Oct 15th, 2021 - After 18 years at his first and only employer, the Cleveland Clinic, in Ohio, Mikkael Sekeres, MD, decided it was time to move on. Dr Mikkael Sekeres The hematologist-oncologist said that his opportunities for career advancement had plateaued and, with the burden of additional clinic hours in recent years, his work as a researcher and mentor was pinched. So Sekeres set out on a mission to find ...

Oct 15th, 2021 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. A US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee on Friday voted 19-0 to authorize second doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine in an effort to boost immunity. It was the second vote in as many days to back a change to a COVID vaccine timeline. In its vote, the committee said...

Oct 13th, 2021 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Johnson & Johnson may have to put its thumb on the scale when making its case to an advisory panel on Friday to market boosters for its single-dose vaccine. Johnson & Johnson, together with its partner Janssen, has asked the FDA to authorize a secon...

Oct 13th, 2021 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. New data on COVID vaccination in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients has shown a reduced humoral response in patients treated with the anti-CD20 antibodies ocrelizumab or rituximab, but not in those receiving the similar product, ofatumumab. The results also show a reduced response to COVID vaccina...

Oct 12th, 2021 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. In frail elderly adults with COVID-19 infections, treatment with omega-3 fatty acids may improve lipid responses and decrease levels of proinflammatory lipid mediators, results of a small randomized controlled trial suggest. Results of the study, which included 22 patients with multiple comorbid...

Oct 12th, 2021 - A novel antidepressant (AXS-05, Axsome Therapeutics) appears to have a rapid and durable effect in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), results of an open label, phase 3 trial, show. Yet, its new drug application (NDA) remains in limbo with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for reasons that are unclear. In the study, which included 876 patients with MDD, results showed the dru...

Oct 11th, 2021 - AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas clinics on Saturday canceled appointments they had booked during a 48-hour reprieve from the most restrictive abortion law in the U.S., which was back in effect as weary providers again turn their sights to the Supreme Court. The Biden administration, which sued Texas over the law known as Senate Bill 8, has yet to say whether it will go that route after a federal app...

Oct 8th, 2021 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. The protection from Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine may begin to wane against infection after 2 months, but it still prevents hospitalization and death for at least 6 months, according to two new studies published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. The new findings support what Pfizer, ...

Oct 8th, 2021 - The prehistoric origins of the hepatitis B virus are painted in new color by a new study analyzing the largest ever dataset of ancient viral genomes. What to know: The hepatitis B virus (HBV) has been infecting humans for millennia, according to DNA analyses, and a new study traces its evolution by examining virus genomes from Eurasians and Native Americans spanning a period from roughly 10,500...

Oct 8th, 2021 - A comparison of long-term survival between patients who either did or did not undergo permanent pacemaker implantation (PPI) after transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) revealed no differences, according to results of the SWEDEHEART observational study. The nationwide population-based cohort study included all patients who underwent transfemoral TAVR in Sweden from 2008 to 2018. Most Fr...

Oct 7th, 2021 - Doctors removed a 4-inch piece of cement from a man's heart, which had leaked into his body from a spinal surgery, according to a new report published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The arrow in the left picture points to where the 4-inch piece of cement had pierced the man's heart. The 56-year-old man, who was not identified in the report, went to the emergency room after experiencing...

Oct 6th, 2021 - For people with hypertension and left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), getting their blood pressure down as low as possible could help reduce their risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) events, new research suggests. In a nationwide cohort study of Korean adults with LVH who were followed for more than 11 years, patients with a systolic blood pressure (SBP) > 140 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressur...

Oct 5th, 2021 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. The corresponding author of a new paper in an Elsevier journal that claims "there are five times the number of deaths attributable to each inoculation vs those attributable to COVID-19 in the most vulnerable 65+ demographic" says he "fully expected" the criticisms — and that the "real-world situ...

Oct 5th, 2021 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. Amid a flurry of conflicting reports concerning the efficacy of vitamin D for COVID-19 patients, a sense of consternation has emerged in the health care sector regarding its overall utility. Our medical team proposes that we embrace a cautious approach to the implementation of vitamin D – one th...

Oct 4th, 2021 - This transcript has been edited for clarity. Hello. I'm David Kerr, professor of cancer medicine from University of Oxford. Today I'd like to talk about a nice study that's been published in one of our own journals, JCO Global Oncology. It's an ASCO journal I help set up that's now being overseen by Editor-in-Chief Gilberto Lopes. This is a study from a Brazilian group who were interested in ma...

Oct 4th, 2021 - This transcript has been edited for clarity. Eric J. Topol, MD: Hello. This is Eric Topol with the Medscape Medicine and the Machine podcast. I'm thrilled today to welcome Kai-Fu Lee, who is one of the leading artificial intelligence (AI) experts in the world. Kai-Fu Lee: Thanks for having me. Topol: It's a joy and an opportune time, what with the publication of your new book, AI 2041: Ten Visi...

Oct 4th, 2021 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and JetBlue Airways have become the latest carriers to require employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19. The airlines are classified as government contractors due to special flights and cargo contracts with the Department of Defense, so they fall under the...

Oct 1st, 2021 - Guidelines for the management of extracranial cerebrovascular disease were published in June 2021 by the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) in Journal of Vascular Surgery.[1] Carotid endarterectomy (CEA) is recommended as first-line treatment for symptomatic low-risk surgical patients with stenosis of 50% to 99% and asymptomatic patients with stenosis of 70% to 99%. Carotid revascularization is...

Oct 1st, 2021 - Linked-color imaging (LCI) significantly increases the detection of adenomas in screening colonoscopies compared to white-light imaging (WLI) and blue-laser imaging (BLI)–bright, according to data from 205 adults who underwent screening colonoscopies. LCI is a relatively new image-enhancement method designed to better identify adenomatous lesions by increasing the contrast of the mucosal surfac...

Oct 1st, 2021 - Patients who have myocardial infarction (MI) ruled out in the emergency department but still have intermediate high-sensitivity cardiac troponin concentrations are three times more likely to have coronary artery disease (CAD) than patients who are ruled out with low troponin concentrations, a new study shows. The finding suggests that high-sensitivity cardiac troponin could help select which pa...