May 27th, 2022 - A limited association exists between the use of isotretinoin for severe acne and worsening of a patient’s baseline inflammatory bowel disease, results from a small retrospective study suggests. “Early studies of isotretinoin for use in severe acne suggested the drug may serve as a trigger for new-onset inflammatory bowel disease (IBD),” researchers led by Christina G.

May 27th, 2022 - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court has not yet released its decision that looks set to dramatically scale back abortion rights, but one of the next legal battles has already begun in a Mississippi court. That is where the manufacturer of a pill used to carry out medication abortions, Las Vegas-based GenBioPro Inc, has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the conservative state's restr...

May 27th, 2022 - A limited association exists between the use of isotretinoin for severe acne and worsening of a patient's baseline inflammatory bowel disease, results from a small retrospective study suggests. "Early studies of isotretinoin for use in severe acne suggested the drug may serve as a trigger for new-onset inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)," researchers led by Christina G. Lopez, MD, of the Lewis Ka...

May 27th, 2022 - The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the IN.PACT 018 drug-coated balloon (DCB) for the treatment of peripheral arterial disease, Medtronic announced today. The paclitaxel-coated balloon is indicated for percutaneous transluminal angioplasty of de novo, restenotic, or in-stent restenotic lesions up to 360 mm in length with vessel diameters of 4 to 7 mm, located in the superficial fem...

May 27th, 2022 - New medications such as emicizumab (Hemlibra) are transforming the lives of patients with hemophilia A, and more treatments are in the pipeline. "It's an amazing time to be a hemophilia provider," Alice D. Ma, MD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill hematologist and bleeding disorder specialist, said in an interview. "There are real options, and it's very exciting." But the drugs come w...

May 27th, 2022 - MADRID, Spain — Researchers discussed an update on the latest evidence regarding the cancer-lifestyle link as part of the Precision Health session: Oncology, held during the 7th International Congress of the Spanish Society of Precision Health (SESAP). The role that certain nutrients can have on tumor development was analyzed, along with the most recent data justifying the idea that the prescri...

May 27th, 2022 - Learning that a family member has cancer can be devastating enough. Waiting to find out whether a loved one can afford their treatment takes the concern to another level. That was the case for health policy expert Stacie B. Dusetzina, PhD, when her mother was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. "There is this period where you are waiting to learn more about the cancer type and treatment op...

May 27th, 2022 - A wearable patch that delivers electrical stimulation to the perineum may postpone premature ejaculation, according to research presented at the 2022 annual meeting of the American Urological Association. The disposable device appears to work by helping men contract the muscles in the pelvic floor, allowing them to postpone climax. Among 34 men with a lifelong history of premature ejaculation, ...

May 27th, 2022 - Healthcare providers should be aware of important updates to vaccine recommendations that could affect patients preparing to travel internationally this summer. This includes information about: New rabies pre-exposure prophylaxis guidelines (PrEP); The new tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) vaccine; and Updated cholera vaccine recommendations and a restart of Vaxchora manufacturing and distribution....

May 27th, 2022 - Eosinophilic GI diseases (EGIDs) often overlap with other eosinophil-associated diseases (EADs), which leads to greater health care costs, according to an analysis of the U.S. Optum Clinformatics claims database. EADs have gained increased attention in recent years. They include eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), eosinophilic asthma, bullous pemphigoid, eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiiti...

May 27th, 2022 - CAMBRIDGE, MA -- For most children and even some adults, swallowing pills or tablets is difficult. To make it easier to give those medicines, researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have created a drug-delivering gel that is much easier to swallow and could be used to administer a variety of different kinds of drugs. The gels, made from plant-based oils such as sesame oil, can be pr...

May 27th, 2022 - Opioid use disorder is an addiction crisis in the United States that has become increasingly lethal during the COVID-19 pandemic. To preserve access to life-saving treatment during the pandemic, federal drug agencies loosened requirements on physicians for treating these patients, including moving patient evaluations away from in-person exams to telemedicine. This federal policy change focused ...

May 27th, 2022 - Research drawing on the national Overcoming COVID-19 study, led by Boston Children’s Hospital, and the hospital’s own Taking On COVID-19 Together Group provides evidence that children who previously had COVID-19 (or the inflammatory condition MIS-C) are not protected against the newer Omicron variant. Vaccination, however, does afford protection, the study found. The findings, published in Natu...

May 27th, 2022 - The most common subtype of thyroid cancer is differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC), which has a good prognosis and a survival rate of over 85%. The initial treatment approach is surgery followed, in some cases, by adjuvant radioactive iodine (RAI) therapy. A subset of patients develop RAI-refractory progressive disease, and, until the advent of multikinase inhibitors, lenvatinib and sorafenib, tr...

May 27th, 2022 - Austin, TX— What children eat affects their lifelong health. But influencing their habits can be difficult, especially for underserved families with fewer resources. However, providing caregivers easy access to produce and flexible resources can lead to improvements in kids’ diets in a short time, according to a new study from researchers at Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Aus...

May 27th, 2022 - Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center have identified a previously unrecognized form of hormone therapy-resistant prostate cancer, as well as a set of molecules that drive its growth. This discovery opens the door to the development of therapies that treat this specific disease. In the study, published May 27 in Science, the researchers examined the mo...

May 27th, 2022 - Administering medications to children poses unique challenges, especially in resource-limited countries with high infant and child mortality rates. Many drugs are solids or tablets, which are not easily swallowed by children and difficult to dose according to a child’s weight. While liquid and semi-solid alternatives exist for some drugs, many medications lack this option, or become unstable wi...

May 26th, 2022 - Sildenafil (Viagra, Pfizer), a phosphodieterase-5 (PDE-5) inhibitor and a pulmonary-selective vasodilator, may reduce mortality in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), compared with placebo or standard of care but it does not reduce hospitalizations or acute exacerbations from the disorder, a small meta-analysis suggests. “There have only been four trials investigating sildenafil.

May 26th, 2022 - NEW ORLEANS – New research reveals that patients with treatment-resistant depression who were treated with repeated intravenous ketamine show no significant differences in achieving response or remission, compared with those receiving the intranasal formulation of the drug, esketamine – although fewer treatments appear necessary with the intravenous formulation. “This is one of the first studie.

May 26th, 2022 - Tarah J. Ballinger, MD, discusses several trials in metastatic breast cancer (mBC) being presented at the upcoming 2022 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting. The first study data that Dr Ballinger is excited to learn about are from DESTINY-Breast04, which evaluated patients with HER2-low tumor expression treated with trastuzumab deruxtecan, an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) that ...