Gale Scott

Current National Institutes of Health guidelines caution surgeons not to operate on obese patients over age 60. Surgeons in the Bronx, NY have been performing bariatric surgery on such patients for years, and say they have had good results.

An easy-to-use nasal-spray version of naxolone hydrochloride (Narcan) got rapid FDA approval. It is available only by prescription, but requires no medical training to administer.

Ice hockey can be a rough sport, but in an investigation into an incident in Wisconsin, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that spectators are also at risk when arenas lack carbon monoxide detectors. Dozens of players and spectators were sickened with CO poisoning at the game.

Due in part to the high prices direct-acting antivirals for hepatitis C infection, many Medicaid programs are not offering them to injection drug users, nor are some states and institutions seeking these patients out for testing to see if they have the virus. But a new study shows that even when drug-users do not give up their habit, they can be safely and effectively treated for the lethal virus.

Obese people are generally less healthy than those of normal weight, but that should not be a barrier to liver transplantation, researchers said at the 2015 Liver Meeting (AASLD) in San Francisco, CA.

Price is still the main obstacle in getting hepatitis C direct-acting antivirals to nations that need them, panelists agreed at a "global challenges" forum at the 2015 Liver Meeting in San Francisco, CA.

Donor livers are scarce, donated organs are precious, and transplant surgeons make the final call on whether to transplant. When the question of whether to give a liver to a patient who uses marijuana, drinks too much alcohol, or even smokes tobacco comes up, the issue gets tricky.

The annual US cost of HCV treatment before direct-acting antivirals was $7 billion and since then it has grown to $21 billion, but that cost should drop when generics arrive, to $14 million annually by 2030. Making it a rare disease over the next 25 years will take $106 billion, researchers project.

Researchers see promise in vitamin E treatment for NASH.

All is not lost when hepatitis C genotype 1 patients fail to benefit from treatment with direct-acting antivirals (DAAs). Reporting at the 2015 Liver Meeting (AASLD) in San Francisco, CA, Fred Poordad, MD, of the Texas Liver Institute/University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, TX, and colleagues said they had success retreating patients who had failed DAAs.

Georgraphy matters in getting a liver transplant. Boston researchers found that living a long distance from a transplant center increased a child's risk of dying while on an organ waiting list, even though that distance did not mean a longer waiting time.

An estimated 10 million people in China have hepatitis C but the only treatment available there is interferon/ribaviron. Though the drug-approval process in China is slower than in other nations, a phase 3 trial of two Bristol-Myers Squibb direct-acting antivirals has been completed, putting access to DAAs closer.

Whether accidental or on purpose, acetaminophen overdose is a common finding in liver poisoning. Researchers at the 2015 Liver Meeting said they have zeroed in on the mechanism at work.

A regimen of grazoprevir, elbasvir, and a Merck agent known as MK-3682, or a second agent called MK-8408 (or both), showed "strong results" company researchers said in data presented at the 2015 Liver Meeting (AASLD) in San Francisco, CA.

A human-cell-based liver support system meant to keep patients alive despite acute liver failure did not help overall survival in a trial, but showed promise for a subset of patients. Those patients were younger and not as sick-though all subjects enrolled had alcoholic hepatitis.

Researchers who conducted the ASTRAL-1 trial of sofosbuvir/velpatasvir attending the Liver Meeting (AASLD) in San Francisco, CA, presented results of a study on an antiviral that works on five types of hepatitis C virus. The study findings were released last month by manufacturer Gilead.

Hepatitis C genotype 3 can be hard to cure, but researchers presenting a study at the Liver Meeting (AASLD) in San Francisco, CA, said they have found a regimen that works.

Egypt has the highest prevalence of hepatitis C in the word and most of it (90%) is genotype 4. Researchers presenting a study at the Liver Meeting (AASLD) in San Francisco, CA, reported success in a trial of ravidasvir

The high costs of direct-acting antivirals to treat hepatitis C infection is no secret, but neither is the fact that the drugs are cost-effective. Pennsylvania researchers found insurers were lagging in approving payment for the drugs in their four-state region, with Medicaid programs the worst offenders.

Despite the success of direct antivirals in curing hepatitis C, there are concerns about resistance to the drugs.

Liver transplant specialists looked at whether post-transplant hepatitis C patients could safely eliminate ribavirin (RBV) from their drug regimens. They found they could.

Ever since direct acting antivirals for hepatitis C came on the scene, physicians have been watching to see if the need for liver transplants will diminish. It appears they have.

Most patients with non-cirrhotic livers and HCV infection may need only three weeks of direct-acting antivirals, researchers said. They reported on a small proof-of-concept study in China.

Highly trained female athletes showed no sign of a negative effect on their hearts after intense workouts--contradicting studies that found such maximal excercise can be counter-productive, researchers said at the AHA meeting in Orlando, FL.

Heart disease presents differently in women, and a drug for angina that works for most men did not help most women with their angina, researchers reported today.

Injecting globs of a biopolymer based on brown algae into the heart muscle of patients with advanced heart disease helped halt or reverse disease. The procedure is meant to thicken the ventricle wall. That reduces pumping stress.

An investigational drug called andexanet alfa that can reverse the anticoagulant effects of FXa inhibitors met all primary and secondary efficacy endpoints, researchers said in a late-breaking clinical trial report at the AHA meeting in Orlando.

In patients with active rheumatoid arthritis symtoms that persisted even though they were taking methotrexate, baricitinib (Lilly/Incyte) treatment led to "significant improvements" researchers reported at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA.

Patients with persistently active systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) benefit from repository corticotropin injection (RCI).