Author Interviews
03 Dec Starting Testosterone Associated With Increased Risk of Blood Clots
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Carlos Martinez Institute for Epidemiology, Statistics and Informatics GmbH Frankfurt, Germany, MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: A 10-fold increase in testosterone prescriptions per capita in the United States and a 40-fold increase in Canada in men has occurred over the first decade of this century, mainly for sexual dysfunction and/or decreased energy. Recognised pathological disorders of the male reproductive system remain the sole unequivocal indication for testosterone treatment but there has been increasing use in men without pathological hypogonadism. A variety of studies and meta-analyses have provided conflicting evidence as to the magnitude of the risk of cardiovascular events including venous thromboembolism in men on testosterone treatment. In June 2014, the US Food and Drug Administration and Health Canada required a warning about the risk of venous thromboembolism to be displayed on all approved testosterone products. Studies have reported contradictory results on an association between testosterone use and the risk of venous thromboembolism. The effect of timing and duration of testosterone use on the risk of venous thromboembolism was not studied and may explain some of these contradictory findings.03 Dec Non-Exercise Algorithm Predicts Fitness and Lifestyle-Related Disease
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Bjarne M. Nes, PhD K.G. Jebsen Center for Exercise in Medicine, Department of Circulation and Medical Imaging Norwegian University of Science and Technology Trondheim, Norway. MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: It is well known that cardiorespiratory fitness is an important predictor of future cardiovascular disease risk. Still, fitness levels are rarely measured in clinical practice, likely because of costly and time-consuming procedures that requires quite a lot of training. Therefore, we wanted to test the ability of a simple estimation of fitness, from a so-called non-exercise algorithm, to identify individuals at high and low risk of cardiovascular mortality. We tested fitness alone and in combination with traditional risk factors such as high blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking and family history of heart disease and diabetes, among 38,480 men and women from the Nord-Trondelag Health Study in Norway. We found that estimated fitness strongly predicts premature deaths from all causes and that traditional clinical risk factors added little above and beyond fitness in terms of predicting risk.03 Dec Dapivirine Vaginal Ring Helps Prevent HIV Infection in Women
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ms. Neliëtte Van Niekerk M.Com and Dr. Annalene Nel M.B., Ch.B., Ph.D. From International Partnership for Microbicides Silver Spring, MD MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Existing prevention methods have not done enough to stop the alarming rates of infection among women and girls, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where young women are at least twice as likely to have HIV as young men. Rates of new infections among women aged 15-24 were more than four times greater than that of men the same age, and this age group accounted for 25 percent of new infections in South Africa. To provide women with more prevention options, the nonprofit International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM) developed a vaginal ring that contains an antiretroviral drug called dapivirine. Women insert the ring themselves and replace it every month. The Ring Study was a Phase III clinical trial that assessed the safety and long-term efficacy of the monthly dapivirine ring among nearly 2,000 women in South Africa and Uganda. We found that the ring reduced the risk of HIV-1 infection in about one-third of the women in the trial, and it was safe, with no difference in adverse effects between the active and placebo ring groups.03 Dec Microbiome Is Major Driver of Recurrent Obesity
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Eran Elinav. Principal investigator Immunology Department Weizmann Institute of Science Rehovot, Israel MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Recurrent obesity is a very common yet poorly studied and under researched phenomenon. It is well known that many people diet, but then regain the weight they lost and even add more weight. We found that the gut microbiome is a major driver of this enhanced weight regain phenomenon. We found that in the obese state, the microbiome is altered, and these alterations are not reversed upon weight loss. And these alterations are sufficient to drive weight regain, since transferring them to germ-free mice also transferred the enhanced weight regain phenotype. Moreover, we provide three different treatments for this condition: (1) Antibiotics; (2) transfer of bacteria from lean mice; and (3) addition of specific molecules that we found to be lacking in the altered microbiome. All of these treatments cured the mice we tested from enhanced weight regain.03 Dec Bacterial Nitric Oxide Essential For Staph Bacteria To Colonize Nose
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30155" align="alignleft" width="136"]
Dr. Ferric C. Fang[/caption]
Ferric C. Fang, M.D.
Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Microbiology
Adjunct Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases)
Director, Harborview Medical Center Clinical Microbiology Laboratory
University of Washington School of Medicine
Seattle, WA
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: The Fang lab has a longstanding interest in the interaction between nitric oxide (NO·) and pathogenic bacteria. NO· is an important mediator of the host innate immune response that restricts the growth of invading bacterial pathogens. One of the known actions of NO· is the reversible inhibition of aerobic respiration that results from NO· binding to the heme centers of terminal oxidases.
Like mammalian hosts, many bacteria also possess the ability to enzymatically synthesize NO·. Our latest research investigated the physiological role of the Staphylococcus aureus nitric oxide synthase (saNOS). We discovered that endogenously produced NO· is able to target bacterial terminal oxidases under microaerobic conditions, allowing the bacteria to transition to nitrate respiration when oxygen concentrations are limited and helping to maintain the membrane potential. This process was found to be essential for S. aureus nasal colonization in a mouse model. Thus, a conserved mechanism is involved in both the antimicrobial actions of NO· and the physiological role of NO· in regulating bacterial electron transfer reactions. Interestingly, NO·-heme interactions have been shown to control mitochondrial respiration during hypoxia in mammalian cells.
02 Dec Mental and Physical Disorders Linked at Early Age
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Prof. Dr. Gunther Meinlschmidt, Psych
University of Basel, Department of Psychology, Division of Clinical Psychology and Epidemiology
Faculty of Medicine
Switzerland
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Physical diseases and mental disorders affect a person’s quality of life. Further, they present a huge challenge for the healthcare system. It has been reported that physical and mental disorders systematically co-occur already early in life. What we wanted to know is whether there are certain temporal patterns between mental disorders and physical diseases during childhood and adolescence. A better understanding of such patterns may help to reveal processes that could be relevant both to the origins of physical diseases and mental disorders and to their treatment.
02 Dec CT Angiography Study Finds No Association Between Alcohol and Coronary Artery Disease
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Pál Maurovich-Horvat MD, PhD, MPH, FSCCT Assistant Professor of Cardiology Director of the MTA-SE Cardiovascular Imaging Research Group Heart and Vascular Center, Semmelweis University Budapest, Hungary MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Several studies have been published on alcohol consumption and its association with the presence of coronary artery disease, however the data remains controversial. Some studies suggested that moderate alcohol consumption reduces the risk of heart disease and others found no protective effect. Our study is the first investigation that aims to assess the effect of alcohol on the coronary arteries using coronary CT angiography. We found no association between regular alcohol consumption and the presence of coronary disease.02 Dec FDA Reports on Patient Satisfaction With LASIX Procedure
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30144" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Dr. Malvina Eydelman[/caption]
Malvina Eydelman, M.D.
Division Director; Division of Ophthalmic and Ear, Nose and Throat Devices
Office of Device Evaluation
Center for Devices and Radiological Health
FDA.
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: In October 2009, the FDA, the National Eye Institute (NEI), and the Department of Defense (DoD) launched the LASIK Quality of Life Collaboration Project (LQOLCP) to help better understand the potential risk of severe problems that can result from LASIK. The project aimed to develop a tool to determine the percent of patients who develop difficulties performing their usual activities following LASIK, and to identify predictors for those patients.
At the time we developed our project, there was a limited amount of valid scientific data on certain patient-reported outcomes (PROs) related to LASIK. A PRO is a report of a condition experienced and reported by the patient, not the health care provider.
Most LASIK studies used tools, such as questionnaires, to assess visual symptoms, but only after the surgery. The Patient-Reported Outcomes with LASIK (PROWL) studies in the LQOLCP assessed visual symptoms both before and after their LASIK surgery to identify changes over time. The studies also measured the impact symptoms directly had on performing usual activities, which had not previously been done.
02 Dec Men and Women Evaluate Faces Differently
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Antoine Coutrot PhD CoMPLEX University College London London, UK MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The human face is central to our everyday social interactions. Recent studies have shown that while gazing at faces, each one of us has a particular eye-scanning pattern, highly stable across time. Although variables such as culture or personality have been shown to modulate gaze behavior, we still don't know what shapes these idiosyncrasies. Moreover, most previous observations rely on analyses of small-sized eye-position datasets, often from the WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) population. Here we use a very large and diverse dataset (400+ participants from 58 nationalities) and show that among many observer characteristics, gender is the one that best explains the differences in gaze behaviour. When looking at faces, women are more exploratory than men and more biased toward the left side. We even trained a classifier able to infer the gender of observers only based on their gaze.02 Dec Idarucizumab For Dabigatran Reversal: Updated Results Of The Re-verse Ad Study
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30138" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Dr. Charles Pollack[/caption]
Dr. Charles Pollack MD
Professor of Emergency Medicine
Sidney Kimmel Medical College at
Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia.
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: RE-VERSE AD™ is a multinational, open-label cohort Phase III trial studying the safety and efficacy of idarucizumab (PRAXBIND) to reverse the anticoagulant effects of dabigatran (PRADAXA) in patients with life-threatening or uncontrolled bleeding, or those who require emergency procedures.
It is the largest patient study investigating a reversal agent for a novel oral anticoagulant (NOAC) in real world emergency settings. At the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2016, we presented updated results from 494 patients participating in the ongoing study, showing that administration of 5g of idarucizumab immediately reversed the anticoagulant effect of dabigatran.
02 Dec Health Care Spending Highly Concentrated Among a Small Group of People
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30131" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Emily Mitchell,[/caption]
Emily Mitchell, Ph.D., Statistician
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The data for this study come from the Household Component of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS-HC), a nationally representative survey that is conducted annually by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The survey collects detailed information on health care utilization and expenditures, health insurance, and health status, as well as a wide variety of social, demographic, and economic characteristics for the U.S. civilian non-institutionalized population.
02 Dec Longitudinal Study of Post-Concussion Syndrome: Not Everyone Recovers
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Charles Tator, Neurosurgeon Toronto Western Hospital and Director Canadian Concussion Centre MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The main findings of this study are that the number of symptoms of post-concussion syndrome (PCS) are related to how long PCS lasts. Furthermore, physicians need to be more vigorous in their treatment of PCS symptoms and use the treatments that exist for each symptom where possible such as headache, vertigo, anxiety. The sooner sufferers of PCS receive treatment for their symptoms, the better.02 Dec 17 States Have More White Deaths Than Births
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30123" align="alignleft" width="133"]
Dr. Rogelio Saenz[/caption]
Rogelio Saenz PhD
Dean, College of Public Policy
University of Texas at San Antonio
Senior Fellow
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: My colleague, Kenneth M. Johnson, and I conducted research based on mortality and birth data from the Center for Disease Control. These data allow us to assess natural decrease, i.e., greater number of deaths compared to births. We find that 17 states had more white deaths than white births in 2014, the most historically, compared to only four in 2004. We find that the 17 states with white natural decrease tend to have relatively high percentages of their populations being elderly (65 and older), low proportions of women being in childbearing ages (15-44), and relatively low fertility rates.
02 Dec Lung Maturity Test Can Determine Which Premature Infants are at risk of RDS
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30177" align="alignleft" width="164"]
Prof. Henrik Verder[/caption]
Prof. Henrik Verder
Department of Pediatrics
Holbaek University Hospital
Denmark
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Respiratory Distress Syndrome (RDS) is a major cause of mortality and morbidity in premature infants. It can be effectively treated with surfactant, a therapy which reduces the effort needed to expand the lungs during inspiration and allow gas exchange to take place. Early surfactant treatment can help prevent the onset and impact of RDS, however, prophylactic treatment has been shown to be harmful and only necessary in half of all pre-term infants. This study provided data validating the efficacy of a lung maturity test (LMT) in identifying infants at risk of respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) who could benefit from early surfactant treatment.
02 Dec Cancer Can Mean High Out-of-Pocket Expenses For Seniors With Only Medicare
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_29945" align="alignleft" width="80"]
Dr. Amol Narang[/caption]
Dr. Amol K. Narang, MD
Instructor of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences
Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: We know that cancer care is becoming increasingly expensive in the U.S., but the financial impact on patients in the form of out-of-pocket expenses is not well understood, in part because of the lack of data sources that track this information. As such, we used the Health and Retirement study, a national panel study that closely tracks the out-of-pocket medical expenditures of older Americans, to understand the level of financial strain that Medicare patients experience after a new diagnosis of cancer. We further investigated what factors were associated with high financial strain and what type of health services were driving high costs in this population.
02 Dec Can Probiotics in Yogurt Protect Against Stress and Anxiety?
Posted at 14:32h
in Author Interviews, Gastrointestinal Disease, Mental Health Research, Nature, Probiotics
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_30115" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Dr. Elizabeth Bryda[/caption]
Elizabeth Bryda, PhD
Professor, Director, Rat Resource and Research Center
Veterinary Pathobiology
University of Missouri
Columbia, Missouri
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: A number of groups have demonstrated the ability of probiotics to benefit digestive health and there is a growing body of evidence to suggest an association between mental health and “gut health”. We were interested to see if probiotic bacteria could decrease anxiety- or stress-related behavior in a controlled setting using zebrafish as our model organism of choice for these studies.
We were able to show that Lactobacillus plantarum decreased overall anxiety-related behavior and protected against stress-induced dysbiosis (microbial imbalance). The fact that administration of probiotic bacteria also protected other resident gut bacteria from the dramatic changes seen in “stressed” fish not receiving the probiotic was unexpected and suggested that these bacteria may be working at the level of the GI tract and the central nervous system.
02 Dec Americans Continue To Have Better Lipid Profiles
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Asher Rosinger, PHD, MPH Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Division of Health and Examination Nutrition Examination Surveys, Analysis Branch National Center for Health Statistic MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Total cholesterol, triglycerides, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels are linked to coronary heart disease and cardiovascular events. Between 1999 and 2010, total cholesterol, triglycerides, and LDL levels declined among U.S. adults. We used new data from the 2011-2014 nationally representative National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to determine if earlier trends continued.02 Dec God Activates Reward Centers In Brain
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30097" align="alignleft" width="133"]
Dr. Jeffrey S. Anderson[/caption]
Jeffrey S. Anderson, MD, PhD
Director the fMRI Neurosurgical Mapping Service
Principal Investigator for the Utah Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory
University of Utah
MedicalResearch.com: What is your study about?
Response: Billions of people find meaning in life and make choices based on religious and spiritual experiences. These experiences range from epiphanies that change the lives of celebrated mystics to subtle feelings of peace and joy in the lives of neighbors, friends, or family members that are interpreted as spiritual, divine, or transcendent.
Astonishingly, with all we understand about the brain, we still know very little about how the brain participates in these experiences. We set out to answer what brain networks are involved in representing spiritual feelings in one group of people, devout Mormons.
02 Dec Insomniacs May Benefit From Internet Delivered Program
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30102" align="alignleft" width="133"]
Dr. Lee M. Ritterband[/caption]
Lee M. Ritterband, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences
Director, Center for Behavioral Health and Technology
University of Virginia School of Medicine
Ivy Foundational Translational Research Building
Charlottesville, VA 22903
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, a non-pharmacological intervention, is the first line recommendation for adults with chronic insomnia (see recommendations made earlier this year from the American College of Physicians). Access to CBT-I, however, is limited by numerous barriers, including a limited supply of behavioral medicine providers. One way to help improve access to this effective treatment is to develop and evaluate additional delivery methods of CBT-I, including Internet-delivered CBT-I.
This study was designed to evaluate the efficacy of an Internet-delivered CBT-I program (SHUTi: Sleep Healthy Using The Internet) over the short-term (9-weeks) and long-term (1-year).
01 Dec Humanoid Robot Deepens Understanding of How Toddlers Learn What Words Mean
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30093" align="alignleft" width="350"]
Humanoid Robot Helps Understand How Toddlers Link Words to Objects[/caption]
Dr Katie (Katherine) Twomey
ESRC Future Research Leaders Fellow, Lancaster University
Senior Research Associate, ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development (LuCiD)
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Although we know that toddlers can quickly work out what new words mean, it's not yet clear exactly how they do it. For example, when they see a new object alongside their favorite toy truck and hear a new word "block", we know that they will link "block" to the new object. They could do this by thinking in detail about what they already know, for example "if my toy is called "truck", then "block" must be the name of the new object". Equally, however, they could quickly link the new word to the new object without thinking about it in-depth.
We tested this second possibility using iCub, a humanoid robot which learns by making quick associations between what it sees and what it hears, without the ability to think in detail about what it already knows. We replicated two studies of toddlers' early word learning with iCub and found that even though it can only learn through making simple links between words and objects, it behaved exactly as children did in the original experiments.
01 Dec Therapies That Target Accessory Cells in a Tumor May Enhance Standard Care
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30081" align="alignleft" width="150"]
Dr. Sudarshan Anand[/caption]
Sudarshan Anand, PhD
Department of Cell, Developmental and Cancer Biology
Department of Radiation Medicine
Oregon Health and Science University
Portland, Oregon
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Almost half of all cancer patients receive radiation therapy during the course of their disease.
While the impact of radiation on the cancer cells has been well studied in experimental models, its effects on the accessory cells that are present in the tumor are not well known. One of the major interests of our lab is studying these accessory cells of the tumor aka “the tumor microenvironment”. These group of cells consists of blood vessel cells, fibroblasts and immune cells that are normal cells that have been recruited by the tumor and generally support tumor growth.
The goal of this study was to understand the impact of radiation (and broadly DNA damaging agents) on the blood vessel cells in the tumor. We focused on a specific type of molecule called microRNAs (miRs) in these cells. miRs are small RNA molecules that bind to dozens of messenger RNAs and the production of proteins.
We discovered a group of microRNAs that was induced in blood vessel cells by radiation, a chemotherapy agent cisplatin and peroxide an agent that mimics oxidative stress that is often present in cancers. We found that the top candidate on this list was a microRNA that mimicked radiation by inducing DNA damage and eventually killing the blood vessel cells. Administering this microRNA, either within a tumor or using a specific nanoparticle that delivers cargo to the tumor blood vessels, decreased tumor growth in mouse models of breast cancer, brain cancer and colorectal cancer. We found that the efficacy of this agent was a result of its ability to suppress a protein TREX1, that is often mutated in human lupus.
In other words, this microRNA was able to create some of the immune and inflammatory features of lupus within a tumor and induce proteins that triggered cell death on tumor cells. Overall, our work illustrates how the tumor accessory cells respond to radiation and highlights the cross-talk between different accessory cells and the tumor cells.
01 Dec Protein Found To Enhance Ability To Kill MRSA
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30077" align="alignleft" width="106"]
Dr. Warren Leonard[/caption]
Warren Leonard, M.D.
NIH Distinguished Investigator
Laboratory of Molecular Immunology
NHLBI, NIH
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: TSLP is a cytokine that has been well studied in the context of T cell helper type 2 (TH2) responses and the promotion of atopic diseases. TSLP is naturally expressed at barrier surfaces, such as the skin; however, its role in skin infections was not previously explored.
In our study, we investigated whether TSLP plays a role in host defense to Staphylococcus aureus skin infections, using the most common strain of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) present in the United States.
01 Dec Prediction of Congenital CMV Infection in High-Risk Pregnant Women
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30252" align="alignleft" width="133"]
Dr. Kenji Tanimura[/caption]
Dr. Kenji Tanimura M.D., Ph.D.
Assistant professor
Division of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Graduate School of Medicine and
Hideto Yamada M.D., Ph.D.
Professor and Chairman Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection can cause long-term neurological sequelae, such as hearing difficulties and mental retardations, in affected children. Some investigators reported that early diagnosis and antiviral therapy can improve neurological outcomes in symptomatic congenital infected infants. However, universal screening of newborns for congenital CMV infection is not yet available. Therefore, the development of non-invasive methods for prenatal detection of mothers and newborns at high risk for congenital CMV infection has been desired.
We aimed to determine maternal clinical, laboratory, and ultrasound findings that effectively predict the occurrence of congenital CMV infection in high-risk pregnant women, who were positive for CMV IgM.
We performed maternal blood screening for CMV IgG and IgM, and 300 IgM-positive pregnant women, including 22 with congenital CMV infection, received series of examinations. We evaluated maternal clinical and laboratory findings, including serum CMV IgM and IgG, IgG avidity index, antigenemia testing, and CMV-DNA PCR for the maternal serum, urine, and uterine cervical secretion, and prenatal ultrasound findings.
01 Dec Cardioprotective Effect of PCSK9 Inhibitors Should Outweigh Potential Harm of Diabetes Risk
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Brian A. Ference, M.D Division of Cardiovascular Medicine Wayne State University School of Medicine Detroit, MI MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings? Response: Lifelong exposure to modestly lower plasma LDL-C levels caused by rare loss-of-function mutations in the PCSK9 gene is associated with a substantially lower lifetime risk of developing cardiovascular disease. This discovery motivated the development of monoclonal antibodies directed against PCSK9 which have now been shown to reduce plasma LDL-C levels by 50-60%. The cardiovascular medicine community is early anticipating the results of two large cardiovascular outcome trials that will determine if lowering LDL-C levels by inhibiting PCSK9 will reduce the risk of cardiovascular events. Because monoclonal antibodies and other therapies directed against PCSK9 are designed to recapitulate the phenotype of PCSK9 loss-of-function mutations, we reasoned that it may be possible to anticipate the efficacy and safety results of the ongoing cardiovascular outcome studies by more precisely characterizing the effect of genetic variants in the PCSK9 gene on the risk of both cardiovascular events and new onset diabetes. To do this, we a constructed genetic score consisting of multiple independently inherited variants in the PCK9 gene to create an instrument that mimics the effect of PCSK9 inhibitors. We then compared the effect of genetic variants that mimic the effect of PCSK9 inhibitors with the effect of genetic variants in the HMGCR gene that mimic the effect of statins to make inferences about the likely effect of PCSK9 inhibitors on the risk of cardiovascular events and new onset diabetes as compared to treatment with a statin.01 Dec National Trends and Outcomes of Embryo Donation
[caption id="attachment_30068" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Dr. Jennifer F. Kawwass[/caption]
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Jennifer F. Kawwass, MD, FACOG
Assistant Professor, Emory Reproductive Center
Director of Third Party Reproduction, Emory Reproductive Center
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: With the increasing use of assisted reproductive technology (ART), the number of cryopreserved embryos in storage has increased, as residual viable embryos from an in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycle may be frozen for future use. Each embryo maintains attributes reflective of the age of the female at time of the original oocyte retrieval. Embryo donation, a form of third-party reproduction, involves donation without compensation of previously formed embryos to another couple for implantation.
Limited published data exist detailing outcomes of donor embryo cycles. Patients and clinicians would benefit from information specific to donor embryo cycles to inform fertility treatment options, counselling, and clinical decision-making. We sought to quantify trends in donor embryo cycles in the United States, to characterize donor embryo recipients, and to report transfer, pregnancy, and birth outcomes of donor embryo transfers.
01 Dec No Clear Cut-Off Age To Stop Screening Mammograms
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Cindy Lee, MD Assistant Professor Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging University of California San Francisco San Francisco, CA MedicalResearch.com: What’s new about the research? How is it different than what’s come before? • The largest study on the topic, including national data from 31 states in the United States. Including 5.7 million screening mammograms with follow up. • All exams using digital techniques, up to date data, more representative of community practices in the U.S.01 Dec Frailty Screening Can Predict Postoperative Survival
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30060" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Dr. Daniel E. Hall[/caption]
Daniel E. Hall, MD, MDiv, MHSc, FACS
Associate Professor of Surgery
University of Pittsburgh Staff Surgeon
VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System Core Investigator
VA Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion.
PIttsburgh, PA
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: A growing body of research demonstrates that frailty is a more powerful predictor of postoperative outcomes than risk-prediction models based on age or comorbidity alone. However, it has not been clear if surgeons could intervene on frailty to improve outcomes.
This study reports what we believe to be the first ever demonstration that it is not only feasible to screen an entire health system for frailty, but that it is possible to act on that information to improve outcomes. Every patient evaluated for elective surgery was screened for frailty with a brief tool that takes 1-2 minutes to complete. Those identified as potentially frail and thus at greater risk for poor surgical outcomes received an ad-hoc administrative review aimed at optimizing perioperative care. After implementing the frailty screening initiative, we observed a 3-fold increase in long-term survival at 6 and 12 months—even after controlling for age, frailty, and predicted mortality.
30 Nov Poor Ratings Linked to Hospitals in Distressed Neighborhoods
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jianhui Hu, PhD Center for Health Policy & Health Services Research Henry Ford Health System Detroit, Michigan MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: In July of 2016, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid services (CMS) released its first-ever hospital Star Rating for consumers to use to compare hospital quality. Since earlier studies have shown that hospitals serving lower-socioeconomic-status (SES) communities have lower scores on measures like readmission rate that are a part of the Star Rating system, we wanted to find out whether a similar relationship might be found between community-level SES and the Star Ratings. Our study used a recently released “stress” ranking of 150 most populated U.S cities and explored possible associations with the hospital Star Ratings. This “stress” ranking was a composite score of 27 individual metrics measuring a number of characteristics of the cities, such as job security, unemployment rate, housing affordability, poverty, mental health, physical activity, health condition, crime rate, etc. Our study found that less-stressed cities had average higher hospital Star Ratings (and more-stressed cities had lower average hospital Star Ratings). Cities such as Detroit and Newark are good examples of those with high “stress” and relatively low hospital Star Ratings, and cities like Madison and Sioux Falls of those with relatively low stress and relatively high hospital Star Ratings. Our correlational analysis indicated that around 20% of the difference in the Star Ratings can be explained by characteristics of the cities in which hospitals were located.30 Nov Vestibular or Inner Ear System Weakens After Age 40
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30046" align="alignleft" width="150"]
Dr. Daniel M. Merfeld[/caption]
Daniel M. Merfeld, Ph.D.
Professor of Otolaryngology
Harvard Medical School
Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Director, Jenks Vestibular Physiology Laboratory
Senior Scientist
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Nearly half of the population will see a clinician at some point in their lives with symptoms related to the vestibular system (e.g., dizziness, vertigo, imbalance and blurred vision). The vestibular system, made up of tiny fluid-filled membranes in the inner ear, is responsible for receiving information about motion, balance and spatial orientation. With the goal of determining whether age affected the function of the vestibular system, our research team administered balance and motion tests to 105 healthy people ranging from 18 to 80 years old and measured their vestibular thresholds (“threshold” refers to the smallest possible motion administered that the subject is able to perceive correctly).