Hospital Medicine News

• ISC 2019No Loss of Thrombectomy Benefit in Late Stroke With Transfer Latest results from the DEFUSE 3 trial suggest transferring candidates for late-window thrombectomy is associated with substantial clinical benefits and should be strongly encouraged, authors say.
  Medscape Medical News, February 2019
• Five Dermatologic Emergencies Physicians Should Recognize These 'are the ones that, if you miss the diagnosis, you end up with a lot more morbidity and mortality than necessary,' an expert says.
  Medscape Medical News, February 2019
• Sepsis Death Common, Often Unpreventable Sepsis deaths were common, but most were unpreventable and related to underlying illness; an expert urges caution when interpreting results and calls for more research to improve sepsis care.
  Medscape Medical News, February 2019
• Vaccine Storage Too Often Fails to Meet Standards Some vaccines being transported to clinics in California were found to be frozen, thereby lowering their effectiveness; in the past 13 months alone, 117 kids received possibly compromised vaccines.
  Kaiser Health News, February 2019
• Journal Retracts MD Article for 'Racist Characterizations' After facing sharp criticism from readers, the American Academy of Neurology's flagship journal has retracted an essay about a patient encounter that it acknowledged 'contains racist characterizations.'
  Medscape Medical News, February 2019
• Hip, Spine Fractures Hit Women's Long-Term Quality of Life The impact of fragility-related fractures on quality of life in people aged 50 or older persists for years after the initial injury, with women potentially never recovering, say Canadian clinicians.
  Medscape Medical News, February 2019
• NSAID Kidney Risk Underestimated in Young, Active Adults High doses of prescribed NSAIDS are linked to increased risk of potentially preventable cases of acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease in active young adults.
  Medscape Medical News, February 2019
• Physicians Call for Action on Root Causes of Drug Shortages Physicians have urged US officials to take steps to end chronic shortages of critical hospital drugs. The government and private groups are considering options to expand production of these medicines.
  Medscape Medical News, February 2019
• One Third of Hospital Inpatients Underfed One in three inpatients ate a quarter of their meal or less, putting them at risk for malnutrition, a study found; the results were twice as alarming for patients who ate none of their food.
  Medscape Medical News, February 2019
• Flu Vaccine Effectiveness Under 50%, Low-Severity Season: CDC Interim estimates put overall adjusted vaccine effectiveness for all influenza virus infection related to medically attended acute respiratory illness at 47% so far this season, the CDC reports.
  Medscape Medical News, February 2019
• MRSA Decolonization Reduces Postdischarge Infection Risk A new study finds that decolonization of MRSA carriers following discharge from the hospital can reduce the risk of developing an infection in the subsequent year.
  Medscape Medical News, February 2019
• Insurance Doesn't Ensure Against Financial Hardship in ASCVD Even those with insurance feel financial hardship because of high premiums, deductibles, copays, and coinsurance. The report adds fuel to the push to lower the Medicare buy-in age to 50.
  Medscape Medical News, February 2019
• Ibuprofen a 'Reasonable' Option for Early Pain Control After Hip Replacement Combining paracetamol (acetaminophen) with ibuprofen does not cut postoperative use of morphine in a clinically meaningful way relative to ibuprofen alone, in patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty (THA), results of a Danish randomized trial suggest.
  Reuters Health Information, February 2019
• Countries Use Novel Strategies to Tackle Price of HCV Drugs Both Australia and Brazil have rolled out innovative strategies to lower the cost of high-priced direct-acting antivirals, with the goal of treating all patients with hepatitis C.
  Medscape Medical News, February 2019
• Gap in Cancer Death Rates Narrows Between Blacks, Whites Disparities in death rates from the most common cancers are closing between African Americans and whites as blacks experience steeper declines in some cancers.
  Medscape Medical News, February 2019
• FDA Advisory Panel Tackles Tough Questions on Vaginal Mesh Three currently marketed devices for treating pelvic organ prolapse in the anterior vaginal compartment are safer than those previously associated with adverse events, manufacturers say.
  Medscape Medical News, February 2019
• EHR Vendors Seek More Time on Proposed Data Rules The trade association for EHR vendors said that federal proposals to open up patient data are good but need more examination by software developers.
  Medscape Medical News, February 2019
• 'Remarkable' New Benefit in HER2+ Breast Cancer Roughly half of patients with HER2-positive, early stage breast cancer have residual disease after initial drug therapy and then surgery; T-DM1 may improve their outcomes.
  Medscape Medical News, February 2019
• Long-term Durability of TAVR Encouraging: NOTION, UK TAVI Transcatheter valve replacement is increasingly being used as an alternative to surgical replacement in severe aortic stenosis, but how durable is it? Two studies provide reassuring findings.
  Medscape Medical News, February 2019
• Newer HCV Drugs Reduce Mortality, Liver Cancer Risk Treatment with direct-acting antivirals appears to reduce the risk of death and liver cancer among patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV), including those with cirrhosis, new data has shown.
  Medscape Medical News, February 2019