Semaglutide Cuts Liver Disease Severity in People With HIV
DENVER — Semaglutide (Ozempic) reduced the amount of liver fat by nearly a third in people with HIV and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), the open-label phase IIb SLIM LIVER study showed. In the single-arm trial, the absolute change in intrahepatic triglyceride (IHTG) content across all participants was -4.2% (95% CI -5.4 to -3.1, […]
Elotuzumab Misses Mark Again as Frontline Treatment for Multiple Myeloma
Elotuzumab (Empliciti) failed for a third time to improve progression-free survival (PFS) in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma when added to standard therapy, a large randomized trial showed. After 4 years of follow-up, neither the median PFS nor the 3-year PFS differed significantly among four treatment groups who received lenalidomide (Revlimid) and bortezomib (Velcade) plus dexamethasone […]
Link Between Psoriasis, Heart Disease Tracks to Coronary Microvascular Dysfunction
Almost a third of patients with severe psoriasis had echocardiographic evidence of asymptomatic coronary microvascular dysfunction (CMD), a prospective study showed. Doppler echocardiography showed that 31.5% of 448 patients with psoriasis had CMD. Every 1-point increase in the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) score and 1-year increase in psoriasis duration correlated with a 5% […]
Physician Assistants Also Feel Post-Pandemic Burnout
NASHVILLE — Nearly a third of board-certified physician assistants (PAs) said they experienced burnout in the past 3 years, according to a national cross-sectional analysis. Looking at over 111,000 PAs who worked in at least one clinical position, 30.6% self-reported at least one symptom of burnout, found Andrzej Kozikowski, PhD, of the National Commission on […]
Serious Complications Uncommon After Primary Lens Implantation in Children
A third of intraocular lens (IOL) implants for nontraumatic glaucoma in children required reoperation for visual axis opacification (VAO) within 5 years, most often in eyes that did not have anterior vitrectomy, a large cohort study showed. Overall, 32% of 609 eyes developed VAO requiring reoperation after primary IOL implantation. The reoperation rate for VAO […]
Opinion | The Patient Case Against Requiring Medical Chaperones
A third person is just a third wheel in a trusting doctor-patient relationship. Yale-New Haven Hospital and affiliated clinics have a rule that a chaperone must be present for any examination of so-called “sensitive” areas, including breasts, genitalia, and perianal area. Having a chaperone present is mandatory, and in visits to my gynecologist at Yale, […]
COVID Drops to Fourth Leading Cause of Death, CDC Says
COVID-19 dropped to the fourth leading cause of death in 2022, down from third place in 2020 and 2021, according to provisional mortality data from the CDC. Taking its place was “unintentional injury,” which followed heart disease and cancer as the longstanding top killers, reported Farida B. Ahmad, MPH, and colleagues in Morbidity and Mortality […]
Chest CTs Reveal Abnormalities 2 Years After Severe COVID
Two years after hospitalization for severe COVID-19 illness, more than a third of patients from the pandemic’s early days had lingering pulmonary abnormalities on chest CT scans, according to a prospective study from Wuhan, China. The incidence of persistent interstitial lung abnormalities (ILAs) fell over follow-up after hospital discharge from Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital, dropping from […]
Is Today Really The Saddest Day Of The Year? What To Know About ‘Blue Monday.’
The third Monday of January, which falls on Jan. 16 this year, is said to be the saddest day of the year as folks grapple with holiday debt, failed New Year’s resolutions and dreary days. It’s widely known as “Blue Monday,” and the term was created by the no-longer-in-existence UK company Sky Travel and Welsh […]
Low-cost gel film can pluck drinking water from desert air
More than a third of the world’s population lives in drylands, areas that experience significant water shortages. Scientists and engineers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a solution that could help people in these areas access clean drinking water. The team developed a low-cost gel film made of abundant materials that can […]