Sep 30th, 2022 - SHANGHAI (Reuters) — For most of China's 1.4 billion people, regular COVID-19 tests have become a way of life. Siyuan Zhuji is trying to turn them into a work of art. Since March, the 33-year-old multi-disciplinary artist from Jiangsu province has been filming his own nucleic acid tests with a small camera in his mouth. His video clips show teeth and tongue and an approaching cotton bud. In som...

Sep 30th, 2022 - The oral Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor baricitinib appears to improve symptoms of atopic dermatitis (AD) in children aged 2 years and up, as indicated by data from the phase 3 BREEZE-AD-PEDS trial. After 16 weeks of treatment, the primary endpoint ― an Investigators Global Assessment (IGA) score of 0 or 1 with at least a 2-point improvement from baseline ― was met by 41.7% of patients given 2 mg...

Sep 30th, 2022 - STOCKHOLM — Recent study results confirm that two agents from the sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitor class can significantly cut the incidence of adverse cardiovascular events in patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFpEF), a disease especially common in people with type 2 diabetes, obesity, or both. And findings from secondary analyses of the studies ― incl...

Sep 30th, 2022 - HONG KONG (Reuters) - The Hong Kong government said on Friday it aims to ease some coronavirus curbs in an orderly way as pandemic trends in the Asia financial hub were continuing to stabilize. From Oct. 6, some social distancing measures will be relaxed including raising the maximum number of persons per table in restaurants to 12 from eight, while banquets will be allowed to have up to 240 pe...

Sep 30th, 2022 - PARIS — "I thought I was as exhausted, and isolated, and neglected as I could get, and then he came home." Those were the words of Kate Washington, PhD, from Sacramento, California, as she gave a moving account of the immense burden she felt as caregiver to her husband with cancer. She was taking part in the session, "I am FINE: Frustrated * Isolated * Neglected * Emotional," at the European So...

Sep 30th, 2022 - A home-based palliative care program involving primary care physicians, cardiologists, and palliative care specialists is associated with a lower likelihood of dying in the hospital for patients with chronic heart failure, data indicate. The program is also associated with fewer visits to the emergency department, more clinician home visits, shorter hospital stays, and more days spent at home. ...

Sep 30th, 2022 - Gender-affirming hormone therapy's effect on transgender patients with rheumatic disease is unclear but does not appear to modulate its course and does not need to be strictly contraindicated in most patients, according to a case series and systematic literature review. Dr Kristen Mathias More doctors are practicing transgender medicine, yet a limited amount of information is available on rheum...

Sep 30th, 2022 - Ezetimibe given in combination with rosuvastatin has a beneficial effect on liver fat in people with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), according results of a randomized, active-controlled trial. The findings, which come from the investigator-initiated ESSENTIAL trial, are likely to add to the debate over whether or not the lipid-lowering combination could be of benefit beyond its effect...

Sep 30th, 2022 - The study covered in this summary was published on medRxiv.org as a preprint and has not yet been peer reviewed. Key Takeaway Absolute lesion control rate with image-guided superficial radiation therapy (IGSRT) for early-stage non-melanoma skin cancer was achieved in nearly all patients.  Why This Matters IGSRT is a newer radiation technique for skin cancer, an alternative to Mohs micrographic ...

Sep 30th, 2022 - Women with inflammatory arthritis (IA) are more likely to use healthcare services than men, a Canadian study found. The results suggest there are biological differences in disease course and sociocultural differences in healthcare access and patient behavior among the sexes, Sanjana Tarannum said in a presentation at The Lancet Summit: Sex and gender in rheumatology conference in late September...

Sep 30th, 2022 - The study covered in this summary was published on researchsquare.com as a preprint and has not yet been peer reviewed. Key Takeaway Statin use after a breast cancer diagnosis was associated with a statistically significant decrease in the risk of dying from the disease. The protective effect was more pronounced in patients with estrogen receptor positive (ER+) disease, as well as in postmenopa...

Sep 30th, 2022 - Gender-based violence should be considered a risk factor for developing cardiovascular diseases such as broken heart syndrome, according to Eunice Tavarez, MD, an internist cardiologist from the Dominican Republic. She affirms that long-term patient follow-up should also be carried out because the heart problems can reoccur. During the ACC Latin America 2022 Together With CardioAcademic confere...

Sep 30th, 2022 - STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Enterovirus infection appears to be strongly linked to both type 1 diabetes and islet cell autoantibodies, new research suggests. The strength of the relationship, particularly within the first month of type 1 diabetes diagnosis, "further supports the rationale for development of enterovirus-targeted vaccines and antiviral therapy to prevent and reduce the impact of type 1 d...

Sep 30th, 2022 - Men who have sex with men have an increased prevalence of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, according to a new report. In particular, those with high-risk sexual activity, such as engaging in unprotected sex or having multiple sexual partners, were more likely to have IBD diagnoses than men who have sex with women who also have high-risk sexual a...

Sep 30th, 2022 - The International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) is a system used by healthcare providers to code, classify, and record symptoms, diagnoses, and procedures in the United States. Clinicians dealing with these are on the front lines of various situations; therefore, the codes must be all-inclusive. The results can be bizarre. Can you spot the real IC...

Sep 30th, 2022 - Jared Weiss, MD, implores clinicians to ask "what else?" to dig a little deeper when encountering patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and move away from the idea of an epiphany produced by a single diagnosis. Dr Weiss uses a patient experience to illustrate this point. A young patient was diagnosed with squamous lung cancer, an atypical diagnosis for a "never-smoker." Dr Weiss dug ...

Sep 30th, 2022 - Please note that the text below is not a full transcript and has not been copyedited. For more insight and commentary on these stories, subscribe to the This Week in Cardiology podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast provider. This podcast is intended for healthcare professionals only. In This Week’s Podcast For the week ending September 30, 2022, John Mandrola, MD comment...

Sep 30th, 2022 - SAN DIEGO (Reuters) — Illumina Inc, the top maker of DNA sequencers used to speed drug development and other research, on Thursday announced the launch of its next-generation NovaSeq X systems, which it said can generate more than 20,000 whole genomes per year, or 2.5 times that of prior sequencers. The larger-scale throughput will make the systems, the largest of which is priced at $1.25 milli...

Sep 30th, 2022 - (Reuters) — Around 3.2 million people in the United States received updated COVID-19 booster shots over the past week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday. The CDC said a total of 7.6 million Americans had received the shot as of Sept. 28, the first four weeks the booster has been available. This is up from the 4.4. million people who received the shot as of Sept. 21...

Sep 30th, 2022 - Before COVID-19 vaccines were widely available, one of the most common and serious manifestations of SARS-CoV-2 infection was pneumonia. Therefore, it is logical to ask whether the COVID-19 pandemic has played a role in the increase in Spain in the number of cases of pneumococcal disease caused by antibiotic-resistant strains. The instinctual response is that there should be no relationship, si...