Amid Surge, CDC Unveils New Syphilis Testing Guidance
The CDC has published its first comprehensive laboratory recommendations for syphilis testing. Published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the new recommendations include approaches for laboratory-based tests, point-of-care tests, sample processing, and how laboratories should report test results to clinicians and health departments. The recommendations are primarily for clinical laboratory or disease control personnel, […]
Malnutrition early in life sets stage for poor growth and early death
In a trio of papers appearing in Nature on Sept. 13, 2023, the researchers offer the most comprehensive look yet at how malnutrition affects growth in the first two years of life, underscoring a devastating reality for millions of children in the Global South, particularly Asia. In 2022, more than one in five children around […]
Comprehensive insulin signalling map shows interplay between genes and diet
Researchers have produced a comprehensive picture of insulin signalling in mice and suggest that it is shaped by entangled effects of genetics and diet. The research, published today as a Reviewed Preprint in eLife, is described by the editors as a fundamental study of substantial importance. They say the authors share compelling evidence that sheds […]
Infant formula safety checks can be improved with stratified sampling
Producers of infant formula employ comprehensive food safety systems, including product testing to ensure those systems are working. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign finds that some testing methods are more powerful at catching contaminants than others. Spacing out samples over time in a stratified sampling pattern is better at catching risky […]
APA Unveils Tool for Addressing Psych Bed Crisis
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) released a comprehensive report to address the shortage of hospital beds for inpatient psychiatric care during a press conference Tuesday. The report described a predictive modeling tool developed to help hospital groups and other community-based groups determine how many inpatient hospital beds might be needed at any given time. It […]
Promising rectal cancer study
UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Hanna K. Sanoff, MD, MPH, is the author of a viewpoint in the New England Journal of Medicine that provides a perspective on the evolving treatment of rectal cancer. She offers prospects for future treatment of the disease in light of encouraging findings from a study published in the journal […]
New study overturns popular theory on evolution of termite size
Researchers have completed a comprehensive analysis of the head width of over 1500 species of termites and determined that their size isn’t gradually shrinking at a geological timescale. Termites belong to the cockroach branch of the evolutionary tree. They split from their sister cockroach group at the end of the Jurassic period, around 150 to […]
NCCN Reverses on Guideline Change for Surveillance in Prostate Cancer
After protest by urologists and patient advocates, the prostate cancer panel of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) reversed itself on Tuesday, with new guideline language restoring active surveillance (AS) as a preferred approach for “most” men with low-risk prostate cancer. In September, the NCCN panel had published guidelines that eliminated the word “preferred” for […]
One-Word Change in Prostate Cancer Guideline Has Some Urologists in Arms
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) is under fire for removing active surveillance’s (AS) “preferred” status in its low-risk prostate cancer guidelines. AS has been listed as preferred since 2019, and the change puts it on par with radical prostatectomy and radiation therapy in this patient population. Edward “Ted” Schaeffer, MD, PhD, chairman of the […]
Comprehensive clinical sequencing opens door to the promise of precision medicine
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital investigators have demonstrated that comprehensive genomic sequencing of all pediatric cancer patients is feasible and essential to capitalize on the lifesaving potential of precision medicine. Results from the St. Jude Genomes for Kids study appear online today in the journal Cancer Discovery. Whole genome and whole exome sequencing of germline […]