Dec 14th, 2022 - Several adverse infant outcomes were significantly more likely for infants whose mothers had diagnoses of sleep apnea or insomnia, based on data from approximately 5000 infants. Sleep disturbance is common during pregnancy, and "sleep disorders during pregnancy can have significant consequences for both the pregnant person and their infant," write Jennifer N. Felder, PhD, of the University of C...

Dec 14th, 2022 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. MIAMI (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that he plans to petition the state's Supreme Court to convene a grand jury to investigate "any and all wrongdoing" with respect to the COVID-19 vaccines. The Republican governor, who is often mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2...

Dec 14th, 2022 -   Emergencies happen anywhere, anytime, and sometimes physicians find themselves in situations where they are the only ones who can help. Is There a Doctor in the House? is a new Medscape series telling these stories. I was hiking with my best friend and dog at Big Bear Lake in California. We hiked in and slept overnight, and the next day continued up the mountain. It was getting really steep a...

Dec 14th, 2022 - While doctors may bemoan their employer's rules or feel they lack input into key decisions, most say the pros outweigh the cons. In fact, employed physicians say they like having a steady salary and the resources to focus on caring for patients. In addition, more physicians may come to the same conclusion and choose employment over private practice in the years ahead. Three employed physicians ...

Dec 13th, 2022 - 1. Measles is circulating, and undervaccinated communities are at risk. While overall childhood vaccination rates remain high in the United States, measles cases still occur here. Measles is easily imported by unvaccinated travelers and can spread in underimmunized communities and even cause outbreaks. Because there are unvaccinated and undervaccinated "pockets" in communities around the countr...

Dec 13th, 2022 - Practice volume does not differ significantly between newer Canadian family physicians and physicians with longer experience, a new study suggests. In Canada, limited patient access to family physicians is a nationwide concern. Observers have raised questions about the role of recent physician graduates in this problem. David Rudoler, PhD But a retrospective cohort study of family physician pra...

Dec 13th, 2022 - NEW ORLEANS — Children with Hodgkin lymphoma can be cured with intensive chemotherapy, radiation, and other modalities, but a large majority of patients who survive into adulthood may pay a steep price years later in terms of accelerated aging and neurocognitive impairment. The findings come from a study of nearly 500 individuals in their late 30s, of whom 215 were adult survivors of pediatric ...

Dec 13th, 2022 - Postpartum depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder that persist 2-3 years after birth are associated with a dysregulated immune system that is characterized by increased inflammatory signaling, according to investigators. These findings suggest that mental health screening for women who have given birth should continue beyond the first year postpartum, reported lead author Jennif...

Dec 13th, 2022 - A study of more than 4 million births over 20 years in five Scandinavian countries has reported that three antiseizure medications should be used with caution in women of child-bearing age because they were associated with low birth weights. Dr Jakob Christensen In results presented at the annual meeting of the American Epilepsy Society, Jakob Christensen, MD, DSc, PhD, a professor at Aarhus Un...

Dec 13th, 2022 - This transcript has been edited for clarity. Drew Ramsey, MD: Welcome back, everyone. I'm Dr Drew Ramsey. I'm on the editorial board with Medscape Psychiatry and I'm an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University. We have a special guest today. I'm here with nutritionist Jessica Bayes, who's at the University of Technology Sydney, and she's the lead author of the AMMEND tr...

Dec 12th, 2022 - LONDON (Reuters) - A dengue vaccine developed by Japanese drugmaker Takeda Pharmaceutical Co was authorised for use in the European Union on Thursday, making it the second approved inoculation against the mosquito-borne disease that causes millions of infections annually. The vaccine, branded QDENGA, is authorized for use in those aged 4 and older to prevent any of the four so-called serotypes ...

Dec 12th, 2022 - Women who have survived hormone receptor (HR+) breast cancer can interrupt their endocrine therapy for up to 2 years to pursue pregnancy without affecting their short-term disease outcomes, suggest results from the prospective POSITIVE trial. The study involved more than 500 premenopausal women from 20 countries who had received at least 18 months of endocrine therapy for HR+ breast cancer. Aft...

Dec 12th, 2022 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. For those of you anxiously waiting to see if the spread of respiratory illnesses in the United States will be as bad as some experts predict, you might wonder if we're going back to recommendations to wear face masks again. Actually, health officials have already started. Along with recommending...

Dec 12th, 2022 - The number of Americans hospitalized because of the flu has hit the highest levels the country has seen in at least a decade, the CDC said Friday.  But the number of deaths and outpatient visits for flu or flu-like illnesses was down slightly from the week before, the CDC said in its weekly FluView report. There were almost 26,000 new hospital admissions involving laboratory-confirmed influenza...

Dec 12th, 2022 - The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on Tuesday announced a proposed rule that aims to alleviate clinicians' concerns about burdensome prior authorization requests. It also addresses rules about electronic exchange of healthcare data. The rule would require most insurers to send prior authorization decisions within 72 hours for urgent requests and 7 days for all others. The agency...

Dec 12th, 2022 - NASHVILLE, TENN. — Medicare and Medicaid spending on antiseizure medications has more than doubled over the past decade, but the number of overall prescriptions hasn’t increased nearly as much, pointing to a major shift to newer, costlier, brand-name drugs — a trend in spending that may not be sustainable, the lead author of a study of drug costs said. The study, presented at the 2022 annual me...

Dec 12th, 2022 - According to the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, urticaria, also known as hives, has a lifetime incidence of about 20%. Many substances and situations — especially work environments — can trigger urticaria, which usually starts as areas of itchy skin that develop into red, swollen welts. Hives may be present daily for variable times. If less than 6 weeks, it is classified as s...

Dec 12th, 2022 - Racial Disparities in Maternal Child Health: Money Isn't Everything Race matters more than money in maternity outcomes, according to new findings that connected financial records to birth and death certificates. Even in the highest income bracket, low birthweight and prematurity were 1.5 times higher for infants of Black parents than for infants of White parents in the lowest income bracket. Pe...

Dec 11th, 2022 - NEW ORLEANS — A study with the worthwhile goal of attempting to further improve outcomes and reduce toxicity of treatment for children and young adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) or lymphoblastic lymphoma found that, contrary to long-held assumptions, high-dose methotrexate does not reduce the risk for central nervous system (CNS) relapse. The same study also addressed two other qu...

Dec 9th, 2022 - This transcript has been edited for clarity. Hi. I'm Art Caplan. I'm at the Division of Medical Ethics at the New York University School of Medicine. I want to talk about a paper that my colleagues in my division just published in Health Affairs. Amanda Zink, Lauren Taylor, and a couple of others wrote a very interesting piece, which I think has significance and importance for all those doing c...