06 Jun Eggs Should Be Eaten In Moderation – Higher Intake Linked to Increased Mortality
We need to clarify what exactly it is about too many eggs that is causing the risk....
JAMA
06 Jun Fewer Psychiatrists Willing To Accept Medicaid Patients
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_48428" align="alignleft" width="200"] Dr. Wen[/caption]
Hefei Wen, PhD
Assistant Professor,
Department of Health Management & Policy
University of Kentucky College of Public Health
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Medicaid is the principal payer of behavioral health services in the U.S. and expected to play an increasing role in financing behavioral health services following Medicaid expansions under the ACA.
05 Jun Traumatic Injuries Cost Medicare More Than Heart Failure, Pneumonia, Stroke or Heart Attacks
Posted at 20:48h
in Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, JAMA, Surgical Research, University of Michigan
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_49606" align="alignleft" width="156"] Dr. Hemmila[/caption]
Dr. Mark R. Hemmila MD
Associate Professor of Surgery
Division of Acute Care Surgery
University of Michigan
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Traumatic injury has a tendency to be thought of as a disease that preferentially impacts younger people. We wanted to explore the prevalence and impact of traumatic injury within the population of patients for whom Medicare is the third party payer.
05 Jun Home Based Physical Therapy Can Help Prevent Falls in the Elderly
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_49471" align="alignleft" width="150"] Dr. Liu-Ambrose[/caption]
Teresa Liu-Ambrose, PT, PhD
Canada Research Chair (Tier II), Physical Activity, Mobility, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Director, Aging, Mobility, and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory
University of British Columbia
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Falls in older adults are the third-leading cause of chronic disability and the leading cause of hospitalization for adults over age 65. Older adults who experience multiple falls are at increased risk for disability, loss of independence, and even death. How to best prevent falls in this high risk group is not well established.
04 Jun Many Teens Do Not Fill Their Prescriptions for STDs
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_49588" align="alignleft" width="135"] Dr. Goyal[/caption]
Monika K. Goyal, M.D., MSCE
Assistant chief of Children’s Division
Emergency Medicine and Trauma Services
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Adolescents are disproportionately affected by sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and often present to the emergency department for care. I have devoted almost 15 years of my career trying to improve the sexual health of teens through advocacy and the development of novel interventions in the emergency department to increase access to sexual health services for youths.
04 Jun Canadian ERs Use Less Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging Than US
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_49477" align="alignleft" width="200"] Dr. Cohen[/caption]
Eyal Cohen, MD, M.Sc, FRCP(C)
Professor, Pediatrics
University of Toronto
Co-Founder, Complex Care Program
The Hospital for Sick Children
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Minimizing care that provides little benefit to patients has become an important focus to decrease health care costs and improve the quality of care delivery. Diagnostic imaging in children is a common focus for campaigns designed to reduce overuse both in Canada and the US. There are some suggestions that there may be more overuse of care in the United States than Canada, but there has been little study in children.
We compared the use of low-value diagnostic imaging rates from four pediatric emergency departments in Ontario to 26 in the United States from 2006 to 2016. We defined low-value imaging as situations where children are discharged from an emergency department with a diagnosis for which routine use of diagnostic imaging may not be necessary, like asthma or constipation.
04 Jun Atrial Fibrillation Common After TAVR and Aortic Valve Replacement
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rajat Kalra, MBCh Cardiovascular Division University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: New-onset atrial fibrillation after aortic valve procedures is thought to occur frequently after aortic valve procedures, such as transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) and surgical aortic valve replacement (AVR). However, the incidence estimates and implications of this new-onset atrial fibrillation in the contemporary era are unclear. We sought to examine the incidence of atrial fibrillation after aortic valve procedures, compare the incidence between TAVI and AVR, and evaluate the associated morbidity and mortality implications using a ‘big data’ approach. This big data approach employed the National Inpatient Sample and was validated in the New York State Inpatient Database. Both are publicly available datasets that are developed as part of the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, a federal-state-industry partnership that is sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
02 Jun Mortality: Number of Steps Matter, Up To a Point
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_49426" align="alignleft" width="133"]
Prof. I-Min Lee[/caption]
I-Min Lee, MD, ScD
Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Professor of Epidemiology
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: While we have many studies showing that physical activity is beneficial for health, there are few data on steps and health, particularly long-term health outcomes. An expert committee – the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee, which reviewed the scientific evidence to support the recently released Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd edition – noted this (i.e., the relation between steps and health outcomes) to be a critical gap in knowledge, since many individuals are using wearables and monitoring their step counts.
We often hear the number 10,000 steps cited as a daily goal, but the basis for this number is unclear. It likely originated as a marketing tool: in 1965, the Yamasa Clock and Instrument Company, Japan sold a pedometer called “Manpo-kei” – “ten thousand steps meter” in Japanese.
For many older people, 10,000 steps/day can be a very daunting goal; thus, we wanted to investigate whether this was necessary for lower mortality rates in older women. Additionally, steps taken can be fast or slow, and there are no published studies on step intensity and long-term health outcomes. Note that walking pace and step intensity are not the same concept: walking pace gauges intensity when walking purposefully (e.g., for exercise or transportation), while step intensity assesses an overall best natural effort in our daily life.
01 Jun Vitiligo: Off Label Topical Calcineurin Inhibitors Help Some Patients
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_49481" align="alignleft" width="150"]
Dr. Jung Min Bae[/caption]
Jung Min Bae, MD, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Dermatology
St. Vincent's Hospital
College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Vitiligo is a common chronic skin disease affecting 1% of the population, and it causes low self-esteem and social stigma. To date, there are no approved drugs for the treatment of vitiligo, even though growing evidence indicates favorable therapeutic responses of topical calcineurin inhibitors (TCIs) including tacrolimus and pimecrolimus.
In this study, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of all relevant prospective studies (n = 46) and identified remarkable therapeutic responses of TCI monotherapy and TCI plus phototherapy for vitiligo.
30 May Does Genetic Information Encourage Doctors to Switch Anticoagulation Medications?
Posted at 15:39h
in Author Interviews, Clots - Coagulation, Duke, Genetic Research, Heart Disease, JAMA
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_49440" align="alignleft" width="133"] Dr. Povsic[/caption]
Thomas J. Povsic, MD, PhD
Interventional Cardiologist
Duke Clinical Research Institute
Duke University School of Medicine
Durham, North Carolina
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The background for this study is that it is unknown how mandatory reporting of CYP2C19 metabolizer status affects how doctors treat patients or to what degree provision of this information would affect choice of a P2Y12 inhibitor within a clinical trial.
As part of the GEMINI-ACS trial, all patients underwent CYP2C19 metabolizer testing. This trial enrolled patients with a recent acute coronary syndrome and randomized them to aspirin or a low dose of rivaroxaban. All patients were also to be treated with ticagrelor or clopidogrel, which was at the discretion of the investigator. Investigators were given information regarding the CYP2C19 metabolizer status about a week after randomization. Importantly prior to randomization, all investigators were asked how they expected to use this information, and then we followed what they actually did.
29 May Only 1 in 5 Cancer Drugs Receiving FDA Accelerated Approval Have Proven Benefits in Confirmatory Trials
Posted at 11:47h
in Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cancer Research, FDA, JAMA, Pharmacology
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_49366" align="alignleft" width="200"] Dr. Gyawali[/caption]
Bishal Gyawali MD PhD
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Accelerated approval pathway from the FDA allows cancer drugs to come to market sooner by showing improvement in surrogate measures such as change in tumor size. Surrogate measures do not reflect clinical benefit in terms of living longer or feeling better. So, when a drug receives accelerated approval, the drug is required to undergo a confirmatory trial to confirm that true clinical benefit from the drug actually exists.
Last year, a paper from the FDA argued that accelerated approval pathway is working effectively because 55% of such drugs confirmed clinical benefit. However, we saw that most of those drugs were actually improving only a surrogate measure even in confirmatory trials. So the confirmatory trials were not confirming clinical benefit but actually confirming benefit in a surrogate endpoint. We investigate that issue in our study using updated results from the confirmatory trials that were ongoing at the time of FDA review.
Our main finding is that only one-fifth of cancer drugs that received accelerated approval actually improved overall survival later in confirmatory trials. For, 20% of other drugs, the confirmatory trials tested the same surrogate endpoint as did the preapproval trial. For another 21%, the confirmatory trial showed benefit in a surrogate endpoint different from the one used in preapproval trial. Furthermore, when drugs fail to confirm clinical benefits in confirmatory trials, they still continue to remain on market.
29 May Team Sports Benefits Teens With a Troubled Childhood
Posted at 11:25h
in Author Interviews, Exercise - Fitness, JAMA, Mental Health Research, Pediatrics, UCLA
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Molly C. Easterlin, MD
Fellow, UCLA National Clinician Scholars Program
Clinical Instructor, Pediatrics, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Adverse childhood experiences or ACEs (including physical or emotional neglect or abuse, sexual abuse, domestic abuse, exposure to household substance misuse or mental illness, parental separation or divorce, and parental incarceration) are common with about half of children experiencing 1 and one-quarter of children experiencing 2 or more.
Children exposed to adverse childhood experiences have worse mental health throughout life, including higher rates of depression and anxiety. However, little is known about what factors improve long-term mental health in those exposed to ACEs. Additionally, as far as we are aware, no studies have looked at team sports participation as a potential factor that may be associated with improved mental health among those with adverse childhood experiences.
28 May Study Finds You Don’t Have To Fast Before Getting Your Lipids Measured
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_49391" align="alignleft" width="133"] Dr. Mora[/caption]
Samia Mora, MD, MHS
Associate Physician, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Department of Medicine
Preventive Medicine
Boston, MA 02115
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Lipid testing plays a major role in cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk screening, prediction, and treatment. In the past decade, several pivotal studies (including the Women’s Health Study, the Copenhagen City Heart Study, and the Copenhagen General Population Study) compared populations of individuals who had fasting lipid testing with populations of individuals who had nonfasting lipid testing, and found that non-fasting lipids were at least as good as fasting lipids in cardiovascular risk screening and predicting CVD risk.
To date, however, no study has examined the cardiovascular predictive value of lipids measured on the same individuals who had both fasting and nonfasting lipid testing. This is important because individual-level variability in fasting versus nonfasting lipids may not be captured when looking at population-level risk associations, and evidence from randomized studies is lacking. Furthermore, it is unclear whether substituting nonfasting lipids would misclassify cardiovascular risk for individuals who may be eligible for statin therapy.
27 May Can Mindfulness-Based Training Reduce Stress and Burnout in Surgeons?
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_49343" align="alignleft" width="144"] Dr. Lebares[/caption]
Carter Lebares, MD
Assistant Professor of Surgery
Director, Center for Mindfulness in Surgery
Department of Surgery, UCSF
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: This study was inspired by extensive evidence of the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) for mitigating stress and enhancing performance in other high-stress populations like police and the military. We know that overwhelming stress is related to burnout and to cognitive errors - two critical issues within surgery, today. This prompted us to tailor and streamline an MBI specifically for surgeons, and to test it in our trainees.
27 May Frailty Linked to Unplanned Readmissions After Elective Outpatient Surgery
Posted at 10:40h
in Author Interviews, Frailty, Hospital Readmissions, JAMA, Stanford, Surgical Research
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Kara Anne Rothenberg.MD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Vascular Surgery
Shipra Arya, MD SM FACS
Associate Professor of Surgery
Stanford University School of Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: There is a growing body of literature showing that frailty, a syndrome where patients have increased vulnerability to a stressor (such as surgery), is associated with increased postoperative complications, failure to rescue, and hospital readmissions.
The Risk Analysis Index (RAI), is an easy to use frailty measurement tool that better predicts postoperative mortality than age or comorbidities alone. As the rates of outpatient surgeries rise nationwide, we noted that most of the surgical frailty studies focus only on inpatient surgeries. Elective, outpatient surgery is generally considered low risk for complications and unplanned readmissions, however we hypothesized that for frail patients, it might not be.
27 May Silent Heart Attack Associated with Increased Risk of Embolic Stroke
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_49363" align="alignleft" width="128"] Dr. Launer[/caption]
Lenore J. Launer, PhD.
Chief Neuroepidemiology Section Intramural Research Program
National Institute on Aging
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: The prevalence of cerebral infarction on MRI can be as high as 30% in community-based studies. These lesions detected on brain MRI, are often clinically silent, but are associated with impairments in cognitive and physical function and can increase the risk for clinical events. For a large number, the origin of these brain lesions is unknown. There is also a lack of population-based data on unrecognized myocardial infarction, which is associated with an increased for clinical coronary disease and mortality.
Unrecognized MI was detected in 17% of participants using state-of-the-art cardia MRI, a more sensitive measure of the lesions, than the standard ECG. We investigated the contribution to these lesions of recognized and unrecognized myocardial infarction [MI] identified on cardiac MRI.
We found both recognized and unrecognized myocardial infarction increased the risk for cerebral infarction, and that in particular unrecognized MI was associated with cerebral infarction of embolic origins of an unknown source. Given their prevalence, unrecognized MI may be an underestimated contributor to the risk for cerebral infarction in older persons.
24 May NIH Spends Relatively Little on Hearing Loss
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_49355" align="alignleft" width="150"]
Dr. Blustein[/caption]
Jan Blustein, MD PhD
Professor of Health Policy and Medicine
Wagner Graduate School and School of Medicine
New York University, New York
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nation’s largest public funder of health research, provides annual reports about levels of funding for many diseases and conditions. These reports, issued as part of the NIH’s Research, Condition and Disease Categorization (RCDC) process, allow members of the public to track funding across key conditions and across time.
Hearing loss is not included among the reported conditions. This runs counter to two of the NIH’s stated goals, according to researcher Jan Blustein (M.D., Ph.D.), professor of health policy and medicine at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, in a Research Letter in the May 15th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association Otolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery.
“First, the NIH is committed to transparency about how it divides funds across diseases and conditions,” said Dr. Blustein. “Second, it has said that it will prioritize its funding to those conditions that cause the greatest disease burden.” Hearing loss causes great disease burden, ranking 10th in the U.S. among all conditions as a contributor to Disability Adjusted Life Years (a widely-used measure of disease burden), according to the World Health Organization.
22 May Cholesterol Levels in American Youth Improving, But Only Half Have Ideal Lipid Levels
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_49239" align="alignleft" width="148"] Dr. Marma Perak[/caption]
Amanda Marma Perak, MD, MS
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics (Cardiology) and
Preventive Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Blood cholesterol is a critical initiator of atherosclerotic plaques in the arteries that can lead to heart attack in adulthood. It is well established that these changes in the blood vessels occur already in childhood. Thus, it is important to know the status of cholesterol levels in youth to inform public health efforts aimed at preventing cardiovascular disease in the population.
In the US there have been changes in childhood obesity prevalence (which may worsen cholesterol levels), the food supply (such as reduction of trans fats which may improve cholesterol levels), and other factors in recent years.
We therefore designed a study to examine trends in cholesterol levels among youth in recent years.
22 May Perception of Malpractice Risk is Contagious Among Colleagues
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_49269" align="alignleft" width="150"]
Dan Ly[/caption]
Dan Ly, MD, MPP
Ph.D. Program in Health Policy
Harvard
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: There is some mixed evidence regarding whether state level tort reform reduces defensive medicine, or the practicing of medicine in such a way to reduce medical liability. This includes “positive” defensive medicine, or performing certain tests and procedures to reduce such liability. Other research finds that the perception of malpractice risk drives such defensive medicine, including the use of diagnostic imaging, such as CT scans and MRIs.
I was interested in exploring what influenced the perception of this risk, hypothesizing that, for a physician, a report of an injury against one’s colleague might increase the perception of this risk and lead to an increase the use of diagnostic imaging.
20 May Do Hospitals Designated as Centers of Excellence Have Better Outcomes?
Posted at 17:32h
in Author Interviews, Hospital Readmissions, JAMA, Neurology, Outcomes & Safety, University of Pennsylvania
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_49220" align="alignleft" width="180"] Dr. Khatana[/caption]
Sameed Khatana, MD
Fellow, Cardiovascular Medicine, Perleman School of Medicine
Associate Fellow, Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics
University of Pennsylvania
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: There has been a growing use of quality metrics and indices in the US healthcare system. Much attention has been paid to quality measurement programs used by public payors, however, the use of such programs by commercial payors is much less studied. "Centers of excellence" are one type of quality designation program that is growing in use by commercial payors where certain hospitals are determined to be "high quality" for a certain disease state or procedure based on meeting certain criteria. For some people, this is even impacting the choice of providers and hospitals they can use by payors.
We evaluated centers of excellence programs from three large commercial payors, Aetna, Cigna and Blue Cross Blue Shield, targeted at cardiovascular diseases and interventions and examined publicly reported outcomes for all hospitals performing percutaneous coronary interventions (cardiac stenting) in New York State.
20 May Early Life Maltreatment Linked to Increased Risk of Elder Abuse
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_49216" align="alignleft" width="200"] XinQi Dong[/caption]
XinQi Dong
Director, Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research
Henry Rutgers Distinguished Professor of Population Health Sciences
Professor, Department of Medicine - Division of General Internal Medicine, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Interpersonal violence is a substantial public health issue across all socio-demographic and socioeconomic strata globally. A depth of prior studies have found that victims of childhood sexual abuse might have higher risks of re-experiencing sexual violence as adults. But the “re-victimization” phenomenon has been insufficiently examined among the rapidly growing aging populations. There lacks examinations about life-course violence experiences and the accumulative effect of which in older ages.
Our study examined three most common forms of interpersonal violence (child maltreatment, intimate partner violence, and elder abuse) across the life span and found an interconnectedness among them. Individuals with a history of child maltreatment and/or intimate partner violence had two to six times higher risks of elder abuse compared to those without a past experience of the violence.
19 May Mortality Rate Increases With Each Sugary Drink
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jean A. Welsh, RN, MPH, PhD Departments of Epidemiology and Pediatrics Emory University Wellness Department, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Atlanta, Georgia MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: As the evidence has accumulated regarding the health risks associated with sugar-sweetened beverages, I’ve wondered about fruit juices. Though they have a kind of healthy halo, their main ingredients are the same as sugar-sweetened beverages, sugar and water. We know that young children drink a lot of fruit juice, and I’ve wondered if older children and adults might switch to drinking more as concern grows about soft drinks and other sugar-sweetened beverages.
19 May Do Smokers Stick to Cancer Screening Guidelines?
Smokers are less likely to undergo age appropriate cancer screening for several major cancer types...
19 May Cancer Survivors: Insurance Patterns Before and After Affordable Care Act
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_49162" align="alignleft" width="191"] 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.
15 May Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass Linked to More Hip Fractures
Posted at 17:17h
in Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, JAMA, Orthopedics, Osteoporosis, Surgical Research
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_49152" align="alignleft" width="135"] 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.
13 May Excessive Supplements Linked to Increased Risk of Hip Fractures
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_49114" align="alignleft" width="149"] 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.
13 May Circulating Tumor DNA Linked to Recurrence After Colon Cancer Surgery
Posted at 12:42h
in Author Interviews, Biomarkers, Cancer Research, Colon Cancer, JAMA, Karolinski Institute
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_49076" align="alignleft" width="150"] 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.
11 May Over a Million Opioid Prescriptions at Risk of Diversion by Family Members
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_49122" align="alignleft" width="140"] 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.
09 May Which Matters More? Pre-Pregnancy Obesity vs Pregnancy Weight Gain?
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: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.
07 May Pre-Visit Electronic Screening Helps Doctors Counsel Their Adolescent Patients
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_49055" align="alignleft" width="173"] Dr. McCarty[/caption]
Cari McCarty, PhD
Research Professor, UW
Investigator, Seattle Children’s Research Institute
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Adolescence is a time when teens begin to take charge of their health, but it is also a time when they can be prone to health risk behaviors, such as insufficient physical activity, poor sleep, and substance use. We were interested in whether using an electronic health risk screening tool in primary care settings could improve healthcare and health for adolescents. The tool was designed to provide screening as well as motivational feedback directly to adolescents, in addition to clinical decision support for the healthcare clinician. We conducted a trial with 300 adolescent patients where one group received the screening tool prior to their health checkup, and the other group received usual care.