Ryan Black

While rates of overall use of prescription opioid use among young people for nonmedical reasons either dropped or remained relatively unchanged between 2002 and 2014, the development of use disorders later in life increased dramatically.

In a potential future where 3D printing plays a large role in hospital medicine, pliable, bio-adaptive, custom bone transplants could be quickly printed using a new "ink" developed by researchers at Northwestern.

A new study examined the cost of increasingly prevalent non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in both the United States and Europe and places the bill in the hundreds of billions.

The study identified several characteristics to observe in HIV patients who develop broadly neutralizing HIV antibodies (bnAbs), which occur naturally in about one percent of those infected with the disease and could be key in an eventual vaccine. Black patients were found more likely to develop them than white.

The drug, a fully human monoclonal antibody that has impressed equally in asthma and atopic dermatitis trials, may be approved for market as soon as March of 2017.

Sirukumab, a rheumatoid arthritis treatment that has performed well in recent studies, is now awaiting approval in both the United States and Europe.

Across the board, researchers saw that studies of active smokers showed increased prevalence of the skin condition, regardless of age or region. It isn't quite clear, though, whether smoking causes AD or AD causes people to smoke.

“It definitely gave me an incentive,” says Kim D. Janda of his experience with Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) and its influence on his current work to find better treatments for the common and sometimes fatal intestinal infection.

A study out of the University of Montreal explores newer, more accurate methods of targeting "HIV reservoirs" and tests two drugs, originally developed for cancer treatment, for their ability to bring the virus out of hiding.

Phages were originally discovered and administered as a treatment a century ago, but fell by the wayside in favor of antibiotics. "But now we have this strong driver of antimicrobial resistance. There is a big resurgence in this area, so it’s an exciting time to be looking at these organisms,” says Martha Clokie.

At the European Society of Cardiology (ESC 2016) Congress late last month, Laila Staerk, MD, of Herlev and Gentofte University Hospital in Denmark, presented the findings of a large study on bleeding among patients with atrial fibrillation who were prescribed various stoke prevention medicines.

Announced at the European Respiratory Society’s International Congress in London, a new meta-analysis published in the Cochrane Library seems to show that vitamin D, in conjunction with standard asthma care, may reduce incidence of asthma attacks.

The International Network for Hepatitis C in Substance Users points to economic and pseudo-scientific barriers that keep drug-using hepatitis sufferers from receiving new, effective treatments, including an assumption that illicit drug use reduced the efficacy of certain medications

Erelzi, a biosimilar of Enbrel (etanercept), has received FDA approval. Biosimilars are defined by the organization as being “highly similar to an FDA-approved biological product” while demonstrating “clinically meaningful differences in terms of safety and effectiveness.”

Embattled Mylan scored a victory when Teva's patents for Copaxone were invalidated. The decision comes on the eve of a trial in which Teva will fight two other pharmaceutical companies over the right to produce glatiramer acetate treatments for multiple sclerosis.

The study claims to be “one of the largest primary care cohorts ever assembled to describe epidemiologic characteristics of healthcare provider-diagnosed eczema, asthma, allergic rhinitis, and food allergy.”

Previous research showed that non-smoking residents of multi-unit buildings were still at risk due to smoke infiltration: nicotine concentrations were comparable from unit to unit regardless of whether or not the resident smoked.

Roughly 20% of people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) also suffer from chronic kidney disease (CKD), though no clear explanation exists as to whether or not that is coincidental.

Enthesitis refers to the instance of inflammation at the point where a tendon joins to a bone. Looking for further insight into the mechanisms behind inflammatory rheumatism, researchers from delved into the roots of Achilles enthesitis and may have emerged with a new approach to treating many rheumatic conditions.

Atop a growing body of research that examines how rheumatoid arthritis (RA) symptoms are dictated by the body’s circadian rhythms, a recent study seems to explain why so many people-RA sufferers included-wake up each day with stiff joints.

Interleukin-1β (IL-1beta), a cytokine that plays in important role in the body’s immune response, turns out to be part of the body’s early defense system for bacterial infections. Anti-inflammation treatments for autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis (RA) often times inhibit IL-1beta to mitigate the inflammation that it initiates when infection is detected.

Typically, the creation of a new drug is a process of tweaking or combining existing drugs to alter outcomes and side effects. A recent collaboration between researchers from Germany and across the United States, however, takes a novel approach in the battle against opiate addiction: trying to build a new painkiller from scratch.

While outperforming placebo, thee was not much separation between the new drug and an existing treatment, teriparatide, and it is unclear whether the two share risks.

Polymers called nucleic acid scavengers (NAS) can be used to seek out and bind to dead-cell debris, limiting the immune system’s pathological response without compromising it.

Because those who experience BPD very early in life are believed to be at a higher risk of decreased lung function and other chronic breathing issues like apnea and asthma, the study of microbial balance in infant airways could provide doctors with important predictive information.

Findings suggest the DASH diet is an “effective, non-pharmacologic approach to prevent flares in patients with gout.”

“MANF supplementation to photoreceptors transplanted into congenitally blind mice increased integration efficiency and accelerated and improved visual function recovery,” according to the study.

A newer, smaller inserter has been shown to be even more effective for the delivery of Medidur than a previous slightly larger-gauge inserter, and none of 11 eyes implanted in Phase 2 showed signs of uveitis recurrence two years after the injection.

The blistering pace of mobile innovation has opened countless doors for clinical application. Built on Apple's ResearchKit platform, GSK's PARADE app seeks to study rheumatoid arthritis patients in their daily lives.

To prevent processes that cause macular degeneration, the researchers employed a one-two punch treatment."CD59 prevents the final step of attack that forms the pore. Once a pore forms, the cell can move a lysosome to close it."