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Showing posts from November, 2018

New method could improve outcome of leukemia patients receiving stem-cell transplants

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Stem-cell transplantation  is an effective form of therapy to fight leukemia. In many cases, however, the transferred immune cells of the donor also attack the recipients' healthy tissue - often with fatal consequences. Researchers at the University of Zurich have now identified a molecule that plays a key role in this process. Blocking this molecule could significantly improve the outcome of patients receiving stem-cell transplants. Stem-cell therapy offers people suffering from leukemia or bone-marrow cancer the chance of full recovery. This requires eliminating the affected cells using chemo or  radiation therapy  and then replacing them with the blood stem cells from a healthy donor. The donor cells not only produce new blood cells, but also attack the other cancer cells in the patient's body and prevent them from suffering a relapse. However, this form of therapy is not without its risks: In 30% to 60% of cases, the donor cells also attack the recip

Surgery and addictions counseling associated with reduced mortality in injection drug users with endocarditis

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Cases of endocarditis - infection of the heart valves - have risen dramatically in recent years as a result of the opioid crisis. In London, Ontario 55 per cent of people who experience heart valve infections are injection drug users. They are particularly vulnerable to the disease and a third die as a result. In an effort to improve outcomes, researchers at Lawson Health Research Institute and Western University are studying which clinical factors are associated with improved survival in this patient population. In a new study, they showed that both surgery and in-hospital addictions counseling are linked to significantly reduced mortality in injection drug users with first-episode endocarditis. Surgery was associated with a 56 per cent reduction in mortality, while in-hospital addictions counseling was associated with a 72 per cent reduction. The project was a retrospective cohort study that examined anonymous patient data from 2007 to 2016 at London Health Sciences Cent

UMN researchers focus on improving dermatologic care for sexual and gender minority patients

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Researchers say knowledge of patient's sexual orientation and gender identity is important for every provider, even sub specialists University of Minnesota researchers recently published an opinion piece in  JAMA ( Journal of the American Medical Association )  Dermatology  focused on standardizing collection of sexual orientation and gender identity in dermatology clinical settings. This is one of the first published articles that advocates for standardizing SOGI ( S exual Orientation and Gender Identity ) , or sexual orientation and gender identity, data collection in a sub specialty clinical setting (i.e. outside of primary care settings such as general internal medicine, family medicine, or pediatrics). "These data collection efforts acknowledge the fact that a patient's many identities are really important to all providers because they empower physicians and other healthcare staff to provide higher quality care that is both evidence-based and culturally s