The Vietnam War Ended 50 Years Ago, but the Battle With Agent Orange Continues
The Vietnam War ended on April 30, 1975, when the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon fell to Communist forces. But millions of people still face daily battles with its chemical legacy. Nguyen Thanh Hai, 34, is one of millions with disabilities linked to Agent Orange. Born with severe developmental challenges, it’s a struggle for him […]
When Women’s Fertility Begins and Ends Seems Important for RA Development
British women whose capability of bearing children either started late or ended early — naturally or otherwise — were at increased risk for developing rheumatoid arthritis (RA), compared with women with earlier menarche or later menopause, researchers found. In an analysis of more than 220,000 female participants in the U.K. Biobank project, those with menarche […]
Landmark Trial Produces New First-Line Standard for Advanced Bladder Cancer
MADRID — Chemotherapy’s generation-long dominance in first-line advanced urothelial cancer ended with a resounding victory for the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) enfortumab vedotin (Padcev) plus pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in an international randomized trial. Overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) doubled with enfortumab-pembrolizumab (EV-P) at 12.5 and 31.5 months versus 6.3 and 16.1 months with platinum-containing chemotherapy. […]
Recreational Drug Use More Common in Intensive Cardiac Care Than Many Admit
Many recreational drug users suffering acute cardiovascular events ended up in cardiac intensive care units (ICUs) without disclosing their drug use, according to the ADDICT-ICCU study conducted across France. The incidence of a positive drug screen was 11% among 1,499 consecutive patients admitted for acute cardiovascular events, with systematic urine testing revealing use of cannabis […]
Do Orphan Drugs Really Need Development Incentives?
Drugs approved for an “orphan” indication ended up making just as much money as their non-orphan counterparts, even though they were helped by incentives during development, researchers found. There was no significant difference in median 5-year net sales between orphan and non-orphan drugs ($719 million vs $812 million, P=0.09), reported Benjamin Rome, MD, MPH, of […]
10 Myths About Mental Illness in Crime Fiction
I’m the rare girl who went to medical school with a love of watching whodunits and ended up — 10 gruelling years later — a forensic psychiatrist. Forensic psychiatry is the most thrilling job imaginable, but forensic psychiatrists in mysteries and crime TV have some very different roles than we do in real life. We […]