Year: 2020

Categories : UncategorizedTags : Leave a comment

“Long COVID” Linked to Pre-existing Conditions

On By ModernMedia

Studies on re-admission of diseases other than COVID, such as influenza, concluded that they were caused by complex interactions within the immune system.

Patients are currently considered cleared of COVID after two sequential negative tests.

Researchers from the bio-information firm “nference” performed a retrospective analysis of 266 patients treated for COVID.
This analysis compared patients admitted or re-admitted after viral clearance with patients hospitalised before viral clearance but did not require hospitalisation after viral clearance.
The researchers at nference used neural network models to draw out factors such as comorbidities in their dataset. The results showed that the hospitalised post-viral clearance group showed acute kidney injury (n=15 (16.1%)), anaemia (n=20 (21.5%)), and cardiac arrhythmia (n=21 (22.6%)) in the year preceding the onset of COVID.

The authors of the study by nference hope the information will guide further research into risk factors for COVID.

Source: News-Medical.Net

Categories : UncategorizedTags : Leave a comment

Ask Patients about Any Cannabis Use Frankly

On By ModernMedia

With legalisation and increasingly widespread use of cannabis, healthcare providers should be as open-minded about cannabis use in their patients as possible

Marian Wilson, registered nurse and associate professor at the Washington State University College of Nursing, argues in a recent paper that enquiring about it like they would alcohol or tobacco is necessary to obtain adequate patient histories and build trust.

Many studies have indicated that patients are using it to treat pain in much the same way they do opioids. Since they are using it in this way, they need to be asked about it for pain management. Since patients are reluctant to disclose this information with clinicians, there is currently a lack of information on prevalence and usage habits.

“We want this paper to guide providers in how they can start opening up this conversation and normalising it,” Wilson said. “Central to patient-centred conversations is understanding the top priorities of patients. Researchers have suggested that clinicians should ask ‘What matters to you?’ as well as ‘What is the matter?'”

Source: News-Medical.Net

Categories : UncategorizedTags : Leave a comment

Biden to Hit the Ground Running with COVID Response

On By ModernMedia

Mounting an effective response to COVID was one of presidential hopeful Joe Biden’s campaign promises, and now that he has won the US elections, he is seeking to implement this response as soon as possible.

This comes at a critical time, as the US has been struggling with record new cases, breaking 100 000 per day in the last few days, with sombre predictions of another 100 000 deaths by January, stoked by the advent of winter and people socialising for the festive season. Biden has begun assembling a science-focussed team to prepare to take on managing the COVID pandemic as soon as he takes office.

Numerous challenges will face Biden’s team when he assumes office. One of them is the extreme distrust that has emerged as a result of the politicisation of the virus. 

Angela Rasmussen, a virus researcher at Columbia University in New York, said: “The past year of misinformation, confusion and gaslighting from the White House has really left people without any trust that our government is capable of handling this. It’s going to be critical to begin communicating that, yes, this administration will be led by the science.” 

 Some believe that, unfortunately, that it is a case off too little, too late, and that attitudes cannot be so easily changed. Kris Mathews, the administrator of Decatur Health, a small hospital in rural Kansas, said, “I think the damage is done. People have made up their minds about how they react to it.”  

Biden has also promised to have the US rejoin the World Health Organization on the first day of his presidency. Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the WHO’s chief scientist, said: “Everyone recognises that for a pandemic, you cannot have a country-by-country approach. You need a global approach.” She expressed optimism that the US under Biden would join the global Covax scheme led by the WHO to distribute the vaccine to the needy.

Source: Medical Xpress

Categories : UncategorizedTags : Leave a comment

Earlier Immunotherapy and Chemo May Help Stomach Cancer Treatment

On By ModernMedia

New research indicates that earlier immunotherapy in combination with normal chemotherapy may be needed to treat stomach cancer, which is often resistant to the treatment.

“Patients with advanced stomach cancer have limited treatment options,” says Woosook Kim, PhD, first author of the paper. “Many are not eligible for surgical resection, and response to radiotherapy or chemotherapy is often low.”

Many cancers release proteins that prevent the immune system from attacking them; immunotherapy blocks these proteins, re-enabling the immune system’s attack. However, current immunotherapy drugs do not work very well for stomach cancer. Looking at advanced tumours in mice, researchers discovered that they have abundant myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), which release even more immune system-blocking proteins, swamping the immunotherapy drugs.

“Our study suggests that adding chemotherapy to immunotherapy may improve responsiveness in part through the targeting of MDSCs,” said Timothy Wang, MD, the study leader. “While we do not have enough information to determine if the level of MDSCs may predict response to this dual regimen, our findings show that administering immunotherapy in combination with chemotherapy earlier in the course of the disease, when MDSC levels are much lower, may boost response rates in stomach cancer,” Wang concluded.

Source: Medical Xpress

Categories : UncategorizedTags : Leave a comment

Impact of COVID Lockdown on Soweto Residents’ Mental Health

On By ModernMedia

A new study reported by Health-e has revealed the mental health toll that COVID and the lockdown to control it took on residents of Soweto, with 957 participants interviewed before the lockdown and then six weeks into the lockdown.

The interviews revealed that some 14% of those surveyed were at risk of depression, which was worsened by factors such as childhood trauma as well as their level of knowledge about COVID. Feeling unable to take precautions against the virus caused anxiety levels to skyrocket. 

“While participants believed that the pandemic did not affect their mental health or their ‘mind,’ the strong relationship between perceived risk and depressive symptoms raises the concern that they may not be aware of the potential threats to their mental health during Covid-19,” said Dr Andrew Wooyoung Kim, co-director of the study. “This discrepancy may be due to different ideas of mental health, including mental health stigma.”

Kim acknowledges that the challenging South African environment of poverty and poor services may also have had significant impacts.
“Our study re-emphasises the importance of prioritising and provisioning accessible mental health resources for resource-limited communities in Soweto and across South Africa,” Kim added. 

Categories : UncategorizedTags : Leave a comment

Anti-anxiety Drug Repurposed to Boost Cancer Therapies

On By ModernMedia

University of Cincinnati clinician-scientist Soma Sengupta, MD, PhD, says that new findings from a study conducted by her and Daniel Pomeranz Krummel, PhD, showed promising results towards enhancing the effectiveness of traditional cancer treatments with a simple anti-anxiety drug, repurposed and proven effective against melanomas.

Sengupta said, “While physicians can often quickly find and treat melanoma of the skin, metastatic melanoma, or melanoma that has spread to other parts of the body, often the brain, is a lethal cancer. Often, patients who receive immunotherapy, which uses the patient’s own immune system to treat the condition, do not have good responses. They also experience many uncomfortable side effects that impact their quality of life.”

By using a new class of sedatives (related to diazepam) to target GABA receptors, radiation or immune therapy could be enhanced, with reduced side effects. Animal study results showed that the drug allowed better infiltration of immune cells into the tumour cells, causing them to shrink, or in some cases even disappear.

“Our long-term goal is to add this new class of drugs to a patient’s radiation and immunotherapy treatment,” said Sengupta. “We hope this will help patients avoid side effects, and that by adding this drug to the regimens, we will reduce costs, since we think the treatments will become more effective, and in turn, doses of standard treatments can be lowered. More studies are needed, but this is a promising new approach using a non-toxic drug from a class of compounds that have already been approved for anxiety, but now used for a serious condition that claims lives every day.”

Source: News-Medical.Net

Categories : UncategorizedTags : Leave a comment

UNICEF Calls for Urgent Action to Avoid Polio and Measles Epidemics

On By ModernMedia

UNICEF and the World Health Organization issued a press release today calling for a major effort to avert impending epidemics of both polio and measles resulting from disruption caused by COVID.

The organisations estimate that US$655 million (US$400 million for polio and US$255 million for measles) is needed to address immunity gaps that are opening up for these deadly and debilitating diseases.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, said, “COVID-19 has had a devastating effect on health services and in particular immunization services, worldwide. But unlike with COVID, we have the tools and knowledge to stop diseases such as polio and measles. What we need are the resources and commitments to put these tools and knowledge into action. If we do that, children’s lives will be saved.”

Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director, added, “We cannot allow the fight against one deadly disease to cause us to lose ground in the fight against other diseases. Addressing the global COVID-19 pandemic is critical. However, other deadly diseases also threaten the lives of millions of children in some of the poorest areas of the world. That is why today we are urgently calling for global action from country leaders, donors and partners. We need additional financial resources to safely resume vaccination campaigns and prioritize immunization systems that are critical to protect children and avert other epidemics besides COVID-19.”

Gaps were already opening in measles coverage, with minor outbreaks even before the disruption of the COVID pandemic. Polio risks resurgence in Afghanistan, Pakistan and in under-immunised areas of Africa. To help address these challenges, a novel polio vaccine is being developed and a new response plan is being developed.

Categories : UncategorizedTags : Leave a comment

Study Reconstructs Original SARS-CoV-2 “Progenitor” Genome

On By ModernMedia

Medical Xpress reports on a study which managed to make a reconstruction of the original SARS-CoV-2 genome that infected patient zero.

No genome could have possibly been sampled in the early days when the virus made the jump to humans while the world was still unaware of the disease; thus, it has to be reconstructed by working backwards through all the mutations recorded. This study was led by Sudhir Kumar, director of the Institute for Genomics and Evolutionary Medicine, Temple University, and sifted through 30 000 complete SARS-CoV-2 genomes, searching for what they called the “progenitor genome”.

Previous attempts to reach the same goal because the focus was to build an evolutionary tree, said Kumar. “This coronavirus evolves too slow, the number of genomes to analyze is too large, and the data quality of genomes is highly variable. I immediately saw parallels between the properties of these genetic data from coronavirus with the genetic data from the clonal spread of another nefarious disease, cancer,” Kumar said.

The research has already yielded intriguing insights; a protein that made the virus more infectious apparently appeared early on, before many of the other mutations that took place, but this protein was not in the progenitor genome.

Categories : UncategorizedTags : Leave a comment

New COVID Lineages Found in SA

On By ModernMedia

To study the spread of COVID in South Africa, an interdisciplinary team called the Network for Genomics Surveillance in South Africa (NGS-SA) was formed with members from SA, the UK and Brazil. Analysing 1365 genomes of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the researchers found 16 new COVID lineages which emerged in SA, which account for 42% of the country’s infections.

As could be expected, the bulk of introductions occurred before the advent of the lockdown and travel bans. Whether these new COVID lineages have any superior attributes relative to the original strains is as yet unknown, although the infectivity appears the same.

The study shows that, despite the lockdown, new strains emerged in localised outbreaks. Nosocomial outbreaks were also studied; in one case an outbreak in a hospital in KZN which went on to infect 16% of the population was brought under control, partly as a result of the investigation.

Source: News-Medical.Net

Categories : UncategorizedTags : Leave a comment

New Earwax Cortisol Test Lauded for Measuring Stress Levels

On By ModernMedia

A new way to gauge cortisol levels has been tested that involves testing a sample of earwax obtained using a cotton bud with a simple brake to prevent it penetrating too far into the ear.

Although blood, urine or saliva can be tested, they only measure short-term levels of cortisol, which can be highly variable, even from the stress of the sample being taken. Earwax samples can provide estimates of stable long-term levels of cortisol.

Lead researcher Dr Andres Herane-Vives, of University College London’s Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience said, “Cortisol sampling is notoriously difficult, as levels of the hormone can fluctuate, so a sample might not be an accurate reflection of a person’s chronic cortisol levels. Moreover, sampling methods themselves can induce stress and influence the results.

“But cortisol levels in earwax appear to be more stable, and with our new device, it’s easy to take a sample and get it tested quickly, cheaply and effectively.”

This new earwax cortisol test, which proved faster and yielded more cortisol than one taking samples from hair, has the potential to be very cheap and can be conducted at home. The technology could even be adapted to measure other biomarkers, and potentially test for COVID.

Source: The Guardian