News

With Her Ultrasound Broadcast on Facebook, the Zoo’s Orangutan Is Confirmed Pregnant

By Beth Py-Lieberman | smithsonian.com  | June 14, 2016

The female named Batang should deliver her new infant in mid-September

It’s official. For the first time in 25 years, the Smithsonian’s National Zoo is expecting a baby orangutan. The new baby should arrive by mid-September.

Orangutan-PG

The news was made official today when the mother orang received an ultrasound and the entire event was broadcast live on Facebook.

Lupus may confer higher risk for cervical cancer

By: SARA FREEMAN, Family Practice News Digital Network | JUNE 9, 2016

Stop-Cervical-CancerVITALS

Key clinical point: Women with SLE should be encouraged to be screened for cervical cancer, particularly those treated with immunosuppressive drugs.

Major finding: The hazard ratio for cervical neoplasia in women with SLE versus those without was 2.12.

Data source: Swedish registry study of nearly 5,000 women with SLE.

Disclosures: The researchers reported having no relevant financial disclosures.


LONDON – Women with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have more than twice the risk of developing cervical neoplasia than do women in the general population, according to the results of a large Swedish registry study.

The study’s results indicate that the highest risk for cervical dysplasia or invasive cancer occurred among women with SLE who were using immunosuppressive agents, compared with those on antimalarial medication.

Diagnosing Kidney Cysts

By Sally Robertson, BSc

Kidney (renal) cysts are fluid-filled sacs that form on one or both of the kidneys. Usually, these cysts do not cause symptoms or kidney damage, in which case they are referred to as simple kidney cysts.

Simple kidney cysts are very different from the type of cysts that develop when a person has the genetic condition polycystic kidney disease (PKD), which causes scarring of the kidney tissue that can eventually damage the kidney and lead to kidney failure.

Simple cysts sometimes cause symptoms if they have become large enough or have started to press on other organs. They can also become infected, leading to pain and fever.

Peyton Manning Checks In With Family Of Infant Who Got Heart Transplant

A 2-month-old baby in Pueblo is being called a living miracle after getting and surviving a heart transplant.

Cash Blanchfield was diagnosed with a severe heart disease called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, also known as HCM, on top of having a genetic disorder.

“It progressed to the point where both sides were having difficulty getting blood out of the heart,” said pediatric cardiologist Scott Auerbach.

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Physical inactivity increases risk of thrombosis

May 3, 2016 | Medical University of Vienna

Women with poor physical fitness display significantly higher platelet activation than women with average to very good fitness. Platelet (thrombocyte) activation can lead to the formation of potentially life-threatening blood clots. These blood clots can block blood vessels (thrombosis) and cut off the blood supply to organs.

thrombosis-post

Women with poor physical fitness display significantly higher platelet activation than women with average to very good fitness. That is the major finding of a study of 62 young women, conducted by the research groups of Ivo Volf (MedUni Vienna Institute for Physiology) and Rochus Pokan (University of Vienna Institute for Sports Sciences) and sponsored by the Austrian Heart Foundation. Platelet (thrombocyte) activation can lead to the formation of potentially life-threatening blood clots. These blood clots can block blood vessels (thrombosis) and cut off the blood supply to organs.

Too Many People Still Take Unneeded Antibiotics

By Dennis Thompson

TUESDAY, May 3, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Nearly one-third of the antibiotics prescribed in the United States aren’t appropriate for the conditions being treated, a new federal government study shows.

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“We were able to conclude that at least 30 percent of the antibiotics that are given in doctors’ offices, emergency departments and hospital-based clinics are unnecessary, meaning that no antibiotics were needed at all,” said lead researcher Dr. Katherine Fleming-Dutra.

Such misuse has helped fuel the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which infect 2 million Americans and kill 23,000 every year, said Fleming-Dutra, a pediatrician and epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Antibiotics are most misused in the treatment of short-term respiratory conditions, such as colds, bronchitis, sore throats, and sinus and ear infections, the researchers reported.

“About half of antibiotic prescriptions for acute respiratory conditions were unnecessary,” Fleming-Dutra said.

PulmCrit Wee: Ultrasound-guided blakemore tube placement

May 4, 2016 | Josh Farkas

Introduction

The most widely feared complication of placing a Blakemore tube is complete inflation of the gastric balloon while it is not in the stomach.  If the gastric balloon is fully inflated anywhere outside the stomach (i.e. esophagus, trachea, bronchus, duodenum), this may cause visceral perforation.

Two cases of ultrasound-guided Blakemore placement

Case #1

A patient required Blakemore tube placement due to refractory variceal hemorrhage.  With continuous monitoring via transgastric ultrasonography, the Blakemore tube was advanced.  The tube could be visualized entering the stomach.  When the tube was advanced to a depth of 50 cm, the gastric balloon was inflated with 50ml of air.  The balloon was well visualized by ultrasonography to be inflating within the stomach.

Since ultrasonography is not a validated tool to confirm placement in the stomach, an abdominal X-ray was also ordered and waiting at the bedside.  A portable X-ray was obtained, which confirmed that the balloon was inflated below the diaphragm.

Abdominal ultrasonography was resumed following the X-ray, but at that point the Blakemore tube could no longer be seen within the stomach.  Further evaluation revealed that the tube had been inadvertently withdrawn while positioning the patient after the X-ray.  The tube was re-advanced to 50cm, at which point the balloon could again be visualized within the stomach.  At this point, the balloon was fully inflated under direct ultrasonographic guidance.

Why Your Heart Disease Risk May Not Be as High as You Think

@aliceparkny | 

Doctors may be overestimating risk for heart problems, which means some people may be prescribed drugs they don’t need

Heart disease is the leading killer of Americans, so predicting who is at highest risk of heart attack or stroke is a top priority. After decades of relying on a checklist of risk factors identified in the 1950s, which included factors like high cholesterol, high blood pressure, excessive weight gain and family history of heart trouble, heart experts decided to update the formula for calculating risk in 2013.

The new formula focused less on specific cholesterol targets and instead created an algorithm of the most significant risk factors, each weighted for how much they might contribute to heart issues. The problem, as many doctors quickly pointed out, was that the new formula seemed to loosen the criteria for putting people on medications, especially ones that lower cholesterol. Simply being older, for example, could push a person into higher risk territory that would warrant a statin prescription, even if this person ate a healthy diet, got plenty of exercise and wasn’t overweight or hypertensive. So this raised serious questions about whether everyone who qualified for treatment under the new guidelines actually needed it.

In a new report published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, researchers found that the new recommendations, created by the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American College of Cardiology (ACC), overestimates the risk of heart trouble up to five to six times. That means that five to six times as many people may be prescribed drugs like cholesterol-lowering statins who won’t necessarily benefit from them.

Suspected Pediatric Appendicitis: When Should CT Scans Be Used?

Published April 29, 2016

Suspect-Ped-AppendicitisHave you ever treated a child with abdominal pain that you suspected might be caused by appendicitis? It’s tempting to go straight to a CT scan, but such scans expose children to ionizing radiation, which is potentially harmful. Eric Glissmeyer, M.D., a pediatric emergency physician, discusses how doctors can know whether to employ advanced scanning in kids. He presented this information to his peers at the 2016 Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in Baltimore.

Listen here

Rio Hondo Faculty receive Longevity Health Screenings

Destinee Ortiz, Staff Writer | 

Photo by Aaron Martinez/ El Paisano Faculty can receive health screenings at a discounted price through Longevity.

Photo by Aaron Martinez/ El Paisano
Faculty can receive health screenings at a discounted price through Longevity.

Longevity, a medical company that travels from business to business, provided Rio Hondo faculty members with on-campus preventative screenings on April 6.

Faculty, along with family and friends, were invited to participate in the screenings.  On-site examination tents were set up so patients could comfortably be examined in a familiar medical environment.

“It’s [the screening] preventative measures, making sure there’s (sic) no issues before there’s (sic) actually symptoms,” ultrasound technician Jay Torres said.

Torres, along with other sonographers from Longevity, travel to different businesses and schools throughout Southern California to perform on-site early detection screenings.

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