Dec 14th, 2022 - Researchers published the study covered in this summary on Preprints with The Lancet as a preprint that has not yet been peer reviewed. Key Takeaways The risks of death and cardiovascular disease (CVD) in people with latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA) were comparable to that of people with type 2 diabetes. The risk of diabetic retinopathy was higher in people with LADA compared to peop...

Dec 13th, 2022 - SAN ANTONIO — When choosing between chemotherapy and endocrine therapy for patients with hormone receptor (HR)+/HER2- metastatic breast cancer, allowing the results from a blood test that measures circulating tumor cell (CTC) count to overrule physician's choice of therapy can significantly improve overall survival. But are these results enough to change clinical practice? One expert reacting t...

Dec 13th, 2022 - Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is the most common interstitial lung disease among middle-aged and elderly adults. Although the cause of IPF is unknown, factors thought to increase an individual's risk of developing IPF include a history of smoking, gastroesophageal reflux disease, environmental exposures, and genetic predispositions. Patients with IPF typically present with fatigue, dry co...

Dec 12th, 2022 - CHICAGO – Extended follow-up of patients with heart failure enrolled in the RAFT trial strengthens the case for starting treatment early with a cardiac resynchronization therapy plus defibrillation (CRT-D) device in appropriate patients. RAFT, which compared CRT-D with treatment with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) alone, showed that the early survival benefit produced by CRT-D ...

Dec 12th, 2022 - Kim Bullock, MD, said she often hears directly from adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs) about their difficulties with obtaining preventive care. Physicians may neglect to order a recommended screening test for colon cancer or counsel a patient about sexually transmitted infections, Bullock, a family physician at the Georgetown University Center for Excellence for Deve...

Dec 9th, 2022 - Guidelines on the diagnosis and management of aortic disease were published in November 2022 by the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA) in Circulation.[1,2,3,4,5] These recommendations replace the 2010 ACC Foundation (ACCF)/AHA guidelines for diagnosing and managing thoracic aortic disease and the 2015 ACC/AHA clarifying statement on surgery for aortic ...

Dec 9th, 2022 - Multidrug-resistant gram-negative infections (MDRGNIs) are an emerging and deadly threat worldwide. Some of these infections are now resistant to nearly all antibiotics, and very few treatment options exist. Some of the remaining antibiotics for these MDRGNIs can cause acute kidney injury and have other toxic effects and can worsen antibiotic resistance. When deciding which drugs to use, clinic...

Dec 9th, 2022 - When a secret shopper used telemedicine to request testosterone supplements, options were plentiful but good advice was scarce. As researchers showed in JAMA Internal Medicine this week, companies offered testosterone replacement therapy to the prospective buyer even though his stated T level was much higher than the cut-off for low testosterone levels. Direct-to-consumer (DTC) delivery of test...

Dec 9th, 2022 - The use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing for prostate cancer screening remains the subject of scientific debate. Experts are unable to agree on how to balance the benefit of such testing regarding mortality rates with the potential harm caused by overdiagnosis. The screening guidelines for prostate cancer are intrinsically challenging because of the naturally long, and often slow-grow...

Dec 8th, 2022 - This transcript has been edited for clarity. I'm Dr Neil Skolnik, and today we are going to talk about the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) "Indications for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery." These are the first new guidelines to address this issue since the National Institutes of Health (NIH) consensus statement in 1991, so this is a much-needed update. I'm going sha...

Dec 8th, 2022 - Guidelines for prescribing opioids for adults with acute and chronic pain were published in November 2022 by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).[1,2] Initiating opioids for pain Before initiating opioid therapy, clinicians should discuss with patients the realistic benefits and known risks of opioid therapy. Clinicians sho...

Dec 8th, 2022 - Clinical guidelines on pediatric patient care during periods of volume surge were released in November 2022 by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).[1] Planning for volume surges in pediatric case loads should occur on the regional level and involve regional leadership while including all healthcare facilities, including clinics, long-term care, and acute care institutions. Routine pediatri...

Dec 8th, 2022 - The European Respiratory Society (ERS) and the American Thoracic Society (ATS) just published an updated technical standard on lung function interpretation. It's a critically important document written by a "Who's Who" in the lung function world. It's impossible to review in its entirety without more space, so I'll settle for covering what the authors say about bronchodilator testing. But befor...

Dec 8th, 2022 - The Endocrine Society has issued an updated clinical practice guideline on the prevention and management of hypoglycemia in patients with diabetes who are at at high risk, addressing the wide variety of treatment advances, such as insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems, that have appeared since the publication of the society's last guideline on hypoglycemia, in 2009. "CGM...

Dec 8th, 2022 - Two years ago, Ashley Hingston had a miscarriage. The 35-year-old Floridian and her husband had been going through in vitro fertilization when they received the news no one wants to get, but which many in their position reflexively expect: "You are going to lose the pregnancy."  On the other end of the line was Hingston's physician, who offered her advice and comfort to ease the pain of the bad...

Dec 7th, 2022 - The recent European Thyroid Association (ETA) guidelines on the management of pediatric thyroid nodules and differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC) emphasized the need for individualized and multidisciplinary care. As reported by Medscape Medical News, they also underlined the need for the comprehensive evaluation of patients and ongoing follow-up, all of which underscore the challenges of manag...

Dec 7th, 2022 - Nearly half of patients discharged from a hospital had inappropriate proton pump inhibitor (PPI) prescriptions, suggests a retrospective analysis of an Israeli healthcare database that showed no improvements in prescribing patterns over time. The research was published online in the journal Digestive and Liver Disease. First author Orly Sneh-Arbib, MD, Division of Gastroenterology and Liver Dis...

Dec 6th, 2022 - Published evidence from a handful of mobile health apps show their potential to assist in the diagnosis of rhinitis and rhinosinusitis as well as to evaluate management and treatment adherence for these conditions, a new report suggests. Despite their promise in clinical management, few have been validated in the scientific literature, and even fewer include considerations for multimorbidity. T...

Dec 6th, 2022 - Older adults who received the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) were less likely to be hospitalized for pneumonia, even if they had comorbidities that increased their risk for bad outcomes from the infection, according to a new study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine. People who were immunized were 6.7% less likely to be hospitalized for pneumonia compared with those who were unva...

Dec 6th, 2022 - US News & World Report has released its Best Hospitals for Maternity Care rankings for 2022. The rankings are intended to assist expectant mothers in making informed decisions about maternal healthcare for uncomplicated pregnancies. The ratings assess eight aspects of care. Three categories are new ― rates of episiotomy; transparency for racial and ethnic disparities; and adherence to federal g...