News

The UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has issued draft guidance advising physicians to use a fecal calprotectin test to help distinguish between IBS and more serious bowel disorders.

Approved by the US FDA in August 2012, Gilead's Stribild is indicated to treat human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection in adults who have no prior experience with antiretroviral therapy.

Results of a recent clinical trial by researchers at the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine in the Affiliated Tenth People's Hospital of Tongji University, in Shanghai, China, have deemed locally injected methylcobalamin more effective than its orally administered counterpart as a treatment for subacute herpetic neuralgia.

In a mouse model of MS, mice treated with the mitochondrial translocator protein ligand etifoxine experienced reduced symptom severity.

The agency rejected a request from the painkiller's manufacturer to outlaw generic versions lacking tamper-resistant features just weeks after deciding the opposite way for generic versions of OxyContin.

Treating postherpetic neuralgia patients with the oral opioid agonist tramadol may significantly reduce moderate to severe nerve pain.

Prolonged treatment with combination antibiotics and proton pump inhibitors resulted in an eradication rate of greater than 90% in treated patients.

With what we now know about opioid misuse and abuse, we need to take the necessary steps to ensure that only abuse-resistant/deterrent medications are used for our patients taking ER/LA opioid medications.

The American College of Rheumatology recently announced a new easy-to-use curriculum and tools aimed to help medical professionals advance the diagnosis, treatment, and management of lupus.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today expanded approval of Simponi (golimumab) to treat moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that affects some 620,000 Americans.

Researchers using fMRI to study neural activity in IBS patients report that the processing and perception of visceral stimuli can be modulated by psychological and cognitive treatment.

The FDA approved Prothrombin Complex Concentrate (Kcentra), a first-in-class treatment for urgent vitamin K antagonist (VKA) anticoagulation reversal in adults with acute major bleeding.

Miscommunication is a frequently cited cause of preventable medical error, A new study finds that ambient background noise, whether it is loud equipment, talk among team members, or music, is a patient and surgical safety factor that can affect auditory processing among surgeons and surgical team members in the operating room (OR).

Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) have published a study in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology's May 2013 issue showing that copper surfaces in intensive care unit (ICU) rooms reduced health-acquired infections (HAIs) by 60 percent.

A statewide neonatal screening program in New Jersey designed to detect critical congenital heart defects (CCHDs) using pulse oximetry has been shown to save lives while putting little burden on hospital staff, according to a report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued a proposed rule, published in the Federal Register on May 10, 2013, to increase payments to US acute care hospitals by almost $27 million in fiscal year 2014.

The Joint Commission recently issued important recommendations to tackle the problem of medical device "alarm fatigue" in hospitals and its associated safety concerns.

Patients who have IBD, even those who are in clinical remission, often exhibit symptoms consistent with IBS, which can complicate the assessment and management of IBD and lead to unnecessary interventions.

Population-based study finds patients who use thiazide medications face a nearly fivefold increased risk of developing hyponatremia compared to patients who do not use these medications.

Study supports the current practice of post-surgery H. pylori eradication in patients with perforated peptic ulcers.

Genome studies provide clues about variation in individual risk for H. pylori infection.

Study from Kaiser Permanente contradicts the widely accepted assertion that blacks have a lower risk of multiple sclerosis than whites.

Both corrected and persistent hyponatremia are predictors of all-cause mortality in patients presenting with myocardial infarction.

Though the third edition of the International Classification of Headache Disorders (ICHD-III) proposes to label aura in non-hemiplegic migraine that lasts longer than one hour but shorter than one week as probable migraine with aura - or probable complex migraine - a group of researchers from Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and California decided to analyze clinical studies to determine whether or not that timeframe aligns with the typical duration of migraine aura.

Results from a small retrospective study indicate that treatment with tolvaptan increases sodium concentrations and excretion rhythm without significantly affecting kidney function in patients with refractory hyponatremia and dcompensated heart failure.

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.

Researchers claim that restricting dietary intake of fermentable short-chain carbohydrates improves GI symptoms in patients with IBS.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved Kcentra [prothrombin complex concentrate (human)] for the urgent reversal of anticoagulation induced by vitamin K antagonist (VKA) therapies such as warfarin in adult patients with acute major bleeding.

Researchers comparing scoring systems find considerable variation in performance and several factors that complicate direct comparison of systems.

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.