Regimens to treat HIV infection that are based on a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) are at least as effective as treatment with a protease inhibitor but require patients to take fewer pills each day, according to a new study funded in part by HHS? Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Rosa?s Story, an audio-novella from the Joslin Diabetes Center Latino Diabetes Initiative, uses the art of storytelling to educate listeners about the challenges of diabetes faced by the Hispanic/Latino population. The first-person accounts of a fictitious Latino woman with type 2 diabetes, and a teenager with pre-diabetes, are told in the new educational package. Designed for Spanish-speaking Latinos with diabetes and their families, the three-CD set is being launched on Nov. 14, World Diabetes Day, a day set aside by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and the World Health Organization to increase public awareness of the global diabetes epidemic.
A program of time-specific ‘blister’ packaging, individualized patient education by a pharmacist and bimonthly pharmacist followup increases medication adherence from 61.2 percent to 96.9 percent in elderly patients at risk for heart disease.
Logic would hold that an occluded infarct-related artery should be open before the patient is discharged. But the chair of the Occluded Artery Trial (OAT) presented data here showing that stable patients undergoing routine PCI for occluded arteries three to 28 days after MI had virtually the same number of major cardiovascular events as similar patients receiving medication alone.
Over the last several years angioplasty has exceeded coronary bypass surgery as the preferred way to treat coronary artery disease. The stents, narrow tubes inserted into the artery to facilitate blood flow, commonly used in the procedure are less invasive than open-heart surgery and offer greater convenience to the patient and the ability to perform more complex procedures.
Erectile dysfunction (ED) medications known as Phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE-5) inhibitors have been used by millions of men as safe and effective management options associated with high rates of patient and partner satisfaction.
Mark Russo, M.D., M.S., a researcher at Columbia University’s International Center for Health Outcomes and Innovation Research in New York will present findings from a study of the cost of medical management in chronic end-stage heart failure patients. The study found that despite the terminal nature of end-stage heart failure, costs and resource utilization increased dramatically as death approached.
A new lab-on-a-chip can identify single bacterial cells for the most common cases of drug-resistant pneumonia, cutting down the wait from days to hours for identifying the particular strain and treating it.
About one-third of heart attack patients do not receive treatment to open blocked arteries within the recommended 12-hour timeframe after a heart attack. Treatment such as angioplasty or clot-busting drugs may not be given because patients arrive at the hospital too late.
Infants and adults who are blind due to a cloudy or damaged cornea are seeing some remarkable results thanks to a new version of an artificial implant that takes the place of the cornea, the clear covering of the eye that serves as our window on the world.