Medical Research Journals
07 Oct NHS: Delayed Hospital Discharges May Be Linked To Increase in Mortality
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Mark A Green BA (Hons), MSc, PhD, AFHEA Lecturer in Health Geography University of Liverpool MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Between Dec 2013 and Dec 2015 there was an increase of 41% in the number of acute patients delayed being discharged from hospital. If we compare the previous year of data –Dec 2012- Dec 2014 – there was only a 10% increase. 2015 saw one of the largest annual spikes in mortality rates for almost 50 years – we wanted to explore if there was any correlation between these two trends.06 Oct Does Gender Bias Play A Role in Cardiovascular Surgery in Women?
Posted at 18:44h
in Annals Thoracic Surgery, Author Interviews, Gender Differences, Heart Disease, Surgical Research, Women's Heart Health
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_37407" align="alignleft" width="125"]
Dr. Jabagi[/caption]
Habib Jabagi B.Sc., M.Sc., M.D.
Department of Surgery
University of Ottawa , Ottawa
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings
Response: Women with coronary artery disease (CAD) are at a significant disadvantage compared to men, as they do not consistently receive the same intensive treatment. For example, when surgery is done in men, it is more common to use arteries, as opposed to saphenous veins from the leg to complete the bypass graft. Arteries, such as the left internal thoracic artery, appear to have much better long-term patency than veins, which translates into improved outcomes.
The motivation for this study was to see if our centre, which has embraced the use of arteries quite aggressively, has suffered the same gender disparities with respect to the use of multiple arterial revascularization strategies in coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG).
06 Oct Many US Women Face Distance Barriers To Abortion Access
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jonathan Marc Bearak, PhD Senior Research Scientist Guttmacher Institute New York MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Although U.S. women who live farther from abortion clinics are less likely to obtain one, no national study has examined inequality in women’s access to abortion and whether inequality in abortion access has increased as the number of abortion clinics have declined. We found that half of women live within 11 miles of an abortion provider. However, 1 in 5 women would need to travel at least 43 miles. We found substantially greater variation within than across states, because even in relatively rural states, women and clinics were concentrated in urban areas. These disparities have persisted since at least 2000.06 Oct Stepped Care Case-Finding Intervention Can Provide Cost Effective Care For PTSD After a Disaster
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_37442" align="alignleft" width="144"]
Dr. Cohen[/caption]
Gregory H. Cohen, MPhil, MSW
Statistical Analyst
Department of Epidemiology
School of Public Health
Boston University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: We simulated a stepped care case-finding approach to the treatment of posttraumatic stress in New York City, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
Stepped care includes an initial triage screening step which identifies whether a presenting individual is in need of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or can be adequately treated at a lower level of care.
Our simulation suggests that a stepped care approach to treating symptoms of posttraumatic stress in the aftermath of a hurricane is superior to care as usual in terms of reach and treatment-effectiveness, while being cost-effective.
05 Oct Surgical Delays For Melanoma Patients Are Common
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Adewole Adamson, MD, MPP Department of Dermatology UNC MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Surgery is the primary intervention for the treatment of melanoma. Little is known about how delays for surgery, defined as the time between diagnosis and surgical treatment, among melanoma patient differ by insurance type. After adjustment of patient-level, provider-level, and tumor-level factors we found that Medicaid patients experience a 36% increased risk of delays in surgery for melanoma. These delays were 19% less likely in patients diagnosed and 18% less likely in patients surgically treated by dermatologists. Non-white patients also had a 38% increased risk of delays.04 Oct Genetic Testing Reduces Risk Of Side Effects From Anticoagulation After Surgery
Posted at 23:06h
in Author Interviews, Clots - Coagulation, Genetic Research, JAMA, Surgical Research
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_37375" align="alignleft" width="140"]
Dr. Bass[/caption]
Anne R. Bass, MD
Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine
Weill Cornell Medical College
Rheumatology Fellowship Program Director
Hospital for Special Surgery
New York, NY 10021
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Blood thinners are used after orthopedic surgery to prevent blood clots from forming in the legs and traveling to the lungs. They are also used in patients with certain heart diseases to prevent strokes. Blood thinners, like warfarin, are effective but can be associated with serious bleeding complications, especially if the wrong dose is given. Genetic testing can help doctors predict the right warfarin dose to use in an individual patient.
In this trial, ≈1600 elderly patients undergoing hip or knee replacement were randomly assigned to receive warfarin dosing based on genetics plus clinical factors (like height, weight and gender), or based on clinical factors alone. The specific genes tested wereVKORC1, CYP2C9, and CYP4F2 which influence warfarin metabolism and the body’s ability to produce clotting factors.
04 Oct Appendicitis May Be More Common After Colonoscopy
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_37370" align="alignleft" width="132"]
Dr. Basson[/caption]
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: I and other surgeons have previously had the experience of caring for patients with appendicitis who had recently undergone colonoscopy, and wondered if there might be a connection. However, colonoscopy and appendicitis are both common events, and so it would be difficult to tell whether they are linked or just coincidences from scattered occurrences.
After obtaining appropriate regulatory approvals, we identified almost 400,000 veterans from the US Department of Veterans Affairs database who had undergone screening colonoscopy and compared their rates of appendectomy and acute appendicitis in the week following colonoscopy to rates of appendectomy and appendicitis over each of the following 51 weeks. We asked the question in several different ways and verified our results by examining surgical and pathology reports. Depending on how the question was asked and appendicitis or appendectomy defined, rates of appendectomy and appendicitis were clearly 4-9 times higher in the first week after diagnostic colonoscopy. This wasn’t true when we asked whether appendectomy was more common after several other procedures that also required sedation and contact with the medical system.
04 Oct Studying Benign Pancreatic Tumors May Lead To Ability To Grow Beta Cells To Reverse Diabetes
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_37356" align="alignleft" width="165"]
Dr. Stewart[/caption]
Andrew F. Stewart MD
Irene and Dr. Arthur M. Fishberg Professor of Medicine
Director, Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism Institute
Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
New York, NY 10029
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Diabetes results ultimately from an inadequate number of insulin-producing “beta” cell in the pancreas. Ideally, these would regenerate when they are lost or damaged, but unfortunately inducing them to regenerate or proliferate has proven impossible until recently.
In 2015 and others we identified the first class of drugs – the harmine analogues - that are able to induce human beta cells to proliferate. In this study, we wanted to identify additional pathways that can lead to human beta cell proliferation at higher rates than we had been able to induce with harmine. For this we turned to a rare type of benign (i.e., not malignant, not cancer) tumor of the beta cells in the pancreas called “insulinomas”. These tiny tumors overproduce insulin and cause hypoglycemia (low blood glucose) which in turn causes seizures, loss of consciousness and confusion. Once they are discovered, then can easily be removed via laparoscopic surgery, and the person is cured. Since they are so rare, and since they are benign and easily cured, insulinomas have not been included in large genome sequencing studies of patients wit cancer. However, we reasoned that they must hold the genomic recipe or wiring diagram for inducing human beta cells to replicate, so we perfumed next-generation DNA and RNA sequencing on a large series (38) of insulinomas.
04 Oct Is RICE Best After Injury? Study Suggests Rest Prolongs Recovery
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_37336" align="alignleft" width="116"]
Dr. Bayer[/caption]
Monika Bayer PhD.
Institute of Sports Medicine Copenhagen
Bispebjerg Hospital
Denmark
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Acute muscle strain injuries display a major clinical problem with a high incidence rate for both professional and amateur athletes and are associated with substantial risk for recurrence. Common clinical practice advices to follow the RICE (Rest – Ice – Compression – Elevation) principle after strain injuries but it has not been investigated whether patients really benefit from a period of rest or whether an early of loading following the injury would improve recovery.
In this study, amateur athletes were divided into two groups: one group started rehabilitation two days after the trauma, the other group waited for one week and began rehabilitation after nine days. All athletes had a clear structural defect of the muscle-connective tissue unit following explosive movements. We found that protraction of rehabilitation onset caused a three-week delay in pain-free recovery. In all athletes included, only one suffered from a re-injury.
04 Oct Vitamin D May Have a Role In Reducing Risk of Severe Asthma Attacks
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_37294" align="alignleft" width="125"]
Dr. Jolliffe[/caption]
David Jolliffe, PhD
Centre for Primary Care and Public Health
Blizard Institute
Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry
London
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Asthma affects more than 300 million people worldwide and is estimated to cause almost 400,000 deaths annually. Asthma deaths arise primarily during episodes of acute worsening of symptoms, known as attacks or ‘exacerbations’, which are commonly triggered by viral upper respiratory infections. Vitamin D is thought to protect against such attacks by boosting immune responses to respiratory viruses and dampening down harmful airway inflammation.
Several clinical trials have tested whether vitamin D supplementation might protect against asthma attacks, but individually their results are inconclusive. In the current study, we pooled raw data from 955 asthma patients who took part in 7 separate trials, which allowed us to answer two questions:
1, Does vitamin D protects against asthma attacks overall, when data from all trials are pooled?
2, Do people who have lower vitamin D levels to start with particularly benefit from supplementation?
03 Oct Hematuria, and Early Cancer Detection, Not Uncommon With Anticoagulation Medications
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_37252" align="alignleft" width="132"]
Dr. Nam[/caption]
Robert Nam, MD, FRCSC
Ajmera Family Chair in Urologic Oncology
Professor of Surgery
University of Toronto
Head, Genitourinary Cancer Site
Odette Cancer Centre
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: The well known potentially lethal complications of anti-thrombotic medications of cerebral and gastrointestinal bleeding complications are well known. However, more common bleeding related complications are not well described . In particular, gross hematuria is a well known complication of these medications but its frequency and severity is unknown. We sought to characterize this association among a large population-based cohort consisting of over 2.5 million patients from the Province of Ontario, Canada, using hematuria-related complications was endpoints. These were defined as undergoing invasive urologic procedures, hospital admissions or emergency visits for gross hematuria.
03 Oct Does Brand Name 17P Work Better Than Generic In Reducing Preterm Births?
Posted at 11:55h
in Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cost of Health Care, JAMA, OBGYNE
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_37260" align="alignleft" width="125"]
Dr. Beam[/caption]
Andrew L. Beam, PhD
Instructor in Biomedical Informatics
Department of Biomedical Informatics
Harvard Medical School
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: This study is one piece of a larger story regarding the use of 17-alpha-hydroxyprogesterone caproate (17P) to treat recurrent preterm birth. This drug was originally only available in a compounded form, but since receiving an orphan drug designation in 2011, a branded and manufactured form was marketed under the name "Makena". This branded form was then sold for a much higher price than the compounded version, but a study that provided concrete data on pricing and outcomes had not been done.
03 Oct Lymph Node Staging of Potentially Curable Lung Cancer Needs Improvement
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_37287" align="alignleft" width="120"]
Dr. Osarogiagbon[/caption]
Raymond U. Osarogiagbon, MBBS, FACP
Translational Lung Cancer Research
Multidisciplinary Thoracic Oncology Program
Baptist Centers for Cancer Care
Memphis, TN
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Most long-term survivors of lung cancer are among the patients who were fortunate enough to be identified early enough to undergo curative-intent surgery. In the US, 60,000 individuals undergo curative-intent surgery for lung cancer every year. This number is likely to increase over the next few years as lung cancer screening becomes more widely adopted. Unfortunately, fewer than 50% of patients who undergo curative-intent surgery actually survive up to 5 years.
We show that the quality of surgery, especially the quality of pathologic nodal staging is a powerful driver of survival differences between groups of patients. In general, pathologic nodal staging (important as it is stratifying patients into risk groups so those at high risk can be offered additional treatments to increase the chances of cure while those at truly low risk can be left alone without exposure to cost and side-effects of additional treatments) is very poorly done. We show how the percentage of patients whose pathologic staging met sequentially more stringently-define thoroughness of staging metrics falls off sharply, while the survival sequentially increases.
02 Oct Financial Incentives to Physicians Did Not Increase Hospital Discharge Follow-Up Visits
Posted at 19:13h
in Author Interviews, CMAJ, Cost of Health Care, Health Care Systems, Hospital Readmissions
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_37278" align="alignleft" width="125"]
Dr. Lapointe-Shaw[/caption]
Dr. Lauren Lapointe-Shaw, MD
Physician at University Health Network
Department of Medicine
University of Toronto
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Readmissions after hospital discharge are common and costly. We would like to reduce these as much as possible. Early physician follow-up post hospital discharge is one possible strategy to reduce readmissions. To this end, incentives to outpatient physicians for early follow-up have been introduced in the U.S. and Canada. We studied the effect of such an incentive, introduced to Ontario, Canada, in 2006.
02 Oct Women Tend To Manage Their Cardiac Risk Factors Less Well Than Men
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Min Zhao PhD student Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, Clinical Epidemiology University Medical Center Utrech MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Heart disease is still one of leading causes of deaths and disability worldwide. Management of modifiable risk factors, including both medical treatment target and healthy lifestyle, reduce the chance of new heart attack among those who survived a previous heart attack (so-called secondary prevention). Previous studies have demonstrated that the secondary prevention of heart disease is poorer among women than men. However, most studies were performed in Western populations. We aimed to assess whether sex differences exist on risk factor management and to investigate geographic variations of any such sex differences. Our study is a large-scale international clinical audit performed during routine clinic visit. We recruited over 10,000 patients who had survived a previous heart attack from 11 countries in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.02 Oct Radiation Therapy Plus Checkpoint Inhibitors Did Not Increase Adverse Events in Metastatic Lung Cancer
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_37256" align="alignleft" width="97"]
Dr. Keane[/caption]
Florence K Keane MD
Resident, Radiation Oncology
Harvard Radiation Oncology Program
Boston, Massachusetts
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Checkpoint inhibitors (CPIs) have recently transformed the management of patients with metastatic lung cancer, demonstrating significant improvements in overall and progression-free survival in both the first-line setting in patients with increased expression of PD-L1 (≥50%) and in patients with previously treated NSCLC who have progressed on chemotherapy. CPIs are also moving into the treatment of patients with localized lung cancer, with the recently published PACIFIC trial demonstrating a significant improvement in progression-free survival in patients with inoperable stage III NSCLC treated with adjuvant durvalumab after definitive chemoradiotherapy.
However, CPIs are associated with unique toxicities as compared to cytotoxic chemotherapy, including pulmonary, endocrine, neurologic, gastrointestinal, and dermatologic adverse events, which may be fatal in some cases. The risk of autoimmune pneumonitis with checkpoint inhibitors is estimated to be on the order of 5%. Many patients with lung cancer will require radiotherapy for palliation of symptoms. Thoracic radiotherapy (TRT) is also a risk factor for pneumonitis, with a dose- and volume-dependent impact on risk. However, it is unknown whether treatment with CPIs and TRT is associated with increased risk of toxicity.
30 Sep Asthma Improvement Collaborative Reduced ER Visits and Hospitalizations in Medicaid Population
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_37248" align="alignleft" width="133"] Dr. Kercsmar[/caption] Dr. Carolyn M. Kercsmar, MD Co-Director, Division of Pulmonary Medicine Director, Asthma Center Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine Cincinnati, Ohio MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Asthma is the most common chronic condition...
29 Sep Liraglutide (SAXENDA) May Lead To Weight Loss By Slowing Stomach Emptying
Posted at 13:50h
in Author Interviews, Diabetes, Gastrointestinal Disease, Lancet, Mayo Clinic, Weight Research
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_37242" align="alignleft" width="125"]
Prof. Camilleri[/caption]
Prof Michael Camilleri, MD
Gastroenterologist, Professor of Medicine, Pharmacology and Physiology at Mayo Clinic
Clinical Enteric Neuroscience Translational and Epidemiological Research (CENTER)
Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Liraglutide is approved for treatment of obesity; the precise mechanisms for the beneficial weight loss are unclear. We are interested to learn whether it is possible to identify people who are more likely to benefit from this treatment.
28 Sep Maternal Blood Pressure Rise During Pregnancy Linked To Increased Risk Of Childhood Obesity
Posted at 22:09h
in Author Interviews, Blood Pressure - Hypertension, JCEM, OBGYNE, Pediatrics, Weight Research
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_37234" align="alignleft" width="125"]
Dr. Duo Li[/caption]
Duo Li, PhD
Chief professor of Nutrition
Institute of Nutrition and Health
Qingdao University, China.
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Childhood obesity is becoming an emerging public health issue worldwide, owing to its association with a variety of health problems at younger ages in adulthood, including obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Identification of prenatal and early life risk factors is key for curbing the epidemic of the childhood obesity.
Main finding of the present study is that among pregnant women, elevated blood pressure is associated with a greater risk of overweight and obesity for their children.
28 Sep Study Compares Three Types of Botulinum Injections For Involuntary Facial Movements
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_37225" align="alignleft" width="125"]
Dr. Ward[/caption]
P. Daniel Ward, MD, MS, FACS
Facial Plastic Surgeon
WardMD Form Medical SpaAdjunct Associate Professor, University of Utah School of Medicine
Salt Lake City, Utah 84121
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: As a facial plastic surgeon with an interest in finding treatments for patients with facial paralysis, we are always looking for ways to improve the care that our patients receive. One of those treatments is to treat the effects of abnormal and asymmetric facial motion with botulinum, which decreases the deformity that results from facial nerve disorders by decreasing muscular hyperactivity.
This study was based on the fact that there are three commercially available types of botulinum available for treatment of the face. There have been studies that have compared the different types of botulinum for cosmetic purposes, but there have not been any studies that specifically looked to see if there were any differences between the different types of botulinum when used for treatment of facial nerve disorders.
The main finding of the study is that the three different types of botulinum are essentially equivalent with the exception being that one type of botulinum, incobotulinum toxin, was slightly less effective than the other two types of botulinum at the 4-week follow up point. Of note, all three types were equivalent at all other time points.
28 Sep Chronic Hives In Children Resolve Slowly
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_37216" align="alignleft" width="250"]
Hives-UrticariaWikipedia image[/caption] Elena Netchiporouk, MD, FRCPC, MSc Dermatology Resident - PGY5 and Dr. Moshe Ben-Shoshan, MD, FRCPC, MSc McGill University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We have followed a pediatric cohort of 139 patients with chronic urticaria (CU) (hives) between 2013 and 2015 in a single tertiary care center and assessed the comorbidities, the rate of resolution and determined predictors of resolution.
27 Sep Participation in SNAP Food Assistance Linked To Lower Health Care Costs
Posted at 22:07h
in Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cost of Health Care, JAMA, Nutrition
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_37208" align="alignleft" width="125"]
Dr. Berkowitz[/caption]
Seth A. Berkowitz, MD, MPH
Division of General Internal Medicine
Diabetes Population Health Unit
Harvard Medical School
Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: There is ever growing pressure to contain healthcare costs in the US. Increasingly, attention is turning to programs that address social determinants of health--that is, those factors which affect health but lie outside the realm of clinical medicine.
Prior research has highlighted food insecurity as having a clear association with poor health and higher healthcare costs. SNAP is the nation's largest program to combat food insecurity. However, we did not know whether SNAP participation would be associated with any difference in healthcare costs, compared with eligible non-participants.
This study found that participating in SNAP was associated with approximately $1400 lower healthcare expenditures per year in low-income adults.
27 Sep Autism Spectrum Disorder Found To Be Highly Heritable
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_37175" align="alignleft" width="114"]
D. Sandin[/caption]
Sven Sandin, PhD Assistant Professor
Department of Psychiatry
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
New York, NY 10029
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: In 2014, we estimated the heritability of autism to be approximately 50%. Motivating us then was the lack of studies in autism heritability using population based and the findings from a twin-study in California finding the heritability to be substantially lower than the 80-90% estimated in previous studies. Since then continued efforts working with the questions on heritability and environmental factors for autism we found differences between different methods and different samples. When we went back to our previous data we found the heritability of autism to be higher than previously estimated. We found that our previous result was due to a methodological artifact where the adjustment for differences in follow-up used in that manuscript underestimated the heritability. Using methods used in other heritability studies the heritability is now estimated to 84%. Importantly, as previously concluded, there is no support for any ‘shared environmental factors’ in the etiology of autism, e.g. environmental factors shared between two siblings.
26 Sep Large Trial Evaluates Inhaled Nitric oxide on Survival Without Pulmonary Dysplasia in Preterm Infants
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_37063" align="alignleft" width="125"]
Dr. Hasan[/caption]
Shabih U. Hasan, MD, DCH, FRCPC
Professor and Staff Neonatologist, Alberta Health Services
Department of Pediatrics, Cumming School of Medicine
University of Calgary
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Approximately 8% of all infants are born prematurely (preterm birth <37 weeks postmenstrual age). Preterm infants have many challenges including establishment of adequate pulmonary gas exchange. Due to not yet fully developed lungs, preterm infants require respiratory support consisting of respirators and other forms of non-invasive ventilation modalities and supplemental oxygen. Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is the commonest morbidity among very low birth weight infants as 40% of survivors at postmenstrual age <30 weeks develop BPD. This is a serious condition as it can lead to short- and long-term pulmonary complications, increased hospital visits and neurodevelopmental impairment. BPD is defined where preterm infants require respiratory support and/or supplemental oxygen at 36 weeks postmenstrual age.
A number of therapeutic and non-therapeutic modalities have been used to prevent BPD including inhaled nitric oxide (iNO). In 2006, the NO CLD trial demonstrated that iNO prevented BPD (Relative benefit 1.81; CI 1.27-2.59, P = 0.006) if used according to the NO CLD Protocol (Ballard et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 355:343-353, 2006). Our study (NEWNO; Newborns treated with Nitric Oxide) was designed to replicate the NO CLD study.
22 Sep Ruptured Biceps Tendon and Wild-type Transthyretin Amyloidosis
Posted at 20:26h
in Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Heart Disease, JAMA, Orthopedics
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_37118" align="alignleft" width="125"]
Dr. Singh[/caption]
Avinainder Singh, M.B.B.S.
Research Fellow
Cardiovascular Medicine
Brigham & Women's Hospital
Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Amyloidosis due to aberrant folding of proteins. These misfolded proteins can deposit in various parts of the body and lead to organ dysfunction. The two most common types of amyloidosis affecting the heart include transthyretin and light chain amyloidosis. Transthyretin is a protein produced by the liver which supports the transport of thyroxine and retinol.
Wild-type transthyretin amyloidosis (ATTRwt, previously known as senile amyloidosis) occurs due to deposition of misfolded fibrils derived from transthyretin and primarily affects elderly men. Once considered a rare disease, it is now reported to be responsible for nearly 13% of heart failure with preserved ejected fraction and increased wall thickness.
Rupture of the biceps tendon is a rare occurrence in the general population (<1 per 1000). We noticed a ruptured biceps tendon in several patients with wild-type transthyretin amyloidosis and performed this study to further evaluate this finding in a group of patients with wild-type transthyretin amyloidosis and in a control group of age-matched patients with non-amyloid heart failure.
20 Sep Gastric Bypass: Half of Diabetic Patients In Remission 12 Years After Surgery
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ted Adams PhD Adjunct Professor, Internal Medicine Adjunct Associate Professor, Nutrition & Integrative Physiology The University of Utah MedicalResearch.com: Why did you decide to conduct this study? Response: The primary aim of the study was to determine the clinical outcomes in patients who underwent gastric bypass surgery. As NIDDK/NIH continued to fund the study, the aim was extended to determining the durability) long-term outcomes) of gastric bypass surgery when compared to non-surgical, severely obese patients.20 Sep 48-Hours of Antibiotics Reduced Infection Rate After C-Section in Obese Women
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_36995" align="alignleft" width="116"]
Dr. Warshak[/caption]
Dr. Carri R. Warshak, MD
Associate Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology
University of Cincinnati
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Cesarean deliveries are the most common major surgical procedure performed in the United States. A common complication of cesarean section is wound infections that can include infections in the skin and incision site, or infections in the uterus itself after delivery. These complications can lead to prolonged hospitalization after delivery for antibiotics and even further surgery in severe infections. Often these wound complications lead to delayed healing, wound opening which can sometimes take several weeks to heal. Studies have demonstrated as many as 12% of women experience a surgical site infection after delivery.
Obesity is a strong risk factor for increased surgical site infections. Increasing maternal weight increases the risk of wound complications, with a two to five fold increase in risk, making surgical site infections and common and concerning complication of cesarean delivery in obese women.
19 Sep Nerf Guns Can Cause Serious Eye Bleeding
[caption id="attachment_37040" align="alignleft" width="250"]
A man aiming an N-Strike Stampede ECSWikipedia image[/caption] MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Mukhtar Bizrah Accident & Emergency Department, Moorfields Eye Hospita NHS Foundation Trust London, UK MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We noticed a number of patients presenting to the accident and emergency department at our hospital following 'Nerf gun' injuries. We decided to perform this study because an online literature search revealed that currently there was no published work on this topic. It was worth doing because it is a public health issue. A number of doctors in A&E commented that they have seen a number of patients present with Nerf gun injuries. I personally saw a patient which an inflamed eye and damage to the iris following a 'Nerf gun' injury. We decided to write about three patients with bleeding in the eye (hyphema) because most journals have a cap on the number of patients in a case series. Also, bleeding in the eye following trauma is known to be associated with serious ocular injury and long term repercussions.