News by Subject Medicine & Health

The largest-ever clinical trial of a medication for pediatric cardiology patients found that an oral drug significantly improved exercise capacity in adolescent patients with severe, congenital single-ventricle heart defects. A study leader says the physiologic benefits represent a milestone in the care of those who have undergone the Fontan procedure, a palliative operation for single-ventricle disease.

Some chemical alternatives to plastic bisphenol-a (BPA), which is still commonly used in medical settings such as operating rooms and intensive care units, may be less disruptive to heart electrical function than BPA, according to a pre-clinical study that explored how the structural analogues bisphenol-s (BPS) and bisphenol-f (BPF) interact with the chemical and electrical functions of heart cells.

An upcoming clinical trial at Children's National Hospital will harness cardiopulmonary bypass as a delivery mechanism for a novel intervention designed to stimulate brain growth and repair in children who undergo cardiac surgery for congenital heart disease.

Contrary to the previous data, a Finnish study clarifies that smoking and high blood pressure do not protect from death in patients suffering from subarachnoid haemorrhage, the most lethal stroke subtype. In fact, subarachnoid haemorrhage kills smokers and hypertensive individuals already before they reach hospitals, and therefore studies that cannot include these outside hospitals deaths in analyses may reach erroneous conclusions.

The Chinese government may have been systematically misreporting the number of organs it claims it has voluntarily collected since 2010, according to new research published in BMC Medical Ethics.

University of Maryland School of Medicine researchers found that lung transplant recipients who had early signs of organ rejection could increase their chances of survival by inhaling a liposomal form of the immunosuppression drug cyclosporine through an investigational nebulizer. This is the first randomized, controlled study to demonstrate increased survival and improved lung function with this drug-device combination.

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, as well as a diverse team of cardiologists and physicists, developed a machine learning algorithm to predict the life expectancy in heart failure patients.

Frail patients were more likely to die within 30, 90 and 180 days after surgery than non-frail patients, even if the surgery was classified as low or moderate stress, according to a study that included a researcher from UT Health San Antonio.

Toxic man-made chemicals -- such as polychlorinated biphenyls and organochlorine pesticides -- that are absorbed into the body and stored in fat may be released into the bloodstream during the rapid fat loss that follows bariatric surgery, according to a study from researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The finding points to the need for further research to understand the health effects of this potential toxicant exposure.

Even a minor surgery such as a laparoscopic gallbladder removal can prove to be a high-risk and even fatal procedure for frail patients, according to new research published in JAMA Surgery.