May 4th, 2021 - Three members of a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee are explaining why they do not support approval of the drug aducanumab (Biogen, Eisai) for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD). G. Caleb Alexander, MD, Scott Emerson, MD, PhD, and Aaron Kesselheim, MD, JD, MPH, all serve on the FDA's Peripheral and Central Nervous System Advisory Committee and participated in the ...

May 4th, 2021 - An investigational, orally dissolving film formulation of dexmedetomidine (BXCL501, BioXcel Therapeutics) may offer rapid relief from acute agitation related to schizophrenia or bipolar disorder (BD), results of two phase 3, randomized, placebo-controlled trials show. Dr Leslie Citrome For both disorders, BXCL501 showed "superiority over placebo" by meeting the primary endpoint of reduction of ...

May 3rd, 2021 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. When people with an upcoming doctor's appointment get a text reminder about receiving a flu vaccination, it increases the likelihood that they will get immunized when they come in, particularly if the message states the shot is "reserved" for them, new evidence reveals. Along with lead author Ka...

May 3rd, 2021 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. One of China's leading scientists in the fight against COVID-19 failed to disclose ties to a pharmaceutical company in a paper stemming from a clinical trial, Retraction Watch has learned. A co-author on the paper is married to the daughter of that pharmaceutical company's founder, who herself s...

Apr 29th, 2021 - One of the largest and longest follow-ups of patients implanted with the subcutaneous-lead implantable cardioverter defibrillator (S-ICD), now marketed as the EMBLEM S-ICD (Boston Scientific), paints a picture of solid performance that arguably has improved over the years. The S-ICD has held on to its reputation as a niche device after more than a decade on the market, probably in large part ow...

Apr 29th, 2021 - The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved dapagliflozin (Farxiga, AstraZeneca) to reduce the risk for kidney function decline, kidney failure, cardiovascular death, and hospitalization for heart failure in adult patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) at risk for disease progression. "Chronic kidney disease is an important public health issue, and there is a significant unmet ne...

Apr 29th, 2021 - NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Patients who have postoperative complications after being discharged following complex oncologic surgery are less likely to die if they are readmitted to the hospital where the surgery was performed, than if they are admitted to a different hospital, according to a new study. The fragmentation of care that happens when a patient is readmitted to an outside hospital (...

Apr 28th, 2021 - For 20 years, investigative journalist Gary Taubes has been turning the dogma of nutrition science upside down in a series of brilliantly detailed articles and books. Taubes' specialty is a form of historical excavation, painstakingly digging into the science and scientists who have created and sustained nearly a century's worth of failed conventional nutritional wisdom and policy. Taubes is id...

Apr 27th, 2021 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. A large meta-analysis of patients with COVID-19 and diabetes "provides the best current evidence" to identify the risk for severe COVID-19 or death from it, based on patients' and diabetes-related characteristics and laboratory values, researcher report. Male sex, older age, preexisting comorbid...

Apr 27th, 2021 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. A study that warned of the perils of using face masks as a precaution against contracting Covid-19 appears slated for retraction, Retraction Watch has learned. The 2020 paper, "Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis," was written by Baruch Vainshelboim, who listed his affiliation as ...

Apr 23rd, 2021 - Secukinumab is the latest adult plaque psoriasis treatment to be bested by a newcomer, the interleukin 17A and 17F blocker bimekizumab. Rates of complete clearance were substantially higher with bimekizumab in a phase 3 trial with 743 patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis, but oral candidiasis (oral thrush) again emerged as a particular issue with the agent. Clinical improvements se...

Apr 21st, 2021 - Studies are flagging racial and ethnic disparities in rheumatology training materials, pointing to a need to boost representation of darker skin tones and better educate physicians in evaluating this cohort. Not enough is known about these disparities in rheumatology education, despite the fact that minorities make up 40% of the population in the United States. Dr Lynn McKinley-Grant The proble...

Apr 19th, 2021 - I honestly thought the hardest part about med school was going to be getting in. While applying, I was constantly thinking about the debt my credit card was accumulating. I booked red-eye flights to save on costs while visiting campuses. The MCAT course I asked my parents to buy cost about one eighth of our family's annual salary. If this wasn't the hardest part of the process, what could possi...

Apr 18th, 2021 - (Reuters) - Johnson & Johnson had reached out to rival COVID-19 vaccine makers to join in an effort to study the risks of blood clots, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. AstraZeneca, which had been buffeted by similar blood-clotting concerns for weeks, agreed, while Pfizer Inc and Moderna executives declined, saying their vaccines appeared safe, ...

Apr 18th, 2021 - STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Thousands of vaccination slots in Stockholm earmarked for Sweden's oldest and frailest people are being passed on to younger patients, with critics accusing the region of failing to adapt the process for those not used to digital technology. In the capital region, home to about 2.3 million of the country's 10.3 million inhabitants, vaccinations are falling behind. So far 1...

Apr 18th, 2021 - A journal has retracted the 2014 report of a clinical trial of a supplement touted as a way to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease after beginning to suspect that the data were not reliable. The study, "Purified palmitoleic acid for the reduction of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein and serum lipids: A double-blinded, randomized, placebo controlled study," was published in the Journal o...

Apr 15th, 2021 - An article claiming that anal swabs can be used to detect SARS-CoV-2 in patients cured of Covid-19 has been retracted after the journal found that the authors failed to get permission from the patients to conduct the study.  To be clear: We're not sure if the researchers — from Weihai Municipal Hospital, in Shandong, China — didn't tell the patients they were taking anal swabs (which seems, wel...

Apr 15th, 2021 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. Add another potential benefit to getting the recommended amount of physical activity each week: people who exercised regularly and then tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 were less likely to experience more severe COVID-19 outcomes, a new study shows. Importantly, even people who could not realistic...

Apr 15th, 2021 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. New evidence emerged today tying vaccines for COVID-19 to extremely rare cases of people who develop blood clots and low platelets within weeks of being vaccinated. A team of researchers in the United Kingdom conducted an in-depth investigation of 22 patients who developed serious blood clots co...

Apr 15th, 2021 - For intrapartum fetal surveillance, the old way may be the best way, according to a meta-analysis involving more than 118,000 patients. Intermittent auscultation with a Pinard stethoscope and handheld Doppler was associated with a significantly lower risk of emergency cesarean deliveries than newer monitoring techniques without jeopardizing maternal or neonatal outcomes, reported lead author Ba...