Author Interviews, Infections, JAMA, Surgical Research / 30.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Marc D. Basson, MD, PhD, MBA Professor of Surgery, Pathology, and Biomedical Science Senior Associate Dean for Medicine and Research University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences Grand Forks, ND 58202    MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: There are now several studies that describe the use of antibiotics without surgery to manage acute uncomplicated appendicitis. This entails a prolonged treatment course and has a substantial rate of failure and recurrence, but in patients in whom it succeeds surgery can be avoided. Many surgeons resist offering this choice because they perceive it as substandard compared to surgery, which is rapid, and when it goes well (as it usually does) has no failure or recurrence rate. Instead of debating the statistics, we decided to ask people what they would prefer if they had appendicitis and why. We found that about nine tenths of people would choose surgery, but about one tenth would choose antibiotics, with some subtle distinctions depending on the characteristics of the people we asked.  (For instance, surgeons, doctors in general, and people who knew someone who had previously had appendicitis were all a bit more likely to opt for surgery.)  Furthermore, we found that the key issue for most people was not the prolonged treatment course but the rates of failure and recurrence with antibiotics. (more…)
Author Interviews, Geriatrics, Hearing Loss, JAMA / 30.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Handicapped Hearing Impaired” by Mark Morgan is licensed under CC BY 2.0Madeline Sterling M.D., M.P.H. Fellow, Department of Medicine Weill Cornell Medical College - New York Presbyterian Hospital MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Heart Failure currently affects 5.8 million people in the United States and is becoming increasingly common as the population ages. Because it has no cure and tends to get progressively worse, physicians recommend that patients control their symptoms by taking multiple medications, maintain a diet low in salt, monitor their weight and blood pressure, and watch for changes in their symptoms. At the most basic level, in order to understand and follow these instructions, heart failure patients must be able to hear them.  Hearing loss, however, had not been studied in heart failure.  There are a lot of chronic diseases in which hearing loss is more common than in the general population, including coronary heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes. And many adults with heart failure also have these conditions. So, we thought it would be important to understand if hearing loss was prevalent among adults with heart failure, especially since so much of heart failure management revolves around effective communication between patients and their healthcare providers. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, JAMA, Pediatrics / 30.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “preschool joy” by kristin :: prairie daze is licensed under CC BY 2.0Arthur J. Reynolds, PhD Institute of Child Development University of Minnesota, Minneapolis  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?   Response: Educational attainment is the leading social determinant of health. Higher attainment measured by years of education or postsecondary attainment is linked to lower cardiovascular disease risk; lower rates of smoking, diabetes, and hypertension; and higher economic well-being. Evidence on the long-term effects of early childhood programs on educational attainment is mixed. Some studies show impacts on high school graduation but not college attainment, the reverse pattern, or no measurement into adulthood. No studies of large-scale public programs have assessed impacts beyond young adulthood. Whether duration of participation over ages 3 to 9 is linked to mid 30s attainment also has not been investigated. (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Circadian Rhythm, JAMA / 30.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “mirror clock” by tourist_on_earth is licensed under CC BY 2.0Yo-El Ju, MD Assistant Professor of Neurology Sleep Medicine Section Washington University School of Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The background for this study is that prior studies have shown that people with Alzheimer's Disease have poor circadian clock function, for example sleeping during the day and being awake or agitated at night. Autopsy studies have shown that people with Alzheimer's Disease have degeneration in the "clock" part of their brains. In this study, we wanted to examine whether there were any circadian problems much earlier in Alzheimer's Disease, when people do not have any memory or thinking problems at all. We measured circadian function in 189 people with an actigraph, which is an activity monitor worn like a watch, for 1-2 weeks. Brain scans and studies of cerebrospinal fluid were used to determine who had preclinical Alzheimer's Disease, meaning they have the brain changes of Alzheimer's but do not have symptoms yet.  (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Prostate Cancer, Radiation Therapy / 27.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jason Alexander Efstathiou, D., PH.D Director, Genitourinary Division Department of Radiation Oncology Clinical Co-Director, The Claire and John Bertucci Center for Genitourinary Cancers Multidisciplinary Clinic Massachusetts General Hospital MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: When surgery has probably failed to cure a patient, the best prospective data supports the use of postoperative radiation therapy. The debate now centers on the optimal timing of such post-prostatectomy radiation therapy; is it adjuvant (ART) for all (with adverse pathologic features) or early salvage (ESRT) for some (who experience biochemical failure)? (more…)
Author Interviews, Cognitive Issues, Genetic Research, JAMA, Medical Imaging, Mental Health Research / 25.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “The Fourth Sex: Adolescent Extremes” by Victor Soto is licensed under CC BY 2.0Dag Alnaes, PhD Norwegian Centre for Mental Disorders Research KG Jebsen Centre for Psychosis Research Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital Oslo, Norway  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The transition from childhood to adulthood is characterized by swift and dramatic changes, both in our environment and in our brains. This period of life also coincides with the onset of many mental disorders. To gain a better understanding of why, the clinical neurosciences must attempt to disentangle the complex and dynamic interactions between genes and the environment and how they shape our brains. The ultimate goal is to be able to predict which individuals are at risk before clinical symptoms appear. Advanced brain imaging has been proposed to represent one promising approach for such early detection, but there is currently no robust imaging marker that allows us to identify individuals at risk with any clinically relevant degree of certainty. Our study shows that self-reported early signs of mental illness are associated with specific patterns of brain fiber pathways in young people, even if they may not fulfill criteria for a formal diagnosis or are currently in need of treatment.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Genetic Research, JAMA, Neurology, Parkinson's / 25.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rachel Saunders-Pullman, MD, MPH Associate Professor of Neurology Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Chief, Movement Disorders, Mount Sinai Beth Israel Co-Director Clinical/Translational Research and Research Mentoring Movement Disorders, Department of Neurology, Mount Sinai Beth Israel New York, NY 10003 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: There is a diversity in causes of Parkinson’s Disease (PD), and this may lead to heterogeneity in drug response. While LRRK2 PD due to G2019S mutations may fully mimic idiopathic PD (IPD), cross-sectional study suggests that the course may be slightly milder than IPD. Further, the pathology is heterogeneous with a minority not demonstrating Lewy bodies, and this may also correspond to less severe non-motor features. To better understand the course of PD associated with the G2019S LRRK2 mutation (the most common LRRK2 mutation), we evaluated motor and cognitive progression in individuals enrolled in the LRRK2 Ashkenazi Jewish Consortium. Subjects were recruited from a Center in Tel Aviv, Israel, Sourasky Medical Center, and from two centers in New York, Columbia University and Mount Sinai Beth Israel. 144 participants were LRRK2 mutation carriers and 401 were not. We utilized all study visits, and constructed linear mixed-effects models to estimate the association between harboring the LRRK2 mutation and rate of change of both motor features- as assessed by the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), and cognition, as measured by the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Scale (MoCA). Models adjusted for sex, site, age, disease duration and (for the motor models) cognitive score. We found a small but significant difference in rate of progression, with LRRK2 PD progressing at 0.69 points/year, and IPD at 1.06 points/year. While the cognitive decline was also less in the LRRK2 PD (-0.10 vs. -0.19 in the IPD, this difference was not statistically different (p=0.08). (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, MD Anderson, Outcomes & Safety, Surgical Research / 24.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Andrew Phillip Loehrer MD MPH Fellow in Surgical Oncology Department The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: A growing number of studies have examined the effects of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion.  But none to date have looked at effects on surgical conditions, which are both expensive and potentially life-threatening.  We examined data for nearly 300,000 patients who presented to hospitals with common and serious surgical conditions such as appendicitis and aortic aneurysms. We found that expansion of Medicaid coverage was linked to increased insurance coverage for these patients, but even more importantly, Medicaid expansion led patients to come to the hospital earlier before complications set in, and they also received better surgical care once they got there. (more…)
Author Interviews, Emory, Genetic Research, JAMA, Ophthalmology / 24.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Eldon E. Geisert, PhD Professor of Ophthalmology Emory School of Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: In the late 1990s a group of doctors began a study of glaucoma patients to determine if there were phenotypes that are predictive for developing glaucoma. In this Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study (OHTS) one of the highly correlated ocular traits was central corneal thickness (CCT). The early clinical studies found that people with thinner corneas were at a higher risk of developing glaucoma. In two large studies, examining thousands of people a number of genes were identified that were risk factors for glaucoma or that controlled CCT in humans. In both cases the identified genes accounted for less than 10% of the genetic risk for glaucoma and less than for 10% of the genetic control for CCT. There was little data linking the genetic control of CCT to the glaucoma risk. Our group has taken an indirect approach to the question, using well-defined mouse genetic system to identify genes modulating CCT and then interrogating human glaucoma data to determine if these genes are associated with glaucoma risk.   (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA / 24.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Stelios Serghiou PhD student Epidemiology and Clinical Research and John P.A. Ioannidis, MD, DSc Meta-Research Innovation Center Stanford (METRICS), Stanford University Stanford, California MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Preprints refer to versions of a manuscript prior to the one published in a peer-reviewed journal. Even though preprints have been very popular in disciplines such as physics and computer science for many years now, their use in biomedicine had been very limited. However, this seems to be changing since the establishment of bioRxiv in 2013. As such, we became interested in exploring what happens to preprints uploaded on bioRxiv and what is the impact of bioRxiv to the peer-reviewed literature in terms of attention received. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, PTSD / 23.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Man’s best friend helps NC Guardsman with PTSD [Image 1 of 8]” by DVIDSHUB is licensed under CC BY 2.0, PhD Professor of Psychiatry Director, Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Pa 19104 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: As much as 10 to 20 percent of military members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan following the September 11th attacks suffer from PTSD, which is often chronic and incapacitating. A constant increase in the number of individuals suffering from PTSD as a result of massive natural disasters, terror attacks, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has prompted an urgent need for effective and efficient evidence-based treatments for PTSD. Prolong exposure (PE) is a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy that involves exposure to trauma memories and daily life trauma reminders. Previous studies have proven PE is quite effective for treating civilians and veterans with PTSD. In this five-year study, the researchers sought to determine whether PE could have similar success with active-duty military personnel. The researchers examined the benefit of various methods for delivering PE including Massed-PE, (10 therapy sessions administered over two weeks) and Spaced-PE (10 sessions administered over 8 weeks), as well as Present Centered Therapy (PCT), a non-trauma-focused therapy that involves identifying and discussing daily stressors in 10 sessions over eight weeks, and Minimal Contact Control (MCC), which included supportive phone calls from therapists once weekly for four weeks. Patients who received Massed-PE therapy, delivered over two weeks, saw a greater reduction in PTSD symptoms than those who received MCC. Importantly, Massed-PE therapy was found to be equally effective to Spaced-PE in reducing PTSD symptom severity. The researchers also found that PCT might be an effective treatment option for PTSD in active military personnel although it was less effective than PE in veteran and civilian PTSD sufferers.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, JAMA, Lymphoma / 23.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Mintsje de Boer, MD Resident plastic surgery Department of Plastic, Reconstructive and Hand-Surgery Maastricht University Medical Centre+, Maastricht the Netherland On behalf of the Netherlands BIA-ALCL Consortium: Daphne de Jong (Hematopathologist, VU university medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands), Hinne Rakhorst (Plastic Surgeon, MST/ZGT, Enschede, the Netherlands) René van der Hulst (Plastic surgeon, MUMC+ Maastricht, the Netherlands) Flora van Leeuwen (Epidemiologist, Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands), Jan Paul de Boer (Hemato-oncologist, Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands) Lucy Overbeek (Database expert PALGA, Houten, the Netherlands),  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Breast implants are one of the most commonly used medical devices worldwide. Associations with breast cancer, connective tissue diseases and auto-immune diseases have never been unequivocally supported. For lymphoma risk, this is different and several reports have suggested an association between breast implants and risk of anaplastic large cell lymphoma in the breast (breast-ALCL). Over the past few years, the number of women with breast implants reported with breast-ALCL has strongly increased. This has resulted in significant attention amongst medical professionals and women alike with publications in medical journals and lay press. In part due to the rarity of the disease and due to the lack of breast implant prevalence data in the population, the absolute risks of breast-ALCL are largely unknown, precluding evidence-based counseling about implants. In the Netherlands, we are in the unique position to be able to retrieve all diagnosed breastALCL since 1990 as well as appropriate population-based control groups from the Nationwide Network and Registry of Histo- and Cytopathology in the Netherlands (PALGA). This has allowed a formal epidemiological risk assessment study based on sufficient numbers. Moreover, using combined and complementary sources of information, we have been able to determine age- and calendar year-specific implant prevalence rates to determine reliable absolute risks. This study could be successfully performed thanks to a multidisciplinary taskforce consisting of plastic surgeons, hematopathologists, epidemiologists, hemato-oncologists and radiologists from the several large institutions in the Netherlands  (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, JAMA, Ophthalmology, Surgical Research, UCSF / 23.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Catherine L. Chen, MD, MPH Assistant Professor UCSF Department of Anesthesia & Perioperative Care MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Routine preoperative medical testing (such as common laboratory tests looking at a patient's blood cell counts and kidney function, or cardiac tests like an EKG) are not recommended in patients undergoing cataract surgery, but these tests still occur quite frequently among Medicare cataract surgery patients because these patients tend to be older and sicker than the general population. In the past, researchers have used a 30-day window counting backwards from the date of surgery to determine whether a given test should be categorized as a routine preoperative test. However, we know that testing often takes place outside this window and therefore, the frequency and cost of routine preoperative medical testing has generally been underreported. In our study, we used a new method to figure out how to determine the start of the routine preoperative testing period. In cataract patients, ocular biometry is a diagnostic test that is performed in anticipation of cataract surgery, and this test is only performed in cataract patients who will be having cataract surgery in the near future. For each patient, we calculated the elapsed time between the ocular biometry and cataract surgery dates to get a better idea of when to start looking for unnecessary routine preoperative testing. Our goal was to identify all the routine preoperative medical testing that occurs once the decision has been made to operate and better estimate the cost to Medicare of this unnecessary testing. In a previous study that we published in the New England Journal of Medicine, we reported a significant spike in the rate of routine preoperative medical testing that occurs in the 30 days before surgery compared to the baseline rate of testing. In our current study, we discovered that there is a second spike in testing that occurs in the 30 days after ocular biometry. In fact, even if you exclude the testing that takes place during the 30 days before surgery, there is still a 41% increase in testing rates during the interval between ocular biometry and cataract surgery over the baseline rate of testing. In addition, we found that the cost of routine preoperative testing was 47% higher when looking at the entire biometry to surgery timeframe compared to testing that occurs just in the 30 days before surgery. We estimate that the cost to Medicare of all of this unnecessary testing approaches $45.4 million annually. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Johns Hopkins, Kidney Disease, Transplantation / 23.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Tanjala S. Purnell, PhD MPH Assistant Professor of Surgery, Epidemiology, and Health Behavior and Society Core Faculty, Epidemiology Research Group in Organ Transplantation Johns Hopkins University Associate Director for Education and Training, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity Member, OPTN/UNOS Minority Affairs Committee  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
  • Our study was motivated by the fact that we know live donor kidney transplants are associated with longer life expectancy and higher quality of life than deceased donor kidney transplants or long-term dialysis treatment. We also know that Black and Hispanic adults are more likely than White adults to have end-stage kidney disease but are less likely than White patients to receive live donor kidney transplants.
  • Over the last 2 decades, there have been several transplant education programs implemented within transplant centers and dialysis centers, and legislative policies enacted to improve overall access to live donor kidney transplants for patients. We wanted to see whether these programs and policies resulted in narrowed racial and ethnic disparities in access to live donor kidney transplants in the United States. 
(more…)
Author Interviews, Dermatology, JAMA, Microbiome / 19.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Maja-Lisa Clausen MD, Ph.D.-fellow Department of Dermatology Copenhagen University Hospital Bispebjerg  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: ​The human microbiome seems to play an important role in health and disease, by influencing host cells and contributing to host immunity. A balanced interplay between host cells and resident bacteria is important, and dysbiosis is linked to several diseases, including skin diseases like atopic dermatitis. Patients with atopic dermatitis suffer from ​frequent skin infections, and their skin microbiome is dominated by S. aureus. Frequent skin infections lead to frequent use of antibiotics, and with worldwide increase in resistant bacteria, a better understanding of the interplay between host and bacteria is paramount in order to develop new treatment strategies. (more…)
Anesthesiology, Author Interviews, JAMA, Stroke / 18.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Claus Z. Simonsen, MD, PhD Department of Neurology Aarhus University Hospital MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Retrospective studies find worse outcome when performing (Endovascular Therapy) EVT under General Anesthesia (GA). The main finding is that infarct growth in the Conscious Sedation (CS) and GA are not different. And that patients who had EVT under GA had a better outcome after 90 days. This is probably explained by better reperfusion rates under GA which was another part of the study that was surprising. Our neurointerventionalist are comfortable performing EVT under CS, but our study indicates that maybe it is easier to achieve reperfusion it the patient is anesthesized. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Pediatrics / 17.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: James L. Wynn, MD Department of Pediatrics, Department of Pathology, Immunology, and Laboratory Medicine University of Florida, Gainesville MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Reports from the National Institutes of Health show a reduction in physician-scientists. Objective data on R01 funded pediatric physician-scientists, including the number of R01 awards, individuals awarded an R01, as well as their institutions, subspecialty, academic rank, leadership status, and sex are unknown. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Mental Health Research / 17.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Michael S. Okun, M.D. Adelaide Lackner Professor and Chair of Neurology Fixel Center for Neurological Diseases Gainesville FL 32607 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Deep brain stimulation is a promising therapy for carefully selected Tourette syndrome patients who fail medication and behavioral therapy. This study draws data from 31 institutions and 10 countries and shows a significant improvement of motor and vocal tics across multiple brain targets.  Because even expert DBS centers only perform 1-2 surgeries a year this type of database and registry will be critical to move the field forward.  (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Surgical Research, Weight Research / 17.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Oma Reges, PhD Clalit Research Institute, Clalit Health Services, Tel Aviv, Israel Department of Health Systems Management, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Israel, based on the most recently published data (2015), performs more per-capita bariatric surgery than the U.S.A (about 9,000 to 9,500 procedures annually, which is 1.8 times higher rate per capita than the U.S.A, where there are about 200,000 procedures a year). It is important to evaluate the impact of these procedures on health status, as there is a lack of data of the effectiveness of these procedures over time. We were able to document lower mortality rates, of up to 50%, in the obese patient undergoing surgery as opposed to matched obese patients who continue with usual care.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, JAMA, OBGYNE, Surgical Research / 16.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Charles Billington MD Chief, Section of Endocrinology and Metabolism Minneapolis VA Health Care System Professor of Medicine, University of Minnesota  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: We wanted to know if adding gastric bypass to intense lifestyle and medical therapy would improve overall diabetes treatment as represented by the triple endpoint of blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol control. We found that adding gastric bypass did provide significant benefit at five years after surgery, but that the size of the benefit declined substantially from the first to the fifth year. We also found that gastric bypass did provide significantly better blood sugar control throughout the five years, but the rate of diabetes remission at five years was low. There were many more adverse events in the gastric bypass group.  (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Surgical Research, Weight Research / 15.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jøran Hjelmesæth MD, PhD Professor, Head Morbid Obesity Centre and Section of Endocrinology Department of Medicine Vestfold Hospital Trust Tønsberg, Norway Department of Endocrinology, Morbid Obesity and Preventive Medicine Institute of Clinical Medicine University of Oslo, Norway MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What is known?  Some previous studies have shown beneficial long-term effects of bariatric surgery on the remission and incidence of diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidemia, whilst high quality data on the long-term incidence of adverse effects, mental health conditions and complications after bariatric surgery are sparse or lacking. In addition, the control groups in previous studies of the effect of bariatric surgery seldom or never received any specific specialist based non-surgical treatment alternative. The present pragmatic real world study was performed at a publicly funded single tertiary care obesity center in Norway where patients could choose between bariatric surgery and specialized medical treatment (voluntarily and free of charge). Nearly complete short- and long-term (≤ 10 years) data on beneficial and detrimental outcomes were retrieved from national registries (Norwegian Prescription Database and Norwegian Patient Registry).  The results confirm the beneficial long-term effects of bariatric surgery (gastric bypass) on the remission and incidence of diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidemia, as demonstrated in some previous studies. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Ophthalmology, Pediatrics / 14.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prof. Dr. Andreas Stahl Geschäftsführender Oberarzt Leiter Arbeitsgruppe Angiogenese Universitätsaugenklinik Freiburg | University Eye Hospital Freiburg Freiburg, Germany MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a sight-threatening disease and one of the main reasons for irrreversible bilateral blindness in children. Particularly infants born at very early gestational ages or with very low birth weight are affected. In these infants, vascularization of the retina is unfinished at the time of birth. Severeal weeks into the life of these very prematuerly born infants, angiogenic growth factors, mainly vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), become upregulated in the avascular parts of the retina, leading to a re-activation of physiologic vascular growth. If all goes well, these re-activated retinal blood vessels progress towards the periphery and lead to a fully vascularized and functional retina. If, however, the vascular activation by VEGF is too strong, then vascular growth becomes disorganized and vessels are redirected away from the retina and into the vitreous. If left untreated, these eyes can then proceed towards tractional retinal detachment and blindness. Since the 1990s, the standard method of treating ROP has been laser photocoagulation of avascular parts of the retina. This treatment is sensible because VEGF as the main angiogenic driver of pathologic blood vessel growth is expressed in these avascular parts of the retina. The downside of laser treatment, however, is that treated retinal areas are turned into functionless scar tissue and are lost for visual function. In addition, infants treated with laser need to be under general anesthesia for hours during treatment which can be troublesome in very young and fragile preterm infants. And in the long run, infants treated with laser have a high risk of developing high myopia in later life. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, JAMA, Stroke / 13.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Babak B. Navi MD, MS Department of Neurology Weill Cornell Medicine New York, New York MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: About 10% of patients with ischemic stroke have comorbid cancer and these patients face an increased risk of stroke recurrence. Many strokes in patients with cancer are attributed to unconventional mechanisms from acquired hypercoagulability. Therefore, many physicians recommend anticoagulation, especially low molecular weight heparins, for the treatment of cancer-associated stroke. However, hypercoagulable stroke mechanisms, such as nonbacterial thrombotic endocarditis, are rarely definitively diagnosed in cancer patients antemortem; while atherosclerosis, which is generally treated with antiplatelet medicines such as aspirin, is common in cancer patients. In addition, many historic indications for anticoagulation in ischemic stroke have been disproven by randomized trials because any reductions in stroke risk were offset by increased risks of bleeding. Given these considerations, we believed that a randomized trial comparing anticoagulation with enoxaparin to antiplatelet therapy with aspirin was necessary to determine the superior strategy, prompting implementation of the TEACH pilot randomized trial. The primary aim of TEACH was to determine whether the random assignment of different antithrombotic strategies to cancer patients with acute ischemic stroke would be sufficiently feasible and safe to proceed with a larger efficacy trial.  (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Neurology / 13.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Fredrik Piehl MD PhD, prof. of Neurology Neuroimmunology Unit. Dept Clinical Neuroscience Neurology Dept. Karolinska University Hospital (Solna) Stockholm MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: In recent years we have seen a drastic increase in treatment options for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). However, it is difficult to deduce long term performance of different drugs based only on data from randomized controlled trials, since such trials are performed in selected patients without major co-morbidities and perhaps also enriched for those with a milder disease course. In addition, most trials only last for two years and lack relevant comparators. This lack of knowledge makes it difficult to predict if a drug will work or not for a given patient, in turn leading to frequent treatment switches but also different treatment practices across countries, regions or even between centers. This is also the case in Sweden, but with the additional aspect that some regions have opted to treat most newly diagnosed RRMS patients with rituximab (Rituxan/Mabthera), a drug not formally approved for RRMS, but with extensive safety data from other indications. (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Biomarkers, JAMA, MRI / 12.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Miguel A. Santos-Santos, MD Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center University of California San Francisco Autonomous University of Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Valles, Spain MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a clinically and pathologically heterogeneous (generally Frontotemporal lobar degeneration [FTLD, generally tau or tdp proteinopathies] or Alzheimer’s disease [AD] pathology) condition in which language impairment is the predominant cause of functional impairment during the initial phases of disease. Classification of PPA cases into clinical-anatomical phenotypes is of great importance because they are linked to different prevalence of underlying pathology and prediction of this pathology during life is of critical importance due to the proximity of molecule-specific therapies. The 2011 international consensus diagnostic criteria established a classification scheme for the three most common variants (the semantic [svPPA], non-fluent/agrammatic [nfvPPA], and logopenic [lvPPA]) of PPA and represent a collective effort to increase comparability between studies and improve the reliability of clinicopathologic correlations compared to the previous semantic dementia and progressive non-fluent aphasia criteria included in the 1998 consensus FTLD clinical diagnostic criteria. Since their publication, a few studies have reported amyloid imaging and pathological results in PPA, however most of these studies are retrospective in nature and the prevalence of FTLD and Alzheimer’s disease pathological findings or biomarkers in each variant has been inconsistent across the literature, therefore prospective validation with biomarker and autopsy data remains scarce and highly necessary. (more…)
Author Interviews, CDC, JAMA, Weight Research / 12.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Liping Pan, MD, MPH Epidemiologist, Epidemiology & Surveillance Team Obesity Prevention and Control Branch Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention & Health Promotion CDC  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Children with severe obesity face significant health and social challenges. Children with obesity and severe obesity are at higher risk for having other chronic health conditions and diseases, such as asthma, sleep apnea, bone and joint problems, and type 2 diabetes. They also have more risk factors for heart disease like high blood pressure, impaired glucose tolerance, and high cholesterol than their normal weight peers. These lifelong health risks associated with severe obesity during early childhood indicate the importance of preventing and identifying severe obesity. Childhood obesity disproportionately affects children living in low-income families. However, no recent trends on severe obesity in this population have been reported. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Pediatrics, Smoking, Tobacco, Tobacco Research, UCSF / 07.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “hookah” by Ksenia M is licensed under CC BY 2.0Benjamin Chaffee, DDS MPH PhD UCSF School of Dentistry San Francisco, CA 94118 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Non-cigarette tobacco products, which include electronic cigarettes, hookah (tobacco waterpipe), smokeless tobacco, and non-cigarette combustibles, like cigars, are increasingly popular among young people. Considerable debate surrounds whether use of these non-cigarette products encourages youth to begin smoking conventional cigarettes. Several previous studies have shown associations between non-cigarette tobacco use and youth smoking. These studies had largely looked at only one type of tobacco product at a time. This study included more than 10,000 adolescents from all over the United States, surveyed at two time points one year apart. Therefore, this study featured enough participants and detailed information about tobacco behaviors to consider all types of tobacco products in a comprehensive way. We found that each type of non-cigarette tobacco product (i.e., e-cigarettes, hookah, combustibles, or smokeless tobacco) added to smoking risk. Among youth who had never smoked a cigarette at the start of the survey, use of any of the non-cigarette products approximately doubled the odds of cigarette smoking within a year, after adjusting for multiple smoking-related risk factors. Each product independently increased risk. The adolescents most susceptible to future smoking to were those who had tried two or more types of non-cigarette tobacco. (more…)
Author Interviews, Calcium, Geriatrics, JAMA, Vitamin C / 05.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “ZMA och D-vitamin. Intages med dubbelsidig C-brus. #placebomannen” by Robin Danehav is licensed under CC BY 2.0Dr Jia-Guo Zhao Tianjin Hospital Department of Orthopaedic Surgery Tianjin, China MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The increased social and economic burdens for osteoporotic-related fractures worldwide make its prevention a major public health goal. Calcium and vitamin D supplements have long been considered a basic intervention for the treatment and prevention of osteoporosis. Survey analysis showed that 30–50% of older people take calcium or vitamin D supplements in some developed countries. Many previously published meta-analyses, from the high-ranking medical journals, concluded that calcium and vitamin D supplements reduce the incidence of fracture in older adults. And many guidelines regarding osteoporosis recommend calcium and vitamin D supplements for older people. The final aim for these supplements is to prevent the incidence of osteoporotic-related fracture in osteoporosis management. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, JAMA / 05.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Doctors” by Tele Jane is licensed under CC BY 2.0Kathryn R. Tringale, MAS Department of Radiation Medicine and Applied Sciences University of California San Diego, La Jolla MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Financial relationships between biomedical industry and physicians are common, and previous work has investigated the potential conflicts of interest that can arise from these interactions. Data show that even small payments in the form of industry sponsored lunches can influence physician prescribing patterns. Given the concern for the potential influence of biomedical industry over practice patterns and potentially patient care, the Open Payments program was implemented under the Affordable Care Act to shed light on these interactions and make reports of these financial transactions publicly available. We recently published a paper in JAMA on industry payments to physicians that found that men received a higher value and greater number of payments than women physicians and were more likely to receive royalty or licensing payments when grouped by type of specialty (surgeons, primary care, specialists, interventionalists). The purpose of the Research Letter discussed here was to further examine differences in the value of payments received by male and female physicians within each individual specialty. The main takeaway from this study is that male physicians, across almost every specialty, are receive more money from biomedical industry compared to female physicians. At first glance, this finding can be interpreted as merely another example of gender disparities in the workplace, which we have seen before with gender gaps in physician salaries and research funding. Indeed, this gender gap may be a product of industry bias leading to unequal opportunity for women to engage in these profitable relationships. Alternatively, these data may be more representative of gender differences in physician decision-making. Previous data has shown that industry engagement can lead to changes in practice patterns, so maybe female physicians acknowledge these conflicts of interest and actively choose not to engage with industry. Unfortunately, we cannot tease out these subtleties from our results, but our paper does reveal a remarkable gender difference among physician engagement with industry. With this being said, whether male or female, everyone needs a bit of help sometimes. The use of loans is a possibility for many people who need a little financial assistance. Regardless of whether men are getting paid a little more than women, they may all need help just as equally. The type of loans that would be worth looking into if this is your current situation is physician loans, which basically allows medical professionals to purchase a home with a low/little down payment while avoiding mortgage insurance. A little bit of help goes a long way, especially when it involves your future. (more…)