Pulmonology

Cardiac surgery teams should be trained to improve communication and teamwork, and hospitals should establish robust quality assurance systems to identify and correct safety hazards.

Surgeons and hospitals are concerned about perioperative risk reduction for obstructive sleep apnea patients.

While substantial evidence already shows several genetic and environmental elements factor into immune-mediated rheumatic disease susceptibility, a recent review of hospital admissions data suggests vitamin D deficiency can single-handedly elevate a patient's risk of developing certain chronic conditions within that group of disorders.

As part of a new pilot program, more than 300 US hospitals have begun to voluntarily report 30-day all-cause risk standardized readmission rates after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

Although many US hospitals tout quality improvement in surgical outcomes, new research findings released at the national conference of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) show that taking cancer operation performance into account would deliver a more accurate hospital rating.

Although previous studies have already established that low serum sodium levels commonly occur in critically ill children who require hospitalization, a team of Polish researchers aimed to more closely evaluate the link between hyponatremia and the severity of a child's community-acquired pneumonia (CAP).

The federal government's Partnership for Patients Hospital Engagement Networks (HENs), which work to improve patient care through implementation and dissemination of best practices in clinical quality, have released checklists for 10 areas of patient care.

Researchers at the Hanyang University College of Medicine set the record straight on the association between IBS symptoms and methane and hydrogen gas produced by intestinal fermentation of lactulose and excreted in the breath during lactulose breath test.

Recent research from the University of Michigan Health Systems published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that hospitals with the highest rates of cardiac arrests are more likely to have the poorest survival rates for those cases.

Citing a need for new therapies to remedy serious diseases acquired in hospitals, the US Food and Drug Administration has expanded approval of Vibativ (telavancin) to treat bacterial pneumonia when alternative drugs aren't appropriate.

The US Food and Drug Administration has awarded "breakthrough therapy" status to a synthetic copy of a naturally occurring human hormone for the treatment of acute heart failure (AHF), drug developer Novartis announced today.

Researchers present surprising new data at Hospital Medicine 2013 about venous thromboembolism prophylaxis implementation, along with novel approaches to integrating primary care and hospital management of very ill patients.

Citing an increased risk of liver injury observed in recent clinical trials, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has limited Samsca (tolvaptan) treatment to 30 days and recommended the oral selective vasopressin V2-receptor antagonist be discontinued in patients with signs of liver disease or symptoms of liver injury.

In diagnosing a patient with type 2 diabetes, an endocrinologist or primary care physician may struggle with developing healthy treatment targets when comorbid conditions like obesity and hypoglycemia are at play.

As an adjunct to diet and exercise, Amarin's lipid-regulating agent Vascepa (icosapent ethyl capsules) is indicated to reduce triglyceride levels in adult patients with severe hypertriglyceridemia, or very high triglyceride (TG) levels greater than or equal to 500 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL).

Approved by the FDA nearly four years ago, Otsuka Group's once-daily Samsca (tolvaptan tablets) is indicated to raise serum sodium levels in nonurgent patients with hyponatremia.

Approved by the FDA in July 2011, AstraZeneca's Brilinta (ticagrelor tablets) is a twice-daily treatment to reduce the rate of myocardial infarction and cardiovascular death in adult patients with acute coronary syndrome.

Bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego have deemed a new injectable hydrogel safe and effective for repairing tissue damage caused by myocardial infarction, providing a platform to bring the gel to clinical trials within the next year.

After finding abnormal elevations of cardiac inflammation in patients with depressive illness (DI), a psychiatrist at Loyola University Medical Center, in Maywood, Ill., has proposed a new subspecialty to diagnose and treat patients with both depression and cardiovascular disease (CVD).

Vaccinating pregnant women against the influenza virus appears to have a significant positive effect on infant birth weight.

The cost of asthma due to traffic pollution is far higher than previously estimated, researchers report in a study published online Jan. 20 in European Respiratory Journal.

Research on people recruited randomly from the community suggests that, after adjusting for various demographic, behavioral, and physical characteristics, there is no association between sleep apnea and hypertension.

The FDA announced today that it had approved Kalydeco (ivacaftor) to treat cystic fibrosis caused by a rare genetic mutation. The drug was approved in just three months under the agency's priority review program and was developed by its manufacturer, Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc., with assistance from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Researchers have mined a national database to create and validate a risk calculator for perioperative pulmonary complications.

Marijuana contains many of the irritating chemicals found in tobacco, but smoking it occasionally does not result in long-term loss of lung function, a recent study indicates.

New evidence from a large cohort study of mothers and children in Norway has affirmed previous studies indicating that babies born via caesarean section have an elevated risk of developing asthma.

A recently published paper in the medical journal Pediatrics argues that there is finally strong enough evidence for doctors to recommend that infants and children who have asthma or are at risk for the disease avoid acetaminophen.

A recent study has found that the children of women exposed to elevated levels of DDE while they were pregnant had increased rates of pneumonia and bronchitis in their first year of life.

Hefty toddlers who stay overweight until age seven have an increased risk of asthma, but toddlers who lose the extra pounds before then suffer no additional risk.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology's list of the top five advances in cancer screening, prevention, and treatment over the last year includes two that address lung cancer: a finding that detection with CT scans leads to reduced lung cancer deaths and the FDA's approval of crizotinib to treat non-small-cell lung cancer in patients whose tumors have a specific mutation.