Reduced Mortality Seen in Cancer Survivors Who Meet Exercise Guidelines
Exercise consistent with national guidelines was associated with a significant reduction in all-cause mortality in long-term cancer survivors, a pan-cancer analysis showed. In a study involving 11,480 survivors, guideline-concordant exercise was associated with a 25% reduced risk of all-cause mortality compared with no exercise (HR 0.75, 95% CI 0.70-0.80) at a median follow-up of 16 […]
Amoxicillin Alone for Acute Sinusitis Holds Up Against Broad-Spectrum Cousin
Treatment failure with amoxicillin-clavulanate for pediatric acute sinusitis was similar compared with amoxicillin alone, but the broad-spectrum antibiotic may be associated with more adverse events, an examination of a large commercial claims database revealed. The two frequently prescribed antibiotics were similar in their risk for treatment failure (1.7% with amoxicillin-clavulanate vs 1.8% with amoxicillin; RR […]
My Son’s Brain Tumor Was Benign. We Thought We Were In The Clear — But We Were Wrong.
The author’s son consulting with his doctor, Eugene Hwang, associate chief of oncology at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, during treatment in 2020. Courtesy of Adina Ciment I saw the mass on my son’s brain from the small booth in the CT room. It didn’t take much to realize that the golf-ball-sized circle on one […]
Inhaled Glucocorticoid Flops for Speeding COVID Recovery in Outpatients
Inhaled fluticasone furoate failed to shorten recovery time for non-hospitalized adults with COVID-19, new data from the adaptive ACTIV-6 trial found. When used daily for 2 weeks, a quicker COVID-19 recovery time — considered at least 3 consecutive days without symptoms — was no more likely with fluticasone furoate than with placebo (HR 1.01, 95% […]
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% […]
Could Cetuximab Maintenance Play a Role in RAS Wild-Type Metastatic CRC?
Maintenance therapy with cetuximab (Erbitux) after FOLFIRI (leucovorin, fluorouracil, and irinotecan) plus cetuximab induction therapy led to better outcomes for patients with RAS wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC) in a phase II randomized trial, yet it failed to reach the study’s prespecified threshold for success. At 6 months after randomization, more patients assigned to maintenance […]
A quarter of people are undoing the benefits of healthy meals by unhealthy snacking
A quarter of people are undoing the benefits of healthy meals with unhealthy snacks, which increases the risk of strokes and cardiovascular disease. The findings, published today in the European Journal of Nutrition by researchers from the School of Life Course & Population Sciences and ZOE, details the snacking habits of 854 people from the […]
Fresh Blood Not Always the Best Blood?
Longer storage of red blood cell (RBC) units was associated with longer transplant survival in kidney transplant patients receiving early transfusions, a retrospective study in France found. Among 3,483 kidney recipients who received RBC transfusions within 14 days posttransplant, each additional day of RBC storage was associated with a non-significant 1% reduction in the risk […]
Benralizumab Allows Inhaled Corticosteroid Taper for Asthma Patients
MILAN — Benralizumab (Fasenra) allowed patients with severe eosinophilic asthma to reduce inhaled corticosteroid (ISC) use without compromising control, the SHAMAL phase IV randomized trial found. After 32 weeks, 92% of patients on the monoclonal antibody with planned tapering from high-dose ICS plus formoterol were able to reduce their use, reported David J. Jackson, MD, […]
Acetazolamide May Help COPD Patients Reach New Heights
Acetazolamide may prevent some patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) from suffering altitude-related adverse health effects (ARAHE) when traveling, a randomized controlled trial showed. In patients with moderate to severe COPD traveling to and staying for 2 days at 3,100 m, ARAHE occurred in 50% of those taking acetazolamide compared with 74% of those […]