Neither adjuvant granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) nor peptide vaccination significantly improved relapse-free or overall survival in patients with high-risk resected melanoma, although GM-CSF may be beneficial in patients with resected visceral metastases, a large phase III trial indicated.
In rare circumstances, Alzheimer's disease might be transmissible, a study suggested. "In addition to sporadic Alzheimer's disease and inherited or familial Alzheimer's disease, there could also be acquired forms of Alzheimer's disease," according to John Collinge, MD, of University College London, and colleagues.
The statistics are sobering. Last year, nearly 900 Marylanders died from opioid misuse, including 578 from heroin alone, which means that opioid deaths account for more than 85 percent of all intoxication deaths throughout the state. And the problem is worsening; the 2014 data represent a 22 percent increase from the previous year and a 76 percent increase since 2010. Opioids are painkillers, like morphine and others, and the stories of the pain they cause are saddening. Heroin and opioid misuse touches every county, city, town and subdivision in Maryland. It knows no racial, economic, age or gender boundaries.
Lack of communication among emergency room staff, poor configuration of information on the patient's electronic health record and diminished focus on patient safety were three of the main deficiencies of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas where a man infected with the Ebola virus was misdiagnosed last year and died, according to an independent report released by the hospital Friday. The hospital asked the five health-care officials on the expert panel to review the events surrounding Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian emigre who arrived at the hospital Sept. 25, 2014, and who, hours later, even after his fever reached 103 degrees, was sent home with a diagnosis of sinusitis.
Inch by inch, two doctors working side by side in an operating room guide a long narrow tube through a patient's femoral artery, from his groin into his beating heart. They often look intently, not down at the 81-year-old patient, but up at a 60-inch monitor above him that's streaming pictures of his heart made from X-rays and sound waves. The big moment comes 40 minutes into the procedure at Morton Plant Hospital. Dr. Joshua Rovin unfurls from the catheter a metal stent containing a new aortic valve that is made partly out of a pig's heart and expands to the width of a quarter outside the catheter.
Being more physically active on days when patients with either rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis are feeling especially fatigued buffers the negative effect of fatigue on positive mood, the Dunedin Fatigue Study suggested.