The total recorded time for food and beverage cues was 3.94 hours, equating to 4.8% of the total recording time, and averaging 13.2 seconds per cue.
If these results are representative of all children’s television broadcast on RTE and BBC, then if your child watches 82.5 hours of television, your child will see 3.94 hours of food and beverages during this time. Unhealthy foods account for 47.5% of specified food cues, and sugar-sweetened beverages for 25% of specified beverage cues, with an average time of 13.8 s for healthy cues and 11.4 s for unhealthy cues (p=0.17).
88.2% of all food and beverage cues involved a major character and 95.3% involved a character ‘goodie’. Male characters were more common than female (45.3% vs 14.0%), adults more common than teens or children (46.3% vs 23.8% and 14.2%). Overweight characters were depicted in 4.7%. The most common ethnic group was white Caucasian (88.5%).
The commonest motivating factor for consuming/depiction of food and beverage was celebratory/social (25.2%), followed by hunger/thirst (25.0%), reward (4.5%), health-related (2.2%) and punishment (1.2%). Motivating factors were positive (30.5%), negative (1.5%) and health-related (25.8%). Cue outcomes were positive (32.6%), negative (19.8%) and neutral (47.5%).
11 Aug How Many Patients Sent Home From ER With Gallbladder Pain Eventually Need Surgery?
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Juliane Bingener-Casey, M.D.
Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Bingener-Casey: “About half of patients seeking emergency care for gallbladder problems were immediately admitted and underwent urgent cholecystectomy, the other half went home. The half that went home was younger and had lower WBC counts, lower neutrophils and less people with elevated temperature than the patients immediately admitted. Of the half that went home, 31% returned at least once to the ED within 30 days and 20% were admitted to undergo urgent cholecystectomy after the return visit, 55% percent of those within 7 days of the initial ED visit. Patients who failed the elective treatment plan had similar WBC counts but were more likely to have an ASA >3, slightly higher creatinine and higher average maximum VAS pain score. Patients who were less than 40 years old or older than 60 years were more likely to fail the elective pathway.”
11 Aug Retinopathy of Prematurity: Bevacizumab vs Laser Treatment
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Helen A. Mintz-Hittner, M.D., F.A.C.S.
Alfred W. Lasher, III, Professor of Ophthalmology
Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science
The University of Texas Health Science Center
at Houston-Medical School
Cizik Eye Clinic
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Mintz-Hittner:
- For retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), at age 2 ½ years, intravitreal bevacizumab (IVB) injections cause less myopia (nearsightedness) in diopters (D) compared to conventional laser therapy (CLT):f
- or Zone I: -1.51 D versus -8.44 D (7 diopters difference: p = 0.001. for Posterior Zone II: -0.58 D versus -5.83 D (5 diopters difference: p = 0.001.
11 Aug Stem Cells May Give Hope To Patients With Severe Stroke Disability
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Soma Banerjee M.D. Department of Stroke Medicine Imperial College Healthcare National Health Services Trust St. Mary’s Hospital Campus, Praed Street, London Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Banerjee: This stem cell trial is the first of its kind in humans to show that selected bone marrow stem cells (CD34+ cells) from the patients' own bone marrow, can be administered to patients with severe strokes, within an early timescale after their stroke. This pilot study of 5 patients showed that it was both safe and feasible to administer these cells to patients within a week of the event. This was primarily a safety study, but clinical measures of recovery were also assessed, and these showed improvements in disability scores and scores of neurological impairment, in all 5 patients.11 Aug Nursing Home Patients: Cognitive Function Linked To Emergency Room Visits
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Caroline E Stephens PhD
Department of Community Health Systems
University of California, San Francisco
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Stephens: In our national random sample of nursing home residents, we found that mild cognitive impairment (CI) predicted higher rates of ED visits compared to no CI, but interestingly, ED visit rates decreased as severity of cognitive impairment increased. However, after nursing home residents were evaluated in the ED, severity of CI was not significantly associated with higher odds of hospitalization.
Another important finding was that the proportion of nursing home residents using feeding tubes more than tripled in advanced or end-stage dementia, from 9.9% to 33.8%. Moreover, tube-fed nursing home residents had 73% higher rates of total ED visits, but once evaluated in the ED, they were no more likely to be hospitalized than those without feeding tubes. This finding is particularly striking given the numerous existing studies that have questioned the utility and appropriateness of using feeding tubes in people with advanced dementia.
10 Aug Mammograms Benefits Older and Younger Women
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Judith Malmgren PhD
Affiliate Assistant Professor, Epidemiology
University of Washington
School of Public Health
Seattle, WA 98177
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Malmgren: We found a significant shift to lower stage breast cancer at diagnosis with an observed increase in mammography detected breast cancer over time and a significant decrease in later stage cancers found by the patient or her doctor.
Mammography detected breast cancers were more often treated with lumpectomy and radiation and less likely to require mastectomy or adjuvant chemotherapy.
We also observed better 5 year invasive breast cancer specific survival among the mammography detected patients as opposed to the patient or physician detected breast cancer cases.
10 Aug Heart Attack Outcomes Vary By Ethnicity, Gender and Age
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sahil Khera, MD and Dhaval Kolte, MD, PhD Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology New York Medical College, NY Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Answer: We used the publicly available Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) databases for our study. We analyzed data on 6.5 million patients with heart attack (all types) from 2002 to 2011 in United States. Out of these 3.98 million were admitted with a diagnosis of non-ST elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). Our objective was to describe how the care for patients with NSTEMI has changed over the past 10 years and whether this has resulted in better patient outcomes. We looked at the proportion of patients with NSTEMI who underwent cardiac catheterization each year. We also studied how many patients died in the hospital, how long was the hospital stay, and what was the total cost of hospitalization for this condition. Lastly, we determined if the changes in treatment and outcomes over the years were similar for different age- groups, men and women, and for different racial/ethnic groups. In this analysis, we looked at cardiac catheterization trends after NSTEMI for both within 24 hours and within 48 hours. This is the first study of its kind to analyze two different time frames of early catheterization simultaneously. Although there was an increase in the proportion of patients with NSTEMI with increase in utilization of early cardiac catheterization and decrease in in-hospital death and length of stay, age-, sex-, and race/ethnicity-specific differences in the management and outcomes of NSTEMI were observed, and further studies are needed to develop strategies to ensure more equitable care for patients with this type of heart attack.10 Aug Psoriatic Arthritis: Smoking Decreases Treatment Response
MedicalResearch.com: Interview Invitation
Dr. Bente Glintborg:
Copenhagen Centre for Arthritis Research
Centre for Rheumatology and Spine Diseases
Copenhagen University Hospital Glostrup
Copenhagen, Denmark
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Glintborg: Current smoking had a negative impact among patients with psoriatic arthritis treated with TNFi. This was especially observed among male patients and among patients treated with infliximab and etanercept. Current smokers had a shorter treatment duration (=poorer treatment adherence rate) compared to non-smokers. And current smokers had poorer treatment response (measured as ACR20, ACR50 and ACR70 responses and EULAR good response) compared to non smokers. Especially among male smokers the EULAR good response and ACR20 response rates were nearly half of the rates among male non-smokers. The response rates among women did not seem to be affcted by smoking status. Current smokers had poorer self reported outcome measures (HAQ and VAS global and VAS fatigue) when they started treatment with TNFi.
10 Aug PSA Screening and Prostate Cancer Mortality
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Professor Fritz H Schröder
Department of Urology, Erasmus University Medical Center
Rotterdam, Netherlands
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Professor Schröder: I consider as the main finding that we could report a continuing effect of PSA driven screening on prostate cancer mortality for men aged 55 – 69 years in the screen arm of our study after 13 years of follow-up. The absolute reduction in the risk of death from prostate cancer amounts to 1.28 per 1000 men randomized to the screening arm. This translated into numbers to be invited to screening and numbers needed to be diagnosed to save one prostate cancer death of 781 and 27. These figures show an increasing effect with increasing time of follow-up. The relative risk reduction related to the control arm has remained unchanged with respect to the 11 year follow-up period. For men who actually participated and were screened the relative risk reduction amounted to 27%, the figure most applicable to men who consider to be tested.
09 Aug Improving Hand Hygiene Compliance With Red Flashing Lights
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Gianni D'Egidio HBSc, MD, MEng
Academic Division of Internal Medicine
Ottawa Hospital, Canada
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. D'Egidio: Baseline hand hygiene compliance at our main entrance in our study was 12.4%. We believe one of the main reasons for such an appalling low compliance was that individuals were distracted. Visitors entering are often preoccupied with acquiring information to help them navigate a large and confusing environment given the multitude of signs, lights, announcements and other people. Also, the majority of individuals entering have objects occupying their hands; keys, hand-held devices, coffee mugs, and during cold weather, gloves. All this together contributes to poor compliance at our front entrance.
We hypothesized that a conspicuous flashing red light at 3 Hz (3 flashed per second) attached to alcohol hand dispensers located at our front entrance would attract an individual’s attention and hopefully increase compliance. We measured hand hygiene compliance for 1-week periods from 07:30-08:30 before and after the implementation of our flashing lights. We found that compliance increased by more than double to 25.3% (p<0.0001).
09 Aug Fish Consumption Linked to Brain Health
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
James T. Becker, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neurology
University of Pittsburgh
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Becker: We found that people who eat baked or broiled (but not fried) fish at least once every week had significantly larger brain volumes in areas critical for memory and cognition, namely, hippocampus, precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex, and orbital frontal cortex.
09 Aug Stroke: Lower Cognitive Function Linked to Increase Risk, Mortality
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Kumar Bharat Rajan, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Internal Medicine
Section of Population Sciences
Chicago IL 60612
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the paper?
Dr. Rajan: Lower levels of cognitive functioning was associated with incident stroke and the change in cognitive functioning was increased after incident stroke. Cognitive functioning was an independent marker of mortality even after accounting for incident stroke.
08 Aug What is the Ideal Spacing Between Pregnancies?
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Steven Ball Telethon Kids Institute University of Western Australia West Perth, WA 6872, Australia Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Answer: Our study suggests that the amount of time between pregnancies has less of an effect on birth outcomes than previously thought. Relative to pregnancies that started 18-23 months after a previous birth, pregnancies that followed shorter spacing had very little increased risk of preterm birth, low birth weight or small-for-gestational-age. Longer pregnancy spacing showed increased risk of low birth weight and small-for-gestational-age, but not of preterm birth.08 Aug No Close Link Between Cancer and Obstructive Sleep Apnea
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Tetyana Kendzerska
Institute for Clinical Evaluative Science
Women's College Research Institute
Women's College Hospital
Department of Medicine
University of Toronto
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Kendzerska: In a large cohort with varying degrees of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), severity of obstructive sleep apnea was not found to be independently associated with either prevalent or incident cancer, except in one subgroup analysis in smoking-related cancer.
08 Aug Which BNP Better Predicts CV Events in Stable Coronary Heart Disease?
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rakesh K. Mishra, MD San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center San Francisco, CA 94121. Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Mishra: Increased levels of both BNP and NT-proBNP are associated with elevated risk of adverse cardiovascular events in patients with stable coronary artery disease. However, when added to existing clinical models of risk, NT-proBNP is superior to BNP for risk reclassification.08 Aug Crowdsourcing App May Help Dieters Stay On Track
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Brie Turner-McGrievy, Ph.D., M.S., R.D.
Assistant Professor, University of South Carolina
Arnold School of Public Health
Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior Discovery
Columbia, SC 29208
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Turner-McGrievy: This study assessed how closely crowdsourced ratings of foods and beverages contained in 450 pictures from the Eatery mobile app as rated by peer users using a simple “healthiness” scale were related to the ratings of the same pictures by trained observers. Our trained observers used a rating scale based on the U.S. Dietary Guidelines to assess the healthiness of the foods and beverages in each picture. Crowdsourcing uses the input of several users to provide feedback and information. We found that all three trained raters’ scores was highly correlated with the peer healthiness score for all the photos. In addition, we found that peer ratings were in the expected direction for both foods/beverages the Dietary Guidelines say to increase and ones to limit. Photos with fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes, nuts, and seeds were all associated with higher peer healthiness scores and processed, food from fast food restaurants, refined grains, red meat, cheese, savory snacks, sweets/desserts, and sugar sweetened beverages were associated with lower peer healthiness scores.
07 Aug Lacrosse Injuries Differ By Sex and Type of Play
Posted at 21:36h
in General Medicine
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Lara B. McKenzie, PhD MA
Center for Injury Research and Policy
The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Columbus, OH 43205
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. McKenzie: Our main findings were that lacrosse injury rates and patterns are different by sex and by type of athletic activity. Boys’ lacrosse allows for some person-to-person contact, while girls’ lacrosse largely outlaws it. Boys had an overall injury rate of 2.26 per 1000 athletic exposures, and girls had an injury rate of 1.54 per 1000 athletic exposures. The overall injury rate was about 3 times higher in competition than in practice. We also found that sprains and strains were the most common injury diagnosis for boys and girls (boys: 35.6% of injuries; girls: 43.9%), but that concussions were a significant injury diagnosis (boys: 21.9% of injuries; girls: 22.7%).
07 Aug Urinary Detection of Prions That Cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Claudio Soto, PhD
Professor of Neurology
Director Mitchell Center for Alzheimer's disease and related Brain Disorders
University of Texas Medical School at Houston
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Soto: In this study we describe for the first time the highly sensitive detection of prions in human urine, specifically in samples from patients affected by the variant form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), which is the disease produced by infection with prions associated with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease. For detection we used the protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA) technique which amplifies the amount of abnormal prion protein in a cyclical manner conceptually analogous to the polymerize chain reaction. We detected prions in 13 of the 14 vCJD cases analyzed, and the only negative was a sample coming from a patient under treatment with a experimental drug injected directly into the brain. No false positive were observed in the more than 200 cases analyzed. The concentration of abnormal prion protein in urine was estimated at 1x10^-16 g/ml, or 3x10^-21 moles/ml, which extrapolates to ~40-100 particles per ml of urine.
07 Aug Interval Training Beats Continuous Exercise For Glucose Control
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Kristian Karstoft MD
The Centre of Inflammation and Metabolism and The Centre for Physical Activity ResearchDepartment of Infectious Diseases and CMRC, Rigshospitalet
Faculty of Health Sciences,
University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Karstoft: Four months of Interval-walking training (IWT; five sessions/week, one hour/session) in individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus maintained insulin secretion, improved insulin sensitivity index and disposition index in opposition to energy-expenditure and time-duration matched continuous walking training (CWT).
07 Aug Addressing Racial Disparities in Childhood Asthma
Medical Research Interview with: Lara J. Akinbami, MD Infant, Child and Women's Health Statistics Branch National Center for Health Statistics Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Hyattsville, MD 20782. MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Akinbami : We analyzed national data to assess recent trends in racial disparities on childhood asthma...
07 Aug Newly Discovered Gene Mutations Strongly Linked To Breast Cancer
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr Marc Tischkowitz MD PhD
University Lecturer (Associate Professor) and
Honorary Consultant Physician in Medical Genetics
Department of Medical Genetics, University of Cambridge
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Tischkowitz: The PALB2 gene was first identified in 2006 and linked to breast cancer in 2007 but until now we have not had good breast cancer risk estimates for women who have inherited PALB2 mutations. This study was started in 2009 by an group of research institutions (The PALB2 Interest Group) in Canada, US, Europe (UK, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Finland) and Australia. We studied 362 individuals with PALB2 mutations from 154 families. We found that awomen with a PALB2 mutation will on average have a 35% risk of developing breast cancer by the age of 70, rising to 58% if there is a strong family history. Our study will help clinicians to better advise and manage such women.
There are several new aspects.
- It is by far the largest study to date and provides the most accurate risk estimates for PALB2 mutation carriers.
- It shows that the breast cancer risk is modified by the family history.