News by Subject Medicine & Health

The SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 may have the ability to reactivate dormant tuberculosis (TB). In a novel study scientists report in The American Journal of Pathology that infection with a specific coronavirus strain reactivated dormant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) in mice. This knowledge may help to develop new vaccines for COVID-19 and avoid a potential global tuberculosis epidemic.

A new CF treatment strategy involves small, nucleic acid molecules called oligonucleotides that can correct some of the gene defects that underlie CF but are not addressed by existing modulator therapies. The researchers used a new delivery method that overcomes traditional obstacles of getting oligonucleotides into lung cells.

A "3D Culture System" developed by University of Southampton has closely replicated how cells infected with TB change in the human lung. Analytical evidence of these changes identified 7 key gene changes that cause damage in the lungs, from hundreds of thousands. A second trial showed that a common antibiotic, doxycycline, could help reverse these changes and speed up recovery.

According to AJR, high-dose intranodal lymphangiography with ethiodized oil is a safe and effective procedure for treating high-output postsurgical chylothorax with chest tube removal in 83% of patients. Previously, no data were available on the safety or benefits of injecting higher doses of ethiodized oil to treat patients with refractory postoperative chylothorax. No early or late clinically relevant complications, including symptomatic pulmonary or paradoxical embolism, were recorded for any of the patients.

The presence of Candida auris in a hospital in Salvador, Bahia, was confirmed at end-2020 and reported in an article in the Journal of Fungi. The fungus can cause a lethal invasive disease and is ringing alarm bells because of the speed with which it develops drug resistance.

Public health measures designed to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus may have fostered a substantial side benefit: A 53 percent drop in hospital admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), likely due to a drop in circulating seasonal respiratory viruses such as influenza.