A recent study found that fecal microbiota-based screening may help detect early-stage pancreatic cancer.
Researchers reported that fecal metagenomic classifiers performed significantly better than saliva-based classifiers in identifying patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. It was the top story in gastroenterology last week. Read more in Healio.
— Severity of kidney disease ups risk of ICU time, in-hospital mortality, and more
SAN DIEGO — Certain factors were highly predictive of severe COVID illness in hospitalized patients who had type 2 diabetes (T2D) and chronic kidney disease (CKD), a researcher reported.
In a single-center study of patients with T2D and CKD hospitalized with COVID-19 infection, having hyperglycemia upon admission was tied with more than a 10 times higher risk of severe COVID illness (OR 10.49, 95% CI 3.09-35.60), according to Ella Burguera-Couce, an MD candidate at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Read the complete article in MedPage Today.
A Massachusetts General Hospital investigator explains how the innovative DCD practice addresses both waitlist issues and transplant center’s capabilities.
A relatively new method of evaluating would-be donor hearts may revolutionize the capability of transplant centers helping patients in dire need while on the US waitlist.
At institutions including Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), it’s already making a difference in vital heart transplant resourcing and strategy. Read the full story in HCPLive.
Racial disparities in COVID-19 mortality persist in the U.S. among lung transplant recipients, according to data presented at the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation Annual Meeting and Scientific Sessions.
“Our group was interested in trying to look at disparities and come up with ways of not only identifying but finding ways to intervene to decrease the disparities observed within the cardiac surgery population, which lung transplant recipients fall into,” Stanley B. Wolfe, MD, cardiac research fellow in surgery at the Corrigan Minehan Heart Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, told Healio. “We know that the transplant population, whether it be lung, heart, kidney, etc., have very close follow-up compared to a standard patient, but they also are immunosuppressed, which increases your overall risk of getting severe COVID-19, as well as dying from COVID-19.” Read the full story in Healio.