News

Current epidemic response procedures may change due to the finding that the Ebola virus can persist in wastewater longer than previously believed.

With a rallying cry of "Hands off Our Legs" protestors are due to picket the US Department of Health and Human Services over a proposed Medicare rule change that would affect amputees.

To keep their minds sharp, older people are often advised to take vitamins or other dietary supplements and to engage in regular exercise. Two studies in JAMA show those practices had no effect on cognitive function.

Leflunomide, marketed under the brand name Arava, is a safe and effective treatment for early rheumatoid arthritis, according to a study in International Journal of Rheumatic Diseases.

The debate over whether influenza vaccines are valuable in elderly patients may be put to end as a study from Brown University has verified that the strategy has made a positive impact.

A retrospective review in Clinical, Cosmetic & Investigational Dermatology tried to answer the difficult question of why African Americans (AA), who have a much lower incidence of melanoma than Caucasians do, have a five-year survival rate that is drastically lower than it is for Caucasian patients. This is what's known as the "minority melanoma paradox," and the reasons for it are not well-understood.

Medical researchers know there is a connection between psoriasis and cardiovascular diseases, but a new Iranian study in Clinical, Cosmetic & Investigational Dermatology further verifies lipid abnormalities linked to psoriasis and suggests a serum lipid profile and blood pressure check for all of those patients.

A systematic review of alopecia areata (AA) in Clinical, Cosmetic & Investigational Dermatology highlighted the unpredictability and lack of treatment options for the condition. But it also pointed to a larger problem: more than half of patients with AA experience poor health-related quality of life (QOL). Patients with AA are at risk for depression and anxiety, atopy, vitiligo, thyroid disease, and other autoimmune conditions.

Safe and effective tattoo removal has a sketchy history, but a new study in Lasers in Surgery and Medicine suggests that a new technique can clear unwanted ink more rapidly than conventional methods. The technique involves a combination approach to a well-known and widely accepted technique – removal with Q-switched lasers – with a perfluorodecalin (PFD)-infused silicone patch.

Patients with fibromyalgia typically experience widespread chronic pain and a new study adds to the evidence that emotional impact is prominent as well.

Treatment for rheumatoid arthritis may be delivered like a vaccine, according to findings from Science Translational Medicine.

A nanometric sensor may be able to identify biomarkers of pathological conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS), neuromyelitis optica, and certain types of cancer, according to research published in Sensors Journal.

Female mice models felt pain differently than their male counterparts, according to a study published in Nature Neuroscience.

Dementia drugs may pose a risk for patient death more than previously understood, claims a JAMA Psychiatry study.

Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) often display inhibited mitochondrial protein pathways, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Half of the patients with psoriatic arthritis enrolled in a trial of etanercept continued responding to the medication and complying with treatment guidelines for more than 5 years.

Researchers from Kyoto University's Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) may have found a way to control cell functions in order to alleviate intractable pain.

It is unclear how many people have pituitary incidentaloma, but imaging and autopsy studies indicate they are quite common and occur in up to one-third of patients. Fortunately, the vast majority of these serendipitously discovered tumors are clinically insignificant. A management guideline in the Annals of Endocrinology brings endocrinologists up to date on current thinking about pituitary incidentaloma management.

Most self-improvement intervention programs rely on self-monitoring, or increased awareness of bad habits, to help people change their behaviors. Traditionally, programs have used diaries, calendar notes, or check-ins at daily or weekly meetings to help individuals recognize and replace unhelpful routines. The October 2015 issue of Telemedicine and e-Health includes a study that describes how simple electronic feedback can help people with weight problems.

Study results show that opioid overdoses appear to frequently occur in patients who are not chronic users with high prescribed doses of opioids, in contrast to the patient groups targeted by current opioid prescribing guidelines.

Findings from two studies presented July 22 at the International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference in Vancouver, Canada indicate that HIV treatment for illicit drug users appears to improve their social and socioeconomic wellbeing, in addition to their overall health.

Researchers have developed a new rinse-off, hypertolerant shampoo specifically designed for the hypersensitive and problematic scalp.

Investigators have shown that changes in toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) mRNA expression level are significantly associated with major depressive disorder (MDD). The study, which appeared in Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, is a follow-up to an earlier study by the same researchers that first established the connection between TLR4 and MDD.

Some studies have shown the benefit of a blunt, Whitacre-type needle in reducing the incidence of intravascular injection during TFESI, but other studies showed that a short-bevel needle did not reduce the incidence of intravascular injection in lumbar TFESI compared to long-bevel, Quincke-type needles.

There has been a great deal of study on the placebo effect in the medical literature, and despite some evidence suggesting that placebo response rates in randomized controlled trials are higher in children and adolescents compared to adults, there has only been limited research involving the placebo response of children.

A recent study suggests that patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) have a higher incidence of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome that increases with the severity of cervical vertebral involvement. A separate study published on the same day suggests that specific exercise regimens may be beneficial for patients with AS.

Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) presents several diagnostic and treatment challenges, in part because etiology and pathogenesis remains relatively unknown. Most studies of OCD focus on adult patients, but there have been some studies of OCD onset before the age of 6 years, and the vast majority of OCD patients (80%) report that related symptoms began before age 18.

Data concerning general outcomes and indicating performance of general pain clinics remain sparse, according to a study in the Journal of Pain and Research. The United Kingdom study suggests that this lack of standardized measurements negatively impacts the ability to judge the overall effectiveness of pain clinics, both in the UK and in other parts of the world.

What can the length of a woman's fingers tell us about their susceptibility to acne vulgaris (AV)? Plenty, it turns out, according to a study in the American Journal of Clinical Dermatology. The study suggests that a more masculine second-to-fourth digit (2D:4D) ratio may predict sebum levels and, therefore, the potential for developing AV.

A recent study in The Journal of Headache and Pain sheds some additional light on the chronobiological experience of patients with cluster headache (CH). However, it still leaves lingering mysteries around the pattern of pain CH that patients typically experience, the triggers of those headaches, and the mechanisms and interactions that drive headache frequency and severity.