Author Interviews, CDC, JAMA, Sexual Health, STD, USPSTF / 21.09.2021
USPSTF Updates Screening Review for Chlamydial and Gonococcal Infections
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
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Dr. Kubik[/caption]
Martha Kubik, Ph.D., R.N.
Professor, School of Nursing
College of Health and Human Services
George Mason University
Member, U.S. Preventive Services Task Force
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Are these infections increasing in incidence in the US?
Response: Chlamydia and gonorrhea are two of the most common sexually transmitted infections in the U.S. More people are being diagnosed with both of these STIs than ever, with nearly 2 million cases of chlamydia and more than 600,000 cases of gonorrhea reported in 2019, according to the CDC. Because most do not have symptoms, screening is vitally important to help ensure that these infections are discovered and treated, and serious health complications prevented.
Dr. Kubik[/caption]
Martha Kubik, Ph.D., R.N.
Professor, School of Nursing
College of Health and Human Services
George Mason University
Member, U.S. Preventive Services Task Force
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Are these infections increasing in incidence in the US?
Response: Chlamydia and gonorrhea are two of the most common sexually transmitted infections in the U.S. More people are being diagnosed with both of these STIs than ever, with nearly 2 million cases of chlamydia and more than 600,000 cases of gonorrhea reported in 2019, according to the CDC. Because most do not have symptoms, screening is vitally important to help ensure that these infections are discovered and treated, and serious health complications prevented.
Helen Trottier Ph.D
Assistant Professor, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine,
Researcher, CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center
Université de Montréal
Montréal, Québec, Canada
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: We know that HPV infection can have serious consequences such as the development of cancerous lesions in the cervix. HPV infection is also very prevalent in young women of childbearing age but the possible consequences of HPV in pregnancy have been poorly studied. Some population registers around the world have shown a reduction in the risk of preterm birth with HPV mass vaccination, but we must be careful with this kind of ecological correlation.
We have set up a large cohort study in pregnant women to study the association between HPV in pregnancy and preterm birth by targeting certain HPV genotypes and the duration of the infection.
Dr. Cole[/caption]
Megan B. Cole, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor | Dept. of Health Law, Policy, & Management
Co-Director | BU Medicaid Policy Lab
Boston University School of Public Health
Boston, MA 02118
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Under the Affordable Care Act, states were given the option to expand Medicaid eligibility to nonelderly adults with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level, where in January 2014, 25 states plus Washington, DC expanded eligibility, with 13 additional states expanding thereafter. State Medicaid expansion decisions were particularly consequential for federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), which serve nearly 30 million low-income, disproportionately uninsured patients across the US.
We know from earlier work that in the shorter-term, Medicaid expansion was associated with improvements in quality of care process measures and FQHC service capacity. However, we conducted the first known nationally representative study to examine how Medicaid expansion impacted key chronic disease outcome measures at FQHCs over the longer-term by looking at changes five years after implementation, including changes by race/ethnicity.
Amanda Paluch, PhD
Assistant Professor
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Department of Kinesiology
Institute for Applied Life Sciences
Life Science Laboratories
Amherst, MA 01003
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: We wanted to understand the association of total steps per day with premature mortality among middle-aged, Black and White women and men. This study included 2110 adults; age 38-50 years old at the start of this study. These adults wore a step counting device for one week and then followed for death from any cause over the next 10 years.
Dr. Albrecht[/caption]
Joerg Albrecht, MD, PhD
Dermatologist, Internist, Clinical Pharmacologist
Division of Dermatology, Department of Medicine
Attending Dermatologist, Chair Division of Dermatology
Chair system-wide Pharmacy & Therapeutics Committee
Cook County Health
Chicago, IL 60612
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The study was stimulated by data that suggested that an unusually large proportion of inpatient with Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) were African American. HS is an underdiagnosed disease and the total numbers of inpatients with HS in the year we looked at initially seemed small. So we wanted to test whether this finding held up when the period of observation was extended. Point estimates can be unreliable and we had followed another finding in the data that did not hold up when we looked at other years, so we felt one year was not enough to confirm a trend
Dr. Ribeiro[/caption]
Fernando Ribeiro PhD
School of Health Sciences
Institute of Biomedicine - iBiMED
University of Aveiro
Aveiro, Portugal
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Resistant hypertension is a puzzling problem without a clear solution. The available treatment options to lower blood pressure, namely medication and renal denervation, have had limited success, making nonpharmacological strategies good candidates to optimize the treatment of this condition.
Exercise training is consistently recommended as adjuvant therapy for patients with hypertension, yet, it is with a great delay that the efficacy of exercise training is being tested in patients with resistant hypertension.
Having that in mind, the EnRicH trial was designed to address whether the benefits of an exercise intervention with proven results in hypertensive individuals are extended to patients with resistant hypertension, a clinical population with low responsiveness to drug therapy. Exercise training was safe and associated with a significant and clinically relevant reduction in 24-hour, daytime ambulatory, and office blood pressure compared with control (usual care).
Dr. Pierce[/caption]
John Pierce, PhD
Professor Emeritus
Department of Family Medicine and Public Health
Moores Cancer Center Director for Population Sciences
Co-leader of the Cancer Prevention program
UC San Diego
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Graphic Warning Labels are to be implemented in the US in July 2022, depending on litigation. This will be about 10 years after they were first proposed. Meanwhile, 120 other countries have implemented them already.
The FDA states that their purpose for the warnings is to provide a constant reminder to smokers about the health consequences of smoking, not to force them to quit.
In our study, 3 months of having cigarettes repackaged into graphic warning packs was associated with smokers thinking more about quitting and not getting as much pleasure out of their cigarettes. However, thinking about quitting is only the first step to conquering a nicotine addiction.
Dr. Blumenthal[/caption]
Kimberly G. Blumenthal, MD, MSc
Massachusetts General Hospital
The Mongan Institute
Boston, MA 02114
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Dr. Krantz[/caption]
Matthew S. Krantz, MD
Division of Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine
Department of Medicine,
Vanderbilt University Medical Center,
Nashville, Tennessee
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: During the initial COVID-19 vaccine campaign with healthcare workers in December 2020, there was an unexpected higher than anticipated rate of immediate allergic reactions after Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines. This prompted both patient and provider concerns, particularly in those with underlying allergic histories, on the associated risks for immediate allergic reactions with the mRNA vaccines.
Because of the significantly improved effectiveness of two doses of an mRNA vaccine compared to one dose, it was important to determine if those who experienced immediate allergic reaction symptoms after their first dose could go on to tolerate a second dose safely. 
Dr. Correa[/caption]
Andres F. Correa, MD
Assistant Professor
Department of Surgical Oncology, and
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Dr. Bernstein[/caption]
Adrien Bernstein, MD
Second Year Urologic Oncology Fellow
Fox Chase Cancer Center
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Unfortunately, it has been well-established that historically Black Americans experience increased cancer specific mortality compared to white patients. In prostate cancer specifically studies have shown that when access to care is equitable this gap resolves. This suggests that biological factors are not driving these differences but rather the result of the complex interplay of social determinants and systemic inequities in our healthcare system.
Early in the pandemic, multiple studies demonstrated that minority communities disproportionately shouldered poor COVID-19 outcomes. On March 13th 2020, the American College of Surgeons recommended against elective procedures; however, the definition of an elective oncologic case was left to the discretion of the provider. As prostate cancer treatment can be safely deferred up to a year follow diagnosis, management of prostate cancer during the initial lockdown period of the COVID-19 Pandemic provided a useful analysis of the differential restrictions placed on non-emergent health care during the Pandemic.
