|
|
|
|
Friday, September 15, 2017
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Here's what you need to know about health and medicine today. And when you're done reading, test your knowledge of the week's news in our quiz. Let me know how you did on Twitter:
@meggophone.
|
Florida governor moves to cut funds for center where patients died
Florida Governor Rick Scott is calling on state health care officials to cut off Medicaid funding to the Hollywood Hills rehabilitation center where eight elderly patients died. Scott says the facility
— which is currently the subject of a criminal investigation — failed to provide a safe place for patients. Area officials said
patients died due to a lack of air conditioning. The facility, which was without power, had previously been cited for generator violations.
|
Raw milk blamed for infection in Paradise, Texas
State health officials are investigating a bacterial illness that might be blamed on raw milk from a dairy shop in Paradise, Texas. One person who drank raw milk from K-Bar Dairy was hospitalized for brucellosis,
an infection caused by bacteria found in cattle that can cause fever, sweats, fatigue, and in some cases, more serious complications. Milk samples from the facility tested positive for a strain of the bacteria that’s resistant to some frontline antibiotics,
including penicillin. The CDC says anyone who drank milk or milk products from K-Bar between June 1 and August 7 is at an increased risk and needs preventive care and possible testing.
|
FDA approves first app to help treat substance use disorders
The FDA has approved what it says is the first mobile app to help treat some substance use disorders. The Reset app, which is marketed by Pear Therapeutics, is a form of cognitive behavioral therapy that
gives patients strategies to help them remain abstinent from using drugs and alcohol and keep up with their outpatient therapy programs. The app was approved for use in conjunction with outpatient therapy. In a clinical trial, the app helped more patients
with some substance use disorders remain abstinent compared to patients who weren't using it. That didn’t apply to patients who were using opioids, though, and the Reset app wasn't approved to help treat opioid addiction.
|
Hospitals tested with infectious disease drills
New York City’s Department of Health put the area’s hospitals to the test to see how they’d react if a patient with a mysterious — and potentially contagious — disease showed up in their ERs. In 49 hospitals,
fake patients showed up either with a rash and a recent trip to Europe or respiratory problems and recent travel to the Middle East (potential cases of measles and Middle East respiratory syndrome).
Patients suspected of having either condition should be given a mask and swiftly escorted to an isolation room for examination. For 74 percent of measles drills and 83 percent of MERS drills, the hospitals passed. But they didn’t all do so with flying colors
— about 40 percent of the hospitals failed at least one drill, and how long it took to get a patient masked and isolated varied quite a bit. Officials have laid out the details in a new
report to help other health systems run their own drills.
|
Inside STAT: Dr. Vinay Prasad takes on critics with glee
Dr. Vinay prasad at Oregon Health and Sciences University. (AMANDA LUCIER FOR STAT)
Dr. Vinay Prasad's job is to see patients, teach medical students, and sometimes, scold people. The 34-year-old hematologist-oncologist has grown prominent in the medical community in recent years with
his high-impact papers, media cameos, and of course, his Twitter presence. He takes to Twitter each day, often criticizing a cancer drug as ineffective or overpriced, or writing off a clinical trial as irrelevant. He's earned the respect of many in medicine,
but he's also made some enemies. STAT's Meghana Keshavan spent time with Prasad in Oregon, where he's a professor and clinician. Read her story
here.
|
Parents, steer clear of slides
Parents: Don’t race down a slide with a kid on your lap. More than 352,000 young kids in the U.S. were injured on slides between 2002 and 2015, according to new
research. Toddlers between 12 and 23 months had the highest rate of injury, most commonly a leg fracture. The bulk of those cases happened when children were sliding while seated on a parent’s lap and got their legs caught
on the side or the bottom of a slide. The authors of the new report say that kids sliding alone are less likely to get a severe injury because of the relatively low amount of force involved — but the added weight of an adult generates more forward momentum.
|
Lab Chat: How lymph vessels work as double agents
a lymphatic vessel, in green, in a mouse model of melanoma. (Manuel Fankhauser and Maria Broggi/EPFL)
Scientists have long thought the formation of new lymphatic vessels — the tiny structures that carry lymph — helps tumors suppress the immune response. But new research shows those vessels might actually
make tumors more vulnerable to immunotherapy. Here’s what Melody Swartz of the University of Chicago told me about the finding, published in
Science Translational Medicine.
What did you set out to study about lymph vessels?
We’ve been trying to understand what they do to the immune microenvironment, and we found that they promote immune recognition but also immune suppression — they attract a lot of immune cells but they
maintain them in a suppressed state in the absence of anything. That’s what helps the tumor grow and metastasize.
How did you see it related to immunotherapy success?
We looked at VEGF-C, a growth factor that’s already known to be easily detected in the blood for lymphangiogenic tumors. We saw it correlated with patient response to immunotherapy. If we stratified patients
with high VEGF-C versus middle and low levels, and you look at their survival, it was really drastically different. Patients with high VEGF-C responded much better. This is exciting because it’s a biomarker that could predict immunotherapy success. It also
suggests that you might be able to make tumors that don’t respond more by targeting the lymphatics.
|
What to read around the web today
§
New details deepen mystery of US diplomats’ illness in Cuba.
AP
§
The crisis in gynecological cancer research.
New York Times
§
Ravens fans will get DNA test kits Sunday in NFL promotion.
Baltimore Sun
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thanks so much for reading. Back bright and early on Monday,
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
