Author Interviews / 07.05.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Lana Zhovtis Ryserson, MD Assistant Professor, Department of Neurology NYU Langone Health MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Natalizumab is an effective therapy of relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis dosed at 300mg every 4 weeks. However it is associated with a potentially deadly infection - progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy. In order to mitigate this risk, clinicians have adopted an approach of infusing the medication less frequently, a strategy which has become known as Extended Interval Dosing (EID). The TOUCH database is US mandatated risk evaluation and mitigation program which is the largest database available to assess PML risk for patients on EID schedule. Previous analysis of this database in 2017, showed a significant risk reduction of PML in patients utilizing extended interval dosing schedule. The aim of the current study was to update on this analysis with another year of data. (more…)
Author Interviews, NYU, PTSD, Technology / 22.04.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Charles R. Marmar, MD The Lucius N. Littauer Professor Chair of the Department of Psychiatry NYU Langone School of Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Several studies in recent years have attempted to identify biological markers that distinguish individuals with PTSD, with candidate markers including changes in brain cell networks, genetics, neurochemistry, immune functioning, and psychophysiology. Despite such advances, the use of biomarkers for diagnosing PTSD remained elusive going into the current study, and no physical marker was applied in the clinic. Our study is the first to compare speech in an age and gender matched sample of a military population with and without PTSD, in which PTSD was assessed by a clinician, and in which all patients did not have a major depressive disorder. Because measuring voice qualities in non-invasive, inexpensive and might be done over the phone, many labs have sought to design speech-based diagnostic tools  (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Cannabis, End of Life Care, NYU / 28.03.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Arum Kim, MD Assistant Professor Medicine and Rehabilitation Medicine NYU School of Medicine Director of the Supportive Oncology Program Perlmutter Cancer Center MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?   Response: There is increasing interest in medical marijuana and its applications for patients with cancers. Despite increasing access, little is known regarding doses of cannabinoids - specifically delta-8-tetrahydrocannabinol (delta-8-THC)  and cannabidiol (CBD), methods of drug delivery, and differences in patterns of use between cancer and non-cancer patients. (more…)
Anesthesiology, Author Interviews, Dermatology, JAMA, NYU, Pediatrics / 14.03.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Roy G. Geronemus, M.D. Director, Laser & Skin Surgery Center of New York Clinical Professor of Dermatology New York University Medical Center New York, NY 10016 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: We made the observation in clinical practice that port wine stain birthmarks can be safely and effectively treated in early infancy without the need for general anesthesia. This observation is particularly important because of the FDA warnings regarding multiple exposures to general anesthesia under the age of 3 and the potential impact on neurocognitive development as these patients require multiple treatments. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dermatology, JAMA, NYU / 19.12.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Nicholas A. Soter, MD The Ronald O. Perelman Department of Dermatology New York University School of Medicine New York, New York MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Nearly 50% of patients with chronic spontaneous urticarial (CSU) (hives) incompletely respond to first-line therapy with H-1 antihistamines. However, in the current literature, there is limited evidence to guide the treatment of CSU after maximal therapy with antihistamines fails.  Two small, randomized, controlled trials suggest that dapsone, which is an antimicrobial therapeutic agent with anti-inflammatory properties, may be a useful second-line therapeutic agent. (more…)
Author Interviews, Gastrointestinal Disease, NYU, Surgical Research, Weight Research / 10.10.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Violeta Popov, MD PhD FACG Assistant Professor of Medicine Director of Bariatric Endoscopy, NY VA Harbor Healthcare(Manhattan) Division of Gastroenterology NYU Langone Medical Center  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Bariatric surgery is the most effective method currently available for durable weight loss. In the first few months after surgery, patients typically experience significant weight loss. Rapid weight reduction though can lead to the development of gallstones and biliary disease, described in up to 40% of post-bariatric patients. To avoid these complications, the gallbladder was removed during open bariatric procedures in the past. However, with the advent of laparoscopic surgery, concomitant cholecystectomy with bariatric surgery is no longer performed for many reasons.  The aim of is study is to assess if biliary diseases such as acute pancreatitis, acute cholecystitis, acute cholangitis, and cholecystectomy have increased with this change in practice. This is a retrospective cohort analysis of the National Inpatient Sample (NIS), the largest publicly available inpatient database in the United States of nonfederal institutions, with approximately 1000 hospitals participating and information on over 7 million inpatient admissions. We found that from 2006 to 2014 there has been an approximately 10-fold increase in hospital admissions for biliary diseases, as well as similar increase in cholecystectomies, in patients who have a history of bariatric surgery. There was no significant change in admissions in patients without bariatric surgery between 2006 and 2014 admitted for the same biliary diseases.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Lung Cancer, Nature, NYU, Technology / 17.09.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Aristotelis Tsirigos, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Pathology Director, Applied Bioinformatics Laboratories New York University School of Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Pathologists routinely examine slides made from tumor samples to diagnose cancer types. We studied whether an AI algorithm can achieve the same task with high accuracy. Indeed, we show that such an algorithm can achieve an accuracy of ~97%, slightly better than individual pathologists. In addition, we demonstrated that AI can be used to predict genes that are mutated in these tumors, a task that pathologists cannot do. Although the accuracy for some genes is as high as 86%, there is still room for improvement. This will come from collecting more training data and also from improvement in the annotations of the slides by expert pathologists.   (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, JAMA, Medicare, NYU, Prostate Cancer / 22.08.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Danil V. Makarov, MD, MHS Department of Urology and Department of Population Health New York University Langone School of Medicine VA New York Harbor Healthcare System, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service Cancer Institute, New York University School of Medicine, New York MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Reducing prostate cancer staging imaging for men with low-risk disease is an important national priority to improve widespread guideline-concordant practice, as determined by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines. It appears that prostate cancer imaging rates vary by several factors, including health care setting. Within Veterans Health Administration (VHA), physicians receive no financial incentive to provide more services. Outside VHA, the fee-for-service model used in Medicare may encourage provision of more healthcare services due to direct physician reimbursement. In our study, we compared these health systems by investigating the association between prostate cancer imaging rates and a VA vs fee-for-service health care setting. We used novel methods to directly compare Veterans, Medicare Recipients, and Veterans that chose to receive care from both the VA at private facilities using Medicare insurance through the Choice Act with regard to rates of guideline-discordant imaging for prostate cancer. We found that Medicare beneficiaries were significantly more likely to receive guideline-discordant prostate cancer imaging than men treated only in VA. Moreover, we found that men with low-risk prostate cancer patients in the VA-only group had the lowest likelihood of guideline-discordant imaging, those in the VA and Medicare group had the next highest likelihood of guideline-discordant imaging (in the middle), and those in the Medicare-only group had the highest likelihood of guideline-discordant imaging.  (more…)