FDA Panel: No Changes Needed for fall COVID Boosters | NewsDirectory3 Key Points FDA panel advises using the JN.1 strain for fall COVID boosters. Panelists express concern over potential delays from new trial requirements. COVID-19 remains a risk, especially for older adults and young children. Vaccine uptake remains low despite proven effectiveness. Updated labels warn … Read more
TOPLINE: In a study, patients who received a team-based intervention involving education and mobile health support in the emergency department (ED) had greater reduction in systolic blood pressure (SBP) at 6 months than those who received standard discharge care. METHODOLOGY: A randomized clinical trial enrolled 574 adult patients (mean age, 51.1 years) with elevated BP … Read more
TOPLINE: Adding radium-223 dichloride (Ra223) to metastasis-directed stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) did not improve progression-free survival compared with SABR alone in men with bone-only oligometastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer, according to a phase 2 trial. However, the authors identified two potential prognostic biomarkers — high-risk DNA mutations and T-cell receptor repertoire diversity — to predict progression-free … Read more
On a cold Wednesday morning in January, Ruben Olivares, MD, sat down at a computer workstation in Cleveland to perform surgery on a man with prostate cancer. Olivares, a urologist at Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, directed a robot to send high-intensity, focused ultrasound waves to the tumor. But this time, the patient was not in a … Read more
TOPLINE: Low-dose CT screening in a high-risk population detected lung cancer in 2.0% of participants, with nearly 80% of cases diagnosed at stage I or II. The screening protocol demonstrated 97.0% sensitivity at 12 months, with a 4.8% false-positive rate. METHODOLOGY: Annual low-dose CT screening has been recommended in the United States since 2013, but … Read more
Children under 15 account for 4.3% of all new and relapsed tuberculosis (TB) cases in the WHO European Region, which includes Europe and Central Asia, compared with 3.9% in 2022, a 10% increase. The finding was released this week in the 2025 Tuberculosis Surveillance and Monitoring Report. Veronica Cristea, MD The news has prompted urgent … Read more
TOPLINE: Among patients with acute cholecystitis who were managed non-operatively, 38.3% experienced new complications. Delayed cholecystectomy was recommended for younger patients with prior complications. METHODOLOGY: Researchers conducted a retrospective study to identify risk factors for gallstone disease relapse and establish the timeline for recurrence. They included 1634 patients treated for acute cholecystitis at three Swedish … Read more
For many people, living longer brings health challenges: Osteoporosis, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease. And of course, zombie cells. The technical term is senescent cells. They’re damaged and unable to repair themselves. They’re also more likely to linger in the body as we age — like zombies — secreting inflammatory molecules that can hasten our decline. “They … Read more
TOPLINE: Treatment with Paxlovid in older adults did not appear to make a difference in whether or not they were hospitalized because of COVID-19. METHODOLOGY: Over a 9-month time span starting in April 2022, researchers analyzed the hospital data of over 1.6 million Ontario residents aged 65 to 74 years. Nearly 88% of all patients … Read more
Influenza is surging in Canada, with a test positivity rate of 24.3% in the first week of February, according to data from the Canadian respiratory virus surveillance report. There were 10,449 detections of influenza during the week ending February 8. About 94% of cases resulted from influenza A (H1N1), and about 6% of cases resulted … Read more