Healio Gastroenterology presents the following reports on the most recent research on hepatitis C virus. These reports include new research on the impact of screening methods, elimination efforts and direct-acting antiviral agents. Current liver cancer screening protocols may miss at-risk Black individuals with HCV Despite having better liver function at diagnosis, Black patients with hepatitis C virus tended to have more aggressive hepatocellular carcinoma tumors compared with other racial groups, according to a study published in Cancer.
Author: Praveen Suthrum
On International Women’s Day, we celebrate women’s achievements, raise awareness against bias, and take action for gender equity. In my broader field of global health, every aspect of the field is dominated by men, and lack of diversity is a real challenge for making progress. In my research area of tuberculosis, our recent analysis of all major global tuberculosis awards showed that individual awardees were most likely to be men based in high-income countries. Less than a quarter of individual winners were women.
Between April and July last year, there was a more than 80% decline in the incidence of reported norovirus outbreaks in nine U.S. states, likely the result of nonpharmaceutical interventions to combat COVID-19, researchers reported. “We noticed in spring of 2020 that there was a major drop in the number of norovirus outbreaks reported to NoroSTAT” — a network of 12 states that report norovirus outbreaks to the CDC — “much larger and sooner than we would typically expect for that time of year,” Alicia N.M. Kraay, a postdoctoral fellow at the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, told Healio.
Huang and colleagues recently reported that as many as 76% of patients discharged after hospitalisation for COVID-19 had at least one symptom persisting 6 months after disease onset, including fatigue or muscle weakness (63%), sleep difficulties (26%), and anxiety or depression (23%). Additionally, more than 50% of the patients had abnormal chest CT images indicating impaired pulmonary function. Although SARS-CoV-2 mainly affects the lungs, many other organs are also affected. Enteric symptoms are common in COVID-19, and gastrointestinal symptoms can be the only symptom, or can be present before respiratory symptoms. The cellular receptor for SARS-CoV-2, ACE2, is highly expressed…
Newswise — Bethesda, MD (March 9, 2021) – The March issue of The American Journal of Gastroenterology, a special issue focused on women’s health in gastroenterology and hepatology, is now available. The issue features new clinical research involving sex and gender, including effects of GI and liver conditions on pregnancy, gender disparities in diet and nutrition, Barrett’s esophagus incidence in women with scleroderma, factors influencing whether women pursue advanced endoscopy careers, endoscopy-related musculoskeletal injuries, sex hormone association with increased prevalence of certain types of cancer, and more. Of particular relevance are the three articles highlighted below. Access to any articles from…
Newsweek released its “America’s Best Ambulatory Surgery Centers 2021” list highlighting 400 centers across the 25 states with the most ASCs. Newsweek partnered with Statista to survey centers on quality of care, performance data and peer recommendations, and compared those centers against in-state competition. Here are the top-ranking gastroenterology ASCs along with their overall score and their rank in state: CaliforniaUnited Gastrodiagnostics in Orange: 79.1 percent, 30thSouthern California Medical Gastroenterology Group in Santa Monica: 78.2 percent, 35thAssociated Gastroenterology Medical Group-Endoscopy Center in Anaheim: 76.9 percent, 49thSouth Bay Gastroenterology Endoscopy Center in Torrance: 74.9 percent, 78th ColoradoGastroenterology of the Rockies’ Denver West Endoscopy…
Should patients care about gender when choosing a doctor? Will they be better off with a man, a woman, or another gender? People have been trying to answer this question one way or another since at least the 1990s. Unfortunately, pretty much all the published data consider gender as a binary variable, so for now, our evidence-based conversation is limited to men and women. One of the earliest major papers investigating how the care provided by women may differ from that of men was published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1993. The investigators looked at visits for almost 100,000…
VENTURA, Calif., Feb. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — On Jan. 14, 2021, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reconsidered the anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin as a possible treatment for COVID-19. Ventura Clinical Trials, owned and operated by Dr. Sabine Hazan, is one of the institutions researching Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine—with remarkable success. Dr. Stanley Frochtzwajg, the chief medical officer with Community Memorial Health System that operates Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura, Ojai Valley Hospital and numerous clinics across the California county is one of Dr. Hazan’s patients. Dr. Frochtzwaig tested positive for COVID-19 last month. Following Hazan’s protocol which includes a combination therapy and formulated (made in America)…
Physicians have increasingly used social media to begin conversations on a range of topics and share their research. One of the most recent social media apps they use is Clubhouse, an audio-only platform. Austin Chiang,MD, MPH, chief medical social media officer at Jefferson Health, explained there are rooms where a certain number of people are on stage speaking and the others are considered the audience. Those is the audience can only speak when they raise their hands and are invited on stage. “It’s great,” Chiang, told Healio Gastroenterology. “It fills a certain need for group communication and it’s similar to Zoom in that…
In an uncertain and changing healthcare landscape, shaped by the pandemic and a new administration, here are six hopeful trends that will characterize the next 12 months. Heightened attention to health equity The Covid-19 pandemic has placed a spotlight on our nation’s pre-existing health disparities, and this is an area President Biden is committed to addressing. Look no further than the President’s second-in-command to see the increased attention this issue will receive. Vice President Kamala Harris, who, when accepting her nomination as Biden’s running mate, made clear that Covid-19 is “not an equal opportunity offender. Black, Latino, and indigenous people are…