Sep 29th, 2021 - Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children is a previously unrecognized and potentially catastrophic illness that appears in children who have been exposed to or diagnosed with COVID-19. As healthcare agents and members of the community, nurses are positioned to assist in identifying children who may experience previously unrecognized complications of infection from the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Sep 1st, 2021 - Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) accounts for most renal malignancies. This article, the last in a three-part series, presents treatment options for RCC using the American Joint Committee on Cancer Tumor, Node, and Metastasis staging system as a framework, as well as nursing-care options for patients undergoing partial or radical nephrectomy.

Aug 5th, 2021 - Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) accounts for most renal malignancies. This article, the second in a three-part series, addresses how renal masses are classified, signs and symptoms of RCC, medical treatments for RCC, and priority nursing interventions for patients with RCC.

Aug 2nd, 2021 - The FDA has approved the type 1 interferon receptor antagonist anifrolumab (Saphnelo) for the treatment of moderate-to-severe systemic lupus erythematosus along with standard therapy, reported manufacturer AstraZeneca. "This is wonderful, exciting news, and is great for the lupus community -- patients, family members, and clinicians who treat patients," said Richard Furie, MD, chief of rheumato...

Jul 30th, 2021 - A fourth of adult patients with cancer lacked antibodies to measles and almost 40% tested negative for mumps antibodies, according to a retrospective analysis of almost 1,000 patients. Antibody-negative rates were higher among patients with hematologic malignancies and in younger adults, exceeding 50% for measles and mumps among patients younger than 60. Subgroup analyses showed similar age- an...

Jul 30th, 2021 - Note that some links may require registration or subscription. Israel approved a third shot of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for citizens over 60 years of age. (Times of Israel) Shortly after President Biden urged the Defense Department to make COVID-19 vaccines mandatory for military personnel, the Pentagon said it would start talks on exactly that. (The Hill) As of Friday at 8 a.m. EDT, the unoff...

Jul 29th, 2021 - The FDA approved Semglee (insulin glargine-yfgn) as the first interchangeable biosimilar insulin product for diabetes, allowing for pharmacy-level substitution in states that allow it, the agency announced on Wednesday. "This is a momentous day for people who rely daily on insulin for treatment of diabetes, as biosimilar and interchangeable biosimilar products have the potential to greatly redu...

Jul 28th, 2021 - Breakthrough COVID-19 cases in fully vaccinated healthcare workers were rare, and generally were associated with the individual's immune response to the vaccine in the early days of infection, an Israeli study found. In 39 breakthrough infections of SARS-CoV-2 out of 1,497 fully vaccinated healthcare workers, neutralizing antibody titers were lower than uninfected controls during the "peri-infe...

Jul 28th, 2021 - Note that some links may require registration or subscription. Spurred on by the highly transmissible Delta variant and a flat-lined vaccination rate, the COVID-19 case count could reach 200,000 per day over the next 4-6 weeks, said former CDC director Tom Frieden, MD. (CNN) Officials at Biogen reportedly withdrew a paper on Alzheimer's drug aducanumab (Aduhelm) rather than agree to revisions r...

Jul 27th, 2021 - Patients with small renal masses avoided interventions in 70% of cases during about 3 years of active surveillance that had a standard protocol to identify progression requiring intervention, investigators reported. During 31-34 months of follow-up, 37 of 123 patients met criteria for intervention, and 29 of the 37 underwent delayed intervention. The cohort had a 3-year freedom from progression...

Jul 27th, 2021 - A case report described carotid arterial thrombosis discovered in a 31-year-old man following his first dose of the AstraZeneca adenovirus vector COVID-19 vaccine. (Neurology) The incidence of myocarditis among teenage boys with COVID-19 is six times higher than what has been reported after mRNA-based COVID vaccination, according to a U.S. preprint study in medRxiv. Patients often fail to contr...

Jul 19th, 2021 - Note that some links may require registration or subscription. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, warned that COVID-19 is becoming a "pandemic of the unvaccinated," with outbreaks in parts of the country with low vaccination coverage. (Forbes) From Arkansas to Missouri, undervaccinated areas of the country are seeing a surge in severe cases from the Delta variant. (New York Times, The Atlantic...

Jul 15th, 2021 - Tennessee recently made national news when the state fired its top-ranking vaccination official, Michelle Fiscus, MD, and reports surfaced that the state health department was ceasing outreach to adolescents about all vaccines, not just COVID-19 vaccines. In this exclusive MedPage Today video, William Schaffner, MD, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and an infe...

Jul 13th, 2021 - Gradual withdrawal of glucocorticoids was successful among patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) after 2 years of clinically quiescent disease, without an increased likelihood of flares, Canadian researchers reported. At 12 months, the flare rate among patients who had slowly tapered their glucocorticoid was 17.6% compared with 29.4% among patients who maintained a low prednisone dos...

Jul 6th, 2021 - The APOE ε4 allele was linked to clinical expression and biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease in people with Down syndrome, a dual-center cohort study showed. Among 464 adults with Down syndrome, APOE ε4 carriers showed earlier clinical symptoms of Alzheimer's and earlier changes in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) amyloid beta (Aβ), amyloid PET, plasma phosphorylated tau 181 (p-tau181), cerebral glucose...

Jul 1st, 2021 - High-efficacy therapies were superior in reducing relapses in people with active secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (SPMS) but not in people with inactive disease, an observational study showed. In people with active SPMS, high-efficacy therapies led to less frequent relapses than low-efficacy therapies (HR 0.7, P=0.006), reported Tomas Kalincik, MD, PhD, of the University of Melbourne in...

Jun 30th, 2021 - The purpose of this quality improvement project was to use the best available evidence and expert opinion to develop and implement a simple inpatient nursing care guideline ("The Guideline") for patients with minor skin lesions, including candidiasis, skin tears, incontinence-associated dermatitis, and stage 1 and stage 2 pressure injuries that would not require a WOC nurse consultation. The Gu...

Jun 24th, 2021 - Adjuvant bisphosphonate treatment that persists beyond 2 years does not provide a survival benefit for patients with high-risk early breast cancer, according to results from the phase III SUCCESS A trial. At a median of 5 years after the initiation of zoledronate, no statistically significant difference among patients receiving 5 versus 2 years of treatment was observed for the primary endpoint...

Jun 22nd, 2021 - Regulators in the U.K. and Canada are recalling several dozen lots of irbesartan (Avapro), losartan (Cozaar), and valsartan (Diovan) due to contamination with a potentially mutagenic azido impurity. The CDC's scheduled panel discussion on myocarditis and COVID-19 vaccines last Friday was pushed back in observation of Juneteenth. (Reuters) Patients with heart disease are more financially straine...

Jun 16th, 2021 - The best treatment strategy for COVID-linked multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) remains unclear after dueling observational studies came to disparate conclusions. Starting treatment off with both IV immunoglobulin (IVIG) and glucocorticoids was associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular dysfunction on or after day 2 compared with initial IVIG alone (17% vs 31%; risk ratio...