MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
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Dr. Daniel C Benyshek[/caption]
Daniel C Benyshek, PhD
Professor, Department of Anthropology
Adjunct Professor, UNLV School of Medicine
Co-Director, Metabolism, Anthropometry and Nutrition Lab
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Maternal placentophagy is ubiquitous among nearly all terrestrial mammals, but is rare to non-existent among humans in the historic and cross-cultural records. Recently, however, human maternal placentophagy has emerged as a popular trend among a small but growing number of women in many industrialized countries. Most women engaging in the practice today consume their processed placenta in capsule form, taken daily, over several weeks postpartum. While human maternal placentophagy advocates claim many maternal health benefits from the practice, including improved postpartum mood, increased breast-milk production, and improved energy, among others, no carefully designed, placebo-controlled studies have evaluated these claims.
Our randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot study (N=23) investigated some of these claims. Our study found that the postpartum iron status of participants who consumed their own encapsulated placenta (based on the three week daily intake recommendation of one prominent placenta encapsulation service), was no different from those women who consumed the same amount of beef placebo.
Dr. Daniel C Benyshek[/caption]
Daniel C Benyshek, PhD
Professor, Department of Anthropology
Adjunct Professor, UNLV School of Medicine
Co-Director, Metabolism, Anthropometry and Nutrition Lab
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Maternal placentophagy is ubiquitous among nearly all terrestrial mammals, but is rare to non-existent among humans in the historic and cross-cultural records. Recently, however, human maternal placentophagy has emerged as a popular trend among a small but growing number of women in many industrialized countries. Most women engaging in the practice today consume their processed placenta in capsule form, taken daily, over several weeks postpartum. While human maternal placentophagy advocates claim many maternal health benefits from the practice, including improved postpartum mood, increased breast-milk production, and improved energy, among others, no carefully designed, placebo-controlled studies have evaluated these claims.
Our randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot study (N=23) investigated some of these claims. Our study found that the postpartum iron status of participants who consumed their own encapsulated placenta (based on the three week daily intake recommendation of one prominent placenta encapsulation service), was no different from those women who consumed the same amount of beef placebo.
Dr. Joseph Alvarnas[/caption]
Joseph Alvarnas, MD
Associate clinical professor
Department of hematology and Director of value-based analytics
City of Hope National Medical Center
Duarte, CA
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Dr. Alvarnas: Patients with HIV infection have a significantly increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and Hodgkin lymphoma. Prior to the availability of effective anti-retroviral therapy, HIV-infected patients with lymphoma had very poor treatment outcomes. Following the availability of effective anti-HIV therapy, patient outcomes for HIV-infected patients now parallel those of non-infected patients. Historically, however, HIV infection has been used as a criterion for not offering patients autologous blood stem cell transplantation outside of centers with unique expertise. The purpose of this trial was to evaluate outcomes, complication rates, and immunological reconstitution of HIV-infected patients following autologous blood stem cell transplantation.
Dr. Samir Ballas[/caption]
Samir K. Ballas MD FACP
Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics
Department of Medicine/Cardeza Foundation for Hematologic Research
Thomas Jefferson University
Philadelphia, PA
Medicalresearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Dr. Ballas: Previous studies have shown that the incidence of overt stroke is about 11% in children with sickle cell anemia by ages 2 - 20 years. Untreated stokes recur periodically with increasing severity and mortality. Transfusion therapy has been documented to decrease the frequency and morbidity of stroke in children by 90%. Accordingly, children who develop overt stroke are treated with chronic blood exchange transfusion to prevent the recurrence of additional strokes. When children reach the age of 18-20 years their medical care is transitioned to adult programs. This transition process is associated with several issues one of which is the discontinuation of chronic blood exchange transfusion in patients with history of overt stokes partly due to logistic considerations and partly due to lack of research in strokes in adult patients and the complications of chronic blood transfusion .
Medicalresearch.com: What are the main findings?
Dr. Ballas: The major finding of the study is that the discontinuation of chronic blood exchange after transition to adult programs is associated with increased mortality. All the patients who discontinued blood transfusion died within 3-5 years after transition whereas patients who continued having blood exchange transfusion survived to a mean age of 36 years at the time of writing this study.
Dr. Elena Santagostino[/caption]
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Elena Santagostino, MD PhD
Angelo Bianchi Bonomi Hemophilia and Thrombosis Center
Ca' Granda Foundation
Maggiore Hospital Policlinico, Milan, Italy
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Santagostino: Two of our abstracts presented at the 57th ASH Annual Meeting are part of the PROLONG-9FP clinical program evaluating the efficacy and safety of CSL Behring’s investigational long-acting fusion protein linking recombinant coagulation factor IX with recombinant albumin (rIX-FP). The first is an oral presentation on results from two Phase III studies and an ongoing extension study of rIX-FP for routine prophylaxis in previously-treated people with 
Dr. Walter Dzik[/caption]
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Walter H. Dzik MD
Associate Pathologist, Massachusetts General Hospital
Associate Professor of Pathology
Harvard Medical School
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Dzik: Millions of Red Blood Cell transfusions are given each year. To maintain adequate blood inventories worldwide, Red Blood Cell units are stored under refrigerated conditions. Previous animal and laboratory research has highlighted the fact that red cells undergo biochemical, morphologic, and biophysical changes during prolonged refrigerated blood storage. Researchers and clnicians have questioned whether the changes that occur during storage would impair the ability of transfused Red Cells to delivery oxygen to tissues.
Our study was a randomized controlled trial conducted in patients with extreme anemia and insufficient global tissue oxygenation. We randomly assigned children with severe anemia and lactic acidosis to receive Red Blood Cells stored 1-10 days versus Red Blood Cells stored 25-35 days. We measured the recovery from lactic acidosis in response to transfusion in the two groups. We also measured cerebral tissue oxygenation using a non-invasive tissue oximeter. We found that the proportion of patients who achieved reversal of lactic acidosis was the same in the two RBC storage-duration groups. The rate of decline of lactic acidosis was also equal. There was also no difference in cerebral oxygenation, resolution of acidosis, correction of vital signs, clinical recovery, survival and 30-day followup.
Dr. Wang[/caption]
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Cunlin Wang, MD, PhD
Division of Epidemiology I,
Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology,
Center for Drug Evaluation and Research
US Food and Drug Administration
MedicalResearch: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Wang: IV Iron has been known for its risk of anaphylactic reaction, but there has been little research on the comparative safety of individual IV Iron products from a large population-based study. This study included 688,183 new users of IV iron not on dialysis from the U.S. Medicare program over a ten-year span (January 2003 to December 2013). The main findings of the study are: the risk for anaphylaxis at first exposure was higher for iron dextran than non-dextran IV iron products combined (iron sucrose, gluconate and ferumoxytol). When individual IV Iron products were compared, the data suggested that iron dextran has the highest risk of anaphylaxis and Iron sucrose has the lowest risk, estimated both at the first time exposure and after cumulative exposures. The low and high molecular weight dextran products could not be individually identified during most of study period. However, from January 2006 through March 2008, during which the use of two dextran products could be distinguished, there was very low use of high molecular weight dextran (Dexferrum@). This suggested that the study results likely represent the risk of the low molecular weight dextran (Infed@).
