Healthcare & Laboratory News

Abstract Not Available

Abstract Not Available

Abstract Not Available

KFF Health News (7/2, Reese) reports, “As summer ushers in peak mosquito season, health and vector control officials are bracing for the possibility of another year of historic rates of dengue.” Data from the CDC show that “about 3,700 new dengue infections were reported last year in the contiguous United States, up from about 2,050 in 2023.” Health officials fear that “climate change, the lack of an effective vaccine, and federal research cuts” will result in the disease becoming “endemic to a larger swath of North America.” The disease, which is spread “when people are bitten by infected Aedes mosquitoes, was not common in the contiguous United States for much of the last century. Today, most locally acquired (meaning unrelated to travel) dengue cases in the U.S. happen in Puerto Rico, which saw a sharp increase in 2024, triggering a local public health emergency.” The article adds that “dengue presents a challenge to the many primary care doctors who have never seen it.”

Cancer Therapy Advisor (7/2, Schneider) reports, “Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) testing after surgery can be used to predict relapse-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS) in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to findings from a systematic review and meta-analysis.” Investigators “analyzed 13 studies involving 1283 patients with stage I-IV NSCLC.” The data indicated that “compared to patients who were ctDNA negative after surgery, those who were ctDNA positive had worse RFS...and OS...and this was true regardless of where they were treated, their disease stage, or the duration of follow-up.” The findings were published in Clinical Oncology.

ANCA Vasculitis News (7/2, Maia) reports a study found that “in adults with ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV), the amount of TWEAK protein in urine was about 50% as high when their disease was active as after six months of treatment, making it a useful biomarker for tracking disease activity.” Researchers observed that in 57% of study participants with active AAV, “the disease had affected the kidneys. At the start, all but seven had begun induction treatment – within a median of five days – to drive disease activity into remission. By six months, 55 or 74% were on maintenance treatment with azathioprine, mycophenolate mofetil, methotrexate, or rituximab.” Researchers concluded, “Our findings indicate a role for TWEAK in AAV and suggest that [urinary TWEAK] could be a potential noninvasive biomarker.” The study was published in the Clinical Kidney Journal.

Abstract Not Available

Reuters (7/2, Sunny) reports the CDC has accepted recommendations for the use of vaccines against respiratory syncytial virus and meningococcal disease made by the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices “in April, months before they were abruptly fired by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.” The agency “now recommends that adults aged between 50 and 59 years who are at an increased risk of severe illness from the RSV virus receive a single dose of RSV vaccine. The CDC previously recommended the vaccine only for adults aged 75 and older and at-risk adults aged 60 to 74.” MedPage Today (7/2, Rudd) adds that the CDC “also endorsed the previous ACIP members’ recommendation that GSK’s pentavalent Neisseria meningitidis (groups A, B, C, W, and Y) vaccine (Penmenvy) may be used when both the MenACWY and MenB vaccine are indicated at the same visit.” That recommendation applies to healthy people ages 16 to 23 years “when shared clinical decision making favors administration of MenB vaccine.”

MedPage Today (7/1, Rudd) reports a study suggests that “barriers such as limited access to clinicians and home tests may drive a substantial share of racial and ethnic disparities in access to COVID-19 treatments.” Researchers observed that “among over 200,000 patients with positive COVID test results from a single healthcare system, unadjusted rates for prescriptions for oral antivirals were 10.8 percentage points lower for Black patients and 9.8 percentage points lower for Latino patients compared with white patients.” But in an analysis “adjusting for clinical, public health, and treatment timing covariates, these differences dropped to a 3.3-percentage-point difference between Black and white patients and a 0.7-percentage-point difference between Latino and white patients.” Researchers suggested that “solutions that target clinical encounter-level factors – over which clinicians and health systems have greater control than deeper socioeconomic structural barriers – could help close these treatment gaps.” The study was published in JAMA Network Open.

The Washington Post (7/1, Ables) reports a study published in The Lancet says that federal cuts to the US Agency for International Development “could lead to more than 14 million additional deaths globally over the next five years.” The study estimates “that 91 million deaths in low- to middle-income countries were prevented between 2001 and 2021, owing to USAID, whose programs have played a vital role administering humanitarian and developmental assistance to vulnerable populations around the world.” The researchers utilized “projection models assessing two scenarios – one in which 2023 funding levels continue and another that reflects the cancellation of 83 percent of USAID’s programs announced” by the Trump Administration – to predict that “more than 14 million preventable deaths could occur by 2030, including 4.5 million deaths among children under 5, if cuts continue.” In addition, researchers “write that higher levels of USAID funding were associated with a 15 percent reduction in ‘all-cause’ mortality worldwide over 21 years.”