2. Patients in the POEM group were more likely to experience gastroesophageal reflux and reflux esophagitis versus LHM, most likely due to the absence of a concomitant antireflux measure. Evidence Rating Level: 1 (Excellent) Study Rundown: Current treatments for achalasia include endoscopic botulinum toxin injection, pneumatic dilation, and laparoscopic Heller’s my...
2. In this phase 3 trial, patients with newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer who received niraparib had a significantly longer progression-free survival than those who received placebo. Evidence Rating Level: 1 (Excellent) Study Rundown: Ovarian cancer has a high mortality rate worldwide and up to 85% of those treated with chemotherapy have disease recurrence. D...
2. Those children who received an adenotonsillectomy did demonstrate improvements in sleep patterns on polysomnogram, improvement in parent-reported symptoms, as well as improvements in behavior, daytime napping, and overall health. Evidence Rating Level: 1 (Excellent) Study Rundown: Much investigation has been done on the effect of adenotonsillectomy for OSA on co...
Evidence Rating Level: 2 (Good) The adrenergic co-transmitter neuropeptide Y (NPY) is one of the neurotransmitters released by cardiac sympathetic nerve terminals, and may represent an important biomarker in the prognostication of patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). This prospective cohort study investigated coronary sinus (CS) NPY levels in 105 patients with s...
Evidence Rating Level: 2 (Good) Baseline symptoms are an important consideration in oncologic clinical trials. Currently, the standard process of determining adverse events (AEs) is the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE), however, this does not account, in a clear manner, events attributable to baseline symptoms and those arising during clinical tr...
Evidence Rating Level: 2 (Good) Pneumonia, myocardial infarction, and heart failure are common acute medical conditions that result in hospitalization, post-discharge hospital use, and days at home. However, emergency general surgery (EGS) accounts for 11% of hospitalizations and nearly 50% of these are patients are older adults at an increased risk of mortality and r...
2. The typhoid antibody titers more than quadrupled in the participants that received the typhoid conjugate vaccine. Evidence Rating Level: 1 (Excellent) Study Rundown: Typhoid fever is a bacterial infection caused by Salmonella that leads to a high fever, weakness, stomach pain, and rash. It is a major public health problem in the summer months among childre...
2. The association between UPF and T2D remained significant after accounting for other metabolic comorbidities and weight change. Evidence Rating Level: 2 (Good) Study Rundown: Dietary content has a profound influence on the development of many medical conditions including metabolic disorders, cardiovascular disease, and malignancies. The increased dieta...
2. Biomarkers of bone resorption were significantly reduced in both treatment groups but returned to baseline levels after treatment stopped at the end of the study. Evidence level: 1 (Excellent) Study Rundown: Cathepsin K is a cysteine endopeptidase with the ability to degrade bone and cartilage through catabolism of essential matrix proteins including elastin, co...
Study Rundown: Levothyroxine is a known treatment for hypothyroid-related symptoms such as fatigue, constipation, depression and others. However, little is known about the effects of this treatment in adults 80 years and older with subclinical hypothyroidism. In this study, two randomized control trials, namely Institute for Evidence Based Medicine in Old Age (IEMO) an...
2. The progression-free survival benefit was greater in patients with BRCA-positive and homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) positive tumors. Evidence Rating Level: 1 (Excellent) Study Rundown: Due to the late diagnosis of advanced-stage ovarian cancer, a majority of patients experience a relapse after 10 to 18 months, even after treatment with surgery and che...
Cutting-edge technology is increasingly being employed in the development of diagnostic tools as innovators strive to help tackle disease, improve treatment and reach communities in remote locations. Dr. Owain Williams, senior research fellow in HIV and Global Health for the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Queensland in Australia, said methods currently ...
2. Elevated preoperative NT-proBNP levels were also associated with increased 30-day all-cause mortality. Evidence Rating Level: 2 (Good) Study Rundown: Vascular complications are associated with perioperative death, yet the heavily-validated and widely-used Revised Cardiac Risk Index (RCRI) is somewhat lacking in predictive accuracy, often making it difficult to a...
2. Benefits appeared to extend across most predefined subgroups including sex, age, and smoking history, although there was substantial overlap between confidence intervals. Evidence Rating Level: 1 (Excellent) Study Rundown: Epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs) are effective in managing sensitized non-small cell lung cancer. The ...
Evidence Rating Level: 1 (Excellent) Amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles are defining pathological characteristics of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Inhibitors of the beta-site APP-cleaving enzyme 1 (BACE1) may reduce the formation of Aβ peptides. Therefore, the objective of the AMARNATH and DAYBREAK-ALZ randomized, global multicenter, double-blind, placebo-control...
Evidence Rating Level: 1 (Excellent) It has been well established that the early transfusion of blood products in the setting of hemorrhagic shock reduces associated morbidity and mortality. Only recently, however, have a number of trauma systems begun to incorporate red blood cell, plasma or whole blood transfusion in the pre-hospital setting. The PAMPer and COMBAT c...
2. Evaluation of emergency department (ED) visits did not show a significant difference between groups. Cost savings were reported in a majority of studies that examined cost outcomes. Evidence Rating Level: 2 (Good) Study Rundown: Models of integrated care have been developed in an attempt to improve care, quality of life, reduce ED visits, and more. While the eff...
Evidence Rating Level: 2 (Good) The use of antibiotics negatively impacts the human microbiome, decreasing bacterial diversity. These kinds of changes to the microbiome have been previously found to be associated with allergic disease. In this retrospective cohort study, 798,426 children (Department of Defense Tricare beneficiaries) were followed up for the presence o...
Evidence Rating Level: 2 (Good) While there have been considerable advances in heart transplantation, more and more patients are becoming reliant on mechanical circulatory support (MCS) and are subject to increasing morbidity and mortality due to long wait times and a shortage of donor hearts. Studies examining the use of hepatitis C virus (HCV)-positive donors had pr...
2. This study predicted a small reduction in HPV-associated diseases and a substantially higher incremental cost-effectiveness ratios with extending the vaccination through age 45. Evidence Rating Level: 3 (Average) Study Rundown: The human papillomavirus vaccine has been recommended for females since 2006 and males since 2011 in the United States. The recommended ...
“Since our inception, we’ve benefited from a tremendous group of investors, which now includes the world class team at Northpond Ventures,” said Deep Lens co-founder and CEO Dave Billiter in a press release statement. “This Series A financing is further validation of the value of our industry-changing approach to digital pathology in delivering the right cancer diagnoses...
“Currently, the standard of care for patients who have never been treated is a three-drug regimen. With this approval, patients who have never been treated have the option of taking a two-drug regimen in a single tablet while eliminating additional toxicity and potential drug interactions from a third drug,” said Debra Birnkrant, M.D., Director of the Division of Antivir...
A research team at The University of Tokyo developed a powerful machine learning algorithm that predicts the properties and structures of unknown samples from an electron spectrum. This process may rapidly accelerate the process of discovering and testing novel nanomachines, solar cells, and other electronic devices. Tricorders are fictional devices first seen on the ...
According to a statement, the paper details a case of stagnant blood flow, resulting in a clot in the internal jugular vein of an astronaut stationed on the International Space Station, and was published in the January 2020 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. “These new findings demonstrate that the human body still surprises us in space,” notes Auñón-Chance...
Big pharma and small startups operate in two different worlds, but they need each other to develop innovative, potentially life-saving products. Industry conferences such as JPMorgan help with introductions, but one large conference does not a relationship make. MBC Biolabs, a San Francisco-based life sciences incubator, wants to keep these two sides talking. Its annu...
Staufen, May 7, 2019 - Eleven snazzy illustrations can now be downloaded from www.ika.com to individualize the set-up plate of the magnetic stirrer myPlate. And so, in addition to the outstanding technical properties of the well-known magnetic stirrers from IKA, myPlate also brings more color to the laboratory. The designs were inspired by IKA users themselves. The magn...
Staufen, Germany, April 16, 2019 - Grinding, mixing, dispersing, weighing and temperature measurement in a single laboratory instrument: The new IKA MultiDrive is the first true all-rounder in the area of coarse and fine crushing. This world first is available from IKA now, for a wide variety of grinding tasks. IKA MultiDrive can crush, grind and even thoroughly mix h...
Staufen, Germany, July 10, 2019 - A new generation of hi-tech stirrers is awaiting users in the laboratory. The RCT 5 digital is one of the most powerful magnetic stirrers on the market. The NANOSTAR 7.5 digital overhead stirrer is an equally high performer and, at the same time, highly compact. The right laboratory instrument for every stirring task - with an 850W mo...
Staufen, Germany October 16, 2019 - The new IKA Matrix thermoshakers combine concentrated mixing power in the milliliter range with tried and tested and intuitive IKA menu navigation. This makes mixing and temperature control easier in daily lab work. The new IKA Matrix thermoshaker product range now achieves optimal mixing results - from the smallest blood samples, t...
In the pharmaceutical industry, one term is becoming increasingly important: containment. It describes the process of containing a substance within a defined space, a method that is suitable for protecting operators and the environment in case of high toxicity and product reactivity. At the same time, containment prevents dust, gases or vapours from being released into t...
Is it a miracle solution to treat genetic diseases? A new way, faster and simpler, to make GMOs? Or a powerful tool to augment humans and create a new, more resistant human kind? With the CRISPR designer babies scandal in November, the scientific community is debating whether to put in place ethical rules and regulations on an international level. We spoke with Richard S...
On February 28, 2019, the world celebrated Rare Disease Day to raise awareness of more than 6,000 conditions that each affect fewer than 200,000 U.S. citizens. (That’s around one in every 1,640 people.) Advances in molecular diagnostics are detecting more rare diseases at lower costs than ever before. For families with a history of genetic disease or for when de novo...
The same research team that presented its safety findings of a first birth control pill for men at last year’s ENDO, the Endocrine Society’s 100th annual meeting in Chicago, presented separate findings for the second pill this week at the ENDO 2019 in New Orleans. The new oral contraceptive is called 11-beta-methyl-19-nortestosterone dodecylcarbonate, or 11-beta-MNTDC...
The prototype Dual Scan Mammoscope (DSM), developed at the University at Buffalo (NY, USA), Roswell Park Cancer Center (Buffalo, NY, USA) and Windsong Radiology (Williamsville, NY, USA), is a breast imaging system that provides visualization of angiographic features in the human breast with mammogram-like images. The system uses line optical fiber bundles to deliver the ...
Approximately 1.6 million people in the US have incurable inflammatory bowel disease, in which immune dysregulation and microbial factors in the gut contribute to lesions and inflammation in the gut lining. At present, anti-inflammatory drugs and antibiotics are often used to treat such conditions, but these can have serious side-effects. Antibiotics can also further dis...
The technology relies on strips of a paper-like material that can become saturated and can slowly move a liquid from its one end to another. The electronics are used to mix a small blood sample with a buffer solution and to then heat it as it moves across the paper. The heat helps to amplify the RNA and for the material to absorb the sample properly. Temperature sensors ...
