Note to pediatricians: Taper meds in kids with stable asthma
A study of how pediatricians prescribe asthma medications suggests that while most would readily increase a child’s medication if needed, many are reluctant to taper off drug use when less might be best. A report on the study, led by Johns Hopkins Children’s Center researchers, appears in the July issue of Pediatrics.
“Asthma medications can have serious, albeit infrequent, side effects, and while under-treatment is undeniably a big problem, not stepping down treatment when a child is doing well may be too,” says lead investigator Sande Okelo, M.D., an asthma specialist at Hopkins Children’s.
In the research, conducted among 310 pediatricians nationwide, 40 percent said they would not step down high-dose treatment even if a child’s symptoms were well controlled and infrequent.
Pneumonia Most Common Reason for Hospitalization
More than 1.2 million Americans – roughly equivalent to the population of Dallas – were hospitalized for pneumonia in 2006, making this lung infection the most common reason for admission to the hospital other than for childbirth, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Treating pneumonia cost hospitals $10 billion in 2006. The disease, which can be especially deadly among the elderly, occurs when the lungs fill with fluid from infection or inflammation caused by bacteria or a virus.
AHRQ’s new analysis of 2006 hospitalizations estimated admissions and hospitals’ costs for other common conditions:
Study Reveals a New Function for an Old Enzyme in Fatal Childhood Disease
The lack of a single protein usually thought of as a run-of-the-mill enzyme that helps to recycle molecules in cells causes an incurable and often fatal disease of children, according to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital investigators.
Children with this disease, called sialidosis, suffer from enlarged spleens and often develop vision problems, loss of coordination and seizures, among other symptoms. The patients generally die within the first few years of life.
St. Jude investigators showed in test tube experiments and mouse models of sialidosis that the loss of the protein NEU1 triggers a catastrophic falling of biochemical dominos that ultimately leads to disruption of normal formation of mature blood cells. A report on this work appears in the July 8, 2008, issue of the journal Developmental Cell.
New fertility technique targets women with cancer
A new technique may help newly diagnosed cancer patients preserve their eggs, and perhaps their fertility, before chemotherapy, German researchers said on Monday.
Currently, many women collect and freeze some of their eggs to try to have children after their cancer treatment, which can make them infertile. The process can take up to six weeks.
However, if a cancer diagnosis comes at the start of the menstrual cycle, many women are unable to delay chemotherapy and preserve their eggs, Michael Von Wolf told the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.
It pays to go in an Indian public toilet
It pays to use a toilet in southern India, as residents are earning close to a dollar a month by using public urinals, a scheme launched by authorities to promote hygiene and research in rural areas.
Dozens of people are queuing up to use toilets in Musiri, a remote town in Tamil Nadu state, where authorities have succeeded in keeping street corners clean with the new scheme, The Times of India newspaper said on Sunday.
“In fact, many of us started using toilets for urination only after the ecosan (ecological sanitation) toilets were constructed in the area,” said S. Rajasekaran, a truck cleaner.
Men past 40 face fertility problems: researchers
Couples trying to have a baby when the man is over 40 will have more difficulty conceiving than if he is younger, French researchers said on Sunday.
Doctors know a woman’s age plays a key role but the findings presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference suggest the paternal impact is stronger than has been thought, Stephanie Belloc and colleagues said.
“Our data give evidence for the first time for a strong paternal effect on IUI (intrauterine insemination) outcome either on pregnancy rates but also on miscarriage rates,” Belloc and her team from the Eylau Centre for Assisted Reproduction in France said.
