Smokers are less likely to undergo age appropriate cancer screening for several major cancer types...
Dr. Sanford[/caption]
Nina Niu Sanford, M.D.
Assistant Professor
UT Southwestern Department of Radiation Oncology
Dallas TX 75390
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: The background for this study is that we know cancer survivors are at risk for uninsurance or underinsurance and the most commonly cited reason for this is cost of insurance. However, there have been no prior studies assessing from the patient perspective the reasons for not having insurance.
In addition, there has been further recent controversy over the Affordable Care Act, including threats from the current administration to dismantle it. Thus assessing the impact of the ACA among at risk populations including cancer survivors is timely.
Tove Fall PhD
Senior author of the study
Associate Professor in Epidemiology
Department of Medical Sciences and the Science for Life Laboratory
Uppsala University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Dog ownership is common in the Western society but little is known about what actually makes people get a dog.
We conducted a twin study to understand whether the genetic make-up has an influence on this choice. We found that more than 50% of the differences in dog ownership is explained by genetic variants. 
Illustration depicting diabetic retinopathy[/caption]
Robert L. Vitti, MD, MBA
Vice President and Head, Ophthalmology
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals
Dr. Vitti discusses the recent announcement that the FDA has approved EYLEA to treat all stages of diabetic retinopathy.
MedicalResearch.com: Can you provide additional background on this approval? Would you briefly explain diabetic retinopathy and it's impact on patients?
Response: The FDA has approved EYLEA (aflibercept) Injection to treat all stages of diabetic retinopathy (DR). DR is the leading cause of blindness among working-aged American adults. Approximately 8 million people live with DR, a complication of diabetes characterized by damage to the blood vessels in the retina (per 2010 data).
The disease generally starts as non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) and often has no warning signs or symptoms. Over time, NPDR often progresses to proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR), a stage in which abnormal blood vessels grow on the surface of the retina and into the vitreous cavity, potentially causing severe vision loss.
Dr. Peterson[/caption]
Emily Petersen, MD.
Lead for the Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System
Division of Reproductive Health
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: About 700 women die of pregnancy-related causes each year in the United States. The new analysis provides much-needed perspective on the circumstances surrounding pregnancy-related deaths and summarizes potential strategies to prevent future deaths.
Monica Perazzolo
Research Centre for Musculoskeletal Science and Sports Medicine
School of Healthcare Science, Faculty of Science and Engineering,
Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK
Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences
University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Our research on motor control in diabetes focussed on the effect of diabetic peripheral neuropathy on driving. Drivers with diabetic peripheral neuropathy showed a less well controlled use of the accelerator pedal and sometimes larger, faster steering corrections needed to stay in lane when driving a simulator compared to healthy drivers and people with diabetes but no neuropathy.
Despite these negative findings, an important result is that drivers with diabetic peripheral neuropathy demonstrated an improvement in their driving with practice.
Dr. Heng[/caption]
Marilyn M. Heng, MD, MPH, FRCSC
Orthopaedic Trauma Surgeon
Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery
Harvard Medical School
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The ultimate background for this study does come from the larger context of the opioid epidemic that is seen worldwide but particularly in North America. Orthopaedic surgeons should take responsibility as being among the top prescribers of opioids.
The more specific background that led to this specific study was the observation that several colleagues would insist that a drug like hydromorphone was so dangerous that they would not prescribe it but seemed okay prescribing large amounts of oxycodone. It seemed like an urban myth that the type of opioid was what made it dangerous, so that led us to do the study to see if there was evidence for that. 
Francesco Zaccardi, MD, PhD
Clinical Epidemiologist
Assistant Director Leicester Real World Evidence Unit
Leicester Diabetes Centre
UK
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The role of excess body weight on mortality has been extensively investigated during the last decades. Studies from several countries have also shown, however, that the risk of death in persons who are overweight or obese is lower if their fitness, a parameter indicating cardio-pulmonary health, is higher.
Most of these studies reported the beneficial effect of fitness in terms of relative risk reduction, for example 20% reduction of risk of death. Relative estimates, though, are difficult to interpret.
Stafford[/caption]
Dr Lorenzo Stafford, PhD, CPsychol
Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology
University of Portsmouth
Portsmouth
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The background to this work was that I had been thinking for sometime on the role of our sense of smell in drug consumption and addiction. Most of the research in this area is dominated by visual processes, in particular showing how cues associated to drugs (e.g. packet of cigarettes, bottle of beer) become conditioned in such drug users. That work has been useful in explaining how in recovering addicts, long after the withdrawal symptoms have subsided, when exposed to such cues, they can nevertheless relapse to craving and consuming the drug; hence though a powerful driver, addiction is not just about reversing withdrawal symptoms.
However, most of our richer experiences are multisensory, so it seems likely that other senses must also play a role in the addictive process. Years ago, I completed a PhD on the topic of caffeine and with the general importance placed on the sensory (especially smell) aspects of coffee, all planted the seed for a possible study. We completed two experiments that examined the lowest concentration at which participants (high, moderate and non-coffee consumers) could detect (Threshold test) a coffee associated chemical (exp 1) and in a separate task, how fast they were at identifying (Recognition test) the odour of real coffee. In experiment 2, participants (coffee consumers and non-consumers) completed the same Threshold test for the coffee odour but also completed a Threshold test for a control odour.
Prof. Wai-Man (Raymond) Liu, PhD
Associate Professor
Research School of Finance, Actuarial Studies & Statistics
College of Business & Economics Building
The Australian National University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: In our study, we studied survey responses of over 26,000 people from the largest Australian household survey over a period of 14 years. The survey was funded by the government called “The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey”. The survey was conducted by the Melbourne Institute.
In the survey more than 9,500 of these respondents had experienced the death of a close friend.
Dr. Phillips[/caption]
Nancy Phillips, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor
Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Women's Health Institute
New Brunswick, NJ
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: The background of this article was as an interest piece prompting a literature review. We both felt it represented an underserved clinical need.
The main findings are that the paternal age at conception does impact pregnancy outcomes, including pregnancy complications, fetal chromosomal anomalies and childhood cancers and psychological disorders.
Dr. Elaine Yu[/caption]
Elaine W. Yu, MD, MMSc
Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School
Director, Bone Density Center
Endocrine Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) is a popular surgical weight loss procedure. We have previously shown that gastric bypass leads to rapid high-turnover bone loss.
Bariatric procedures are being increasingly performed in older adults, and the clinical consequences of gastric bypass-associated skeletal changes in this vulnerable population have been unclear to date. Thus, we used Medicare claims data to investigate fracture risk among older adults after gastric bypass, and in comparison to adults who received another bariatric procedure called adjustable gastric banding (AGB), which is thought to have fewer negative bone effects.
In our analysis, we found that patients undergoing Roux-en-Y gastric bypass were 73% more likely to fracture than those undergoing AGB. Importantly, we found that hip fracture risk increased nearly 180% after RYGB, and that fracture rates in patients aged 65 or older were similar to the overall group. 
Dr, Minh-Hong Nguyen[/caption]
Minh-Hong Nguyen, MD
Infectious Diseases
Professor of Medicine
Director, Transplant Infectious Diseases
Director, Antimicrobial Management Program
Department of Medicine
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Blood cultures, the gold standard for diagnosing blood stream infections, are insensitive and limited by prolonged time to results. Early institution of appropriate antibiotics is a crucial determinant of improved outcomes in patients with sepsis and blood stream infections (BSI). For these reasons, development of rapid non-culture diagnostic tests for blood stream infections is a top priority.
The T2Bacteria panel is the first direct from blood, non-culture test cleared by FDA for diagnosis of blood stream infections . It detects within 4-6 hours the 5 most common ESKAPE bacteria that are frequent causes of hospital infection, and which are often multi-drug resistant. This study shows that the T2Bacteria panel rapidly and accurately diagnosed and identified ESKAPE bacterial BSIs, and identified probable and possible BSIs that were missed by blood cultures (in particular among patients who were already receiving antibiotics).
Electrocardiogram showing QT interval calculated by tangent method - Wikipedia image[/caption]
Sami Viskin MD
Tel-Aviv Medical Cente
Sackler School of Medicine
Tel-Aviv University, Israel.
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: There are >200 medications with reported QT-prolonging risk. The majority of these medications do not even have cardiac indications, yet cause unintended QT-prolongation because they block IKr potassium channels in myocardial cells. With so many drugs, of such varied composition, blocking the IKr channel, it is reasonable to assume that food compounds also have IKr-channel-blocker properties, raising the possibility that proarrhythmic food exists.
We tested the effects of grapefruit on the QT interval with the rigorous methodology used by the pharmaceutical industry to test new medications before they are released to the market.
Dr. Childers[/caption]
Chris Childers, MD, PhD
Division of General Surgery
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Los Angeles, CA 90095
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Patients with end-stage renal disease – poorly functioning kidneys – often have to receive dialysis. This typically requires a patient to visit an outpatient clinic several times a week to have their blood filtered by a machine. Over the past few years, two for-profit companies have increased their control over the outpatient dialysis market – DaVita and Fresenius. Combined they control approximately ¾ of the market. A number of concerns have been raised against these for-profit companies suggesting that the quality of care they deliver may be worse than the care delivered at not-for-profit companies. But, because they control so much of the market and because patients have to receive dialysis so frequently, patients may not have much choice in the clinic they visit.
Medicare covers patients who are 65 years or older and also patients on dialysis regardless of age. Medicare pays a fixed rate for dialysis which they believe is adequate to cover the clinics' costs. However, if a patient also has private insurance, the insurer is required to pay for dialysis instead of Medicare. Whereas Medicare rates are fixed by the federal government, private insurers have to negotiate the price they pay, and may pay much more as a result.
Dr. Reinstatler[/caption]
Lael S. Reinstatler, MD, MPH.
PGY 4 Urology Residency
Dartmouth Hitchcock
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Human Papillomavirus is an oncogenic virus associated with other genitourinary cancers including penile cancer.
HPV is detectable in urine and in urethral swabs and it interacts with stratified squamous epithelium which lines the majority of the genitourinary tract. Prior research has identified HPV in bladder tumors but detection methods are inconsistent.
In this study, we looked for an association with HPV serology (indicating prior HPV systemic exposure) and bladder cancer.
Dr. Huang[/caption]
Dr. Mingxiong Huang, PhD
Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of California, San Diego
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Combat-related mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is a leading cause of sustained impairments in military service members and Veterans. Yet, conventional neuroimaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) are typically insensitive to physiological alterations caused by mild and some moderate TBIs.
With funding from the VA, we have pursued in developing sensitive imaging markers based on magnetoencephalography (MEG) for mTBI. This paper reflects the news MEG findings in this research field. 
Prof. Meyer[/caption]
Prof. Haakon E Meyer, PhD
Department of Public Health and Global Health
Norwegian Institute of Public Health
Oslo, Norway
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: The use of high dose vitamin supplementation is popular in parts of the population, often without any clear indication and in the absence of clear evidence of benefit.
However, side effects can occur, and in a previous published secondary analysis of double blinded randomized controlled trials, we found to our surprise an increased risk of hip fracture in those supplemented with high doses of vitamin B6 in combination with vitamin B12.
This finding was re-assessed in the current study employing data from the large observational Nurses' Health Study. As in the previous study, we found that a combined high intake of vitamin B6 and B12 was associated with increased risk of hip fracture.
Dr. Olsson[/caption]
Louise Olsson MD PhD
Senior researcher
Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery
Colorectal Surgery
Karolinski Institute
Stockholm, Sweden
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: I read a very interesting paper back in 2006 “Detection and quantification of mutation in the plasma of patients with colorectal cancer”. Only some 60 % of patients with early colorectal cancer were detectable in this way whereas patients with stage IV disease all had a high concentration of APC mutations in their plasma. So the prospects of using the method for example, screening of primary colorectal cancer seemed limited but I thought wow, this is the test to detect recurrences and generalized disease during follow-up after surgery for colorectal cancer. After some discussion we started to collect plasma samples from patients at the hospital where I worked and that´s how my research began.
Dr. Van Vleet[/caption]
Thomas M Van Vleet PhD
Posit Science
Dr. Tom Van Vleet, presented results on a common symptom of stroke and acquired brain injury (hemi-spatial neglect) at the American Academy of Neurology May 2019
MedicalResearch.com: What makes this study newsworthy?
Response For the first time ever a highly-scalable intervention — computerized brain training (BrainHQ made by Posit Science) —was found to improve symptoms of hemi-spatial neglect, which is a common and often intractable and debilitating problem after stroke or other acquired brain injury.
MedicalResearch.com: What can you tell us about the medical condition (hemi-spatial neglect) investigated in this study?
Response About a third of patients with a brain injury exhibit a complex and debilitating array of neurological deficits known as the “neglect syndrome” (sometimes called, “hemi-spatial neglect” or “neglect”).
The most apparent symptom of neglect is the inability of patients to efficiently process information on the side of space opposite the injury; often completely missing relevant events without awareness. As a result, patients often fail to adopt compensatory strategies or respond to other conventional rehabilitation protocols.
The cost is significant, as patients with neglect experience longer hospital stays and have higher requirements for assistance, including greater skilled nursing home placements relative to patients with similar extent of brain injury without neglect.
To date, there’s been no broadly-applicable and highly-scalable intervention for addressing neglect. An alarming reality given the increasing cost of stroke, which is currently estimated to exceed $34 billion per annum
Dr. Kao-Ping Chua[/caption]
Kao-Ping Chua, M.D., Ph.D.
Department of Pediatrics
Susan B. Meister Child Health Evaluation and Research Center
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Doctor and pharmacy shopping is a high-risk behavior in which patients obtain opioid prescriptions from multiple prescribers and fill them at multiple pharmacies. Because this behavior is associated with a high risk of overdose death, there have been many efforts to help clinicians detect doctor and pharmacy shopping among patients prescribed opioids. For example, 49 states have a prescription drug monitoring program that provides information on patients’ prior controlled substance prescriptions.
In contrast, there has been little attention to the possibility that patients prescribed opioids may have family members who are engaged in opioid doctor and pharmacy shopping. Such family members may divert opioids prescribed to patients because of their access to these opioids.
We found that the training, which promoted a team-based approach involving brief screening and cost-reducing strategies, nearly doubled the number...
Dr. Rajesh Kumar NV[/caption]
Rajesh Kumar NV, Ph.D.
Affiliation during the study:
Senior Manager, Human Therapeutics Division,
Intrexon Corporation, Germantown, MD, USA
Current affiliation:
Translational Research Program Manager, Oncology Drug Discovery,
Department of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences,
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, MD,
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Clostridium difficile is a bacterium that can cause symptoms ranging from diarrhea to life-threatening inflammation of the colon. Clostridium difficile infection is the most frequent form of colitis in hospitals and nursing homes and affects millions of patients in the United States and abroad. Clostridium difficile associated disease (CDAD) is a global public health challenge where even mild to moderate infections at times can quickly progress to a fatal disease if not treated promptly.
OG253 is a novel lantibiotic in development for the treatment of CDAD. Lantibiotics are antimicrobial peptides whose chemical structure includes a bridge maintained by the non-canonical amino acid lanthionine. The primary objective of our study was to evaluate the repeated dose toxicokinetics and any possible side effects of OG253 as enteric-coated capsules following daily oral administrations of three different doses (6.75, 27 and 108 mg/day) for a single day or seven consecutive days in both genders of rats.
An enteric-coated capsule of OG253 was formulated in an attempt to circumvent the proteolytic degradation of OG253 in the upper digestive tract and specifically deliver this lantibiotic to the distal portion of the small intestine.
Romy Gaillard MD PhD
LifeCycle Project-Maternal Obesity and Childhood Outcomes Study Group
Erasmus MC
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Obesity among women of reproductive age is a major problem for society. Scientists have long known that maternal weight before and during pregnancy are associated with pregnancy outcomes. Gestational weight gain is necessary to ensure healthy development of the fetus, but too much weight gain is associated with a higher risk of pregnancy complications.
The magnitude of the associations of maternal weight before and during pregnancy with the risks of pregnancy complications, as well as the optimal amount of weight that especially obese women should gain during pregnancy were not well-known.
Prof. Donnan[/caption]
Geoffrey A Donnan AO
MBBS, MD, FRCP, FRACP, FAAHMS
Professor of Neurology
University of Melbourne, Melbourne Brain Centre
Royal Melbourne and Austin Hospital
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Currently the thrombolysis time window for acute ischemic stroke is restricted to less than 4.5 hours from stroke onset and patients with wake-up stroke are not eligible.
EXTEND is a multi-centre randomised placebo-controlled trial involving patient with acute ischemic stroke who presented between 4.5 to 9 hours of stroke onset or with wake-up-stroke and had penumbral tissue demonstrated on automated perfusion imaging.
Patients were randomised to receive either alteplase or placebo. In total there were 225 patients recruited and the patients who received alteplase had higher rate of excellent functional outcome at 3 months (35.4% vs 29.5% adjusted odd ration 1.44 with 95% confidence interval 1.01 – 2.06 p=0.04). Patients who received alteplase achieved higher rate of early neurological improvement at day 3, reperfusion and recanalization at 24 hours. There was numerically more haemorrhage in the alteplase group but this not negate the functional benefit and there was no difference in the rate of mortality between the two groups. 
Dr. Arnold[/caption]
Douglas Arnold, MD
The Montreal Neurological Institute & Hospital
McGill University
Montreal, QC, Canada
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Diroximel fumarate (DRF) is a novel oral fumarate, with a distinct chemical structure that is being developed for relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis (MS). It is hypothesized that the distinct chemical structure of DRF may elicit less localized irritation in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, potentially leading to improved GI tolerability. Diroximel fumarate is expected to have similar efficacy as dimethyl fumarate (marketed as TECFIDERA®), as both are converted to equivalent levels of monomethyl fumarate in the body. The EVOLVE-MS-1 study is primarily evaluating the safety of DRF and also exploring efficacy endpoints. 
Kyle Gardiner B.Pharm(Hons)
PhD candidate
Discipline of Pharmacy
Queensland University of Technology | QUT ·
Brisbane, Australia
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The background to this study was a personal interest in behavioural science. I am often intrigued as to why health professional behave the way they do. Studies exploring health professional behaviour are seldom complete or comprehensive, however.
Medicinal cannabis presents an interesting case point to explore health professional behaviours due to its topical nature. The socio-political discussion surrounding medicinal cannabis is often quite different from the medical discussion, yet for legal and regulated access to be achieved across most jurisdictions, a health professional is required to be involved in that process. Simply, if health professionals are not willing to behave, the delivery of medicinal cannabis does not occur. For purposes of transparency, I neither support or reject the use of medicinal cannabis and this paper has nothing to do improving or reducing access. This paper is about beginning to understand health professional behaviours within the context of medicinal cannabis. Yet, if we hope to change practice in the future, by definition, we need to change behaviour. We cannot change behaviour without first understanding the behaviour in context.
Prof. Coomarasamy[/caption]
Prof. Arri Coomarasamy MBChB, MD, FRCOG
Institute of Metabolism and Systems Research
Professor of Gynaecology
Director of Tommy's National Centre for Miscarriage Research
University of Birmingham
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Progesterone hormone is known to be essential to maintain a pregnancy. Researchers and clinicians have debated for over 50 years whether progesterone supplementation in women with early pregnancy bleeding could rescue a pregnancy from miscarrying. There were some clinical studies suggesting progesterone could be useful, but the studies were of poor quality and small, so we could not be certain.
So the current study, called the PRISM trial, was conducted using very sound methods and on a large population of women, in fact over 4000 women in the UK, to produce a definitive answer to this question. Overall, there were more babies in the group of women given progesterone compared with the group of women given the dummy placebo tablets, but there was statistical uncertainty in this finding.
However, when we looked at the sub-population of women who were at high risk of miscarriage because of not only bleeding in early pregnancy but also having a history of previous miscarriage, we found progesterone was shown to have clear benefit. This is a hugely important finding as there is now a treatment option to women with early pregnancy bleeding and a history of previous miscarriages.