Improved Survival With Surgery in Metastatic Breast Cancer
Selected patients with metastatic breast cancer at diagnosis had significantly better survival with surgery in addition to systemic therapy, an analysis of almost 13,000 patients showed. Overall, the survival hazard improved by 27%-36% in women with known receptor status (estrogen, progesterone, and HER2) treated with systemic therapy plus surgery with or without radiation therapy. Women […]
Health Insurance Coverage Stable in 2020, Despite Pandemic
Rates of health insurance coverage remained mostly stable during the pandemic, with an estimated 1.6 million more Americans gaining coverage in 2020, according to an early release from the CDC’s National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). From 2019 to 2020, the uninsured rate dropped from an estimated 10.3% (33.2 million) to 9.7% (31.6 million), a non-significant […]
Finerenone improves outcomes in patients with mild-to-moderate kidney disease and diabetes
Finerenone reduces the risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in patients with mild-to-moderate kidney disease and type 2 diabetes. That’s the finding of late breaking research presented in a Hot Line session today at ESC Congress 20211 and published in the New England Journal of Medicine2. Diabetic kidney disease develops in approximately 40% of patients […]
COVID Hospitalizations Soared With Delta
COVID-19 patients infected with the Delta variant (B.1.617.2) were more likely to need a higher level of care compared with those with the Alpha variant (B.1.1.7), British researchers found. Patients infected with Delta were more than twice as likely to be admitted to the hospital within 14 days after PCR testing versus those with the […]
Maybe Avoid These Specialists for Your Next Colonoscopy
Colonoscopies performed by surgeons and other endoscopists were associated with lower adenoma detection rates compared to those done by gastroenterologists, according to a meta-analysis. In a systematic review of 36 studies, adenoma detection rates during colonoscopy were 19% lower with surgeons (OR 0.81, 95% CI 0.74-0.88) and 9% lower with family physicians, general practitioners, and […]
Embryonic development in slow motion
Everyone is familiar with the roe deer, either from crossword puzzles or from real-life encounters during a jog or a hike in the forest: majestic creatures with elegant big black eyes. As common as roe deer may seem in Swiss forests, one of their characteristics is unique among deer species. After mating and fertilisation of […]
Certain Groups Left Behind in HIV Preventive Care
Black and Hispanic individuals at risk for HIV, as well as young adults and people with substance use disorder (SUD), were more likely to experience gaps in preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) care, a retrospective study showed. Examining electronic health record (EHR) data of people linked to PrEP care from 2012 to 2019, Black (HR 0.74, 95% […]
How Long Exactly Is Long COVID?
Almost half of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 early in the pandemic had at least one lingering symptom a year after symptom onset, researchers in Wuhan, China found. A total of 49% of patients had at least one post-COVID symptom 1 year later, which included sleep difficulties, palpitations, joint pain, or chest pain, though that was […]
Symptomatic COVID patients are more contagious, study finds: Study identifies link between case severity and infectiousness
Individuals with COVID-19 are most likely to spread the virus to close contacts two days before the onset of symptoms to three days after symptoms appear, and the risk of transmission is highest when patients had mild or moderate disease severity, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Georgia. The study, […]
Robot-Assisted Prostatectomy Tied to Fewer Complications
Robot-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) was associated with fewer surgical complications compared with open or laparoscopic prostatectomies, a population-based cohort study in Taiwan found. Among more than 1,400 patients who underwent radical prostatectomy in 2015, those treated with RARP were less likely to need blood transfusions compared with those who received laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP; adjusted […]