News by Subject Medicine & Health

In the first study to comprehensively evaluate research priorities for patient safety in pediatrics, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital researchers and collaborators from other children's hospitals outlined 24 research priorities for improving pediatric patient care and safety. Topics identified as most important included how organizations use high reliability principles, create and improve their safety culture, communicate about patient care, and use early-warning systems to proactively prevent and detect patient decline.

For children--whose tiny bodies are still growing--chemotherapy and radiation treatments can cause lifelong damage. Now, scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have reported that a targeted therapy that blocks a protein called LSD1 was able to shrink tumors in mice with a form of pediatric brain cancer known as medulloblastoma. LSD1 inhibitors are currently under evaluation in clinical trials for other cancers. The study was published in Nature Communications.

Over a year and a half after the successful separation of two infant twins joined at the top of their heads, surgical team leaders report on this dramatic case in the Jan. 24 New England Journal of Medicine. The surgeons describe the innovative devices, elaborate planning and precisely orchestrated teamwork needed to perform the complex separation surgery at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Adolescents and young adults living in states with more liberal policies reported higher average rates of past-year cannabis use than those in states with more conservative policies. However, the rates of cannabis use disorder -- abuse or dependence on the drug -- were significantly lower in states with more liberal policies compared to states with more conservative policies. The study is one of the first to assess the relationship between policy liberalism and health outcomes, and specifically cannabis use-related outcomes.

Millions of adults now entering middle age were exposed to high levels of lead as children, with childhood lead exposure linked to lower IQ, greater rates of child behavior problems, hyperactivity and antisocial behavior. This study included nearly 600 children in New Zealand who had their blood lead levels measured at age 11 and their mental health assessed periodically through age 38.

Scientists at the University of British Columbia and BC Children's Hospital are the first in Canada to use a new test for pediatric tumor analysis that may one day guide personalized treatments for children with cancer.

Lead exposure in childhood appears to have long-lasting negative effects on mental health and personality in adulthood, according to a study of people who grew up in the era of leaded gasoline. The findings, which will appear Jan. 23 in JAMA Psychiatry, reveal that the higher a person's blood lead levels at age 11, the more likely they are to show signs of mental illness and difficult personality traits by age 38.

According to a US Department of Justice survey, from 2000 to 2014, suicide rates were two to three times higher for youth in custody than those in the general population. In a new study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP), researchers from Nationwide Children's Hospital looked at circumstances preceding suicide to understand better why this disparity in suicide rate exists.

Annals of Family Medicine is a peer-reviewed, indexed research journal that provides a cross-disciplinary forum for new, evidence-based information affecting the primary care disciplines.

Using multiple genomic sequencing tests, TGen identified a specific non-polio enterovirus -- EV-D68 -- among at least four children, according to a study published today in the scientific journal mBio. The finding is significant because AFM cases are continuing to increase and there has been no official recognition that this disease is being caused by EV-D68, which limits the research community's ability to develop preventative measures, such as new vaccines.