Practice Management
A study in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that young individuals with hypertension may benefit from low-level tragus stimulation (LL‐TS). The device-based therapy is a noninvasive method of tragus stimulation with an ear clip, targeting the auricular branch of the vagus nerve. In the small study of 40 patients aged 18 to 39 years, LL‐TS was applied on the intervention group (IG) for 3 months on the tragus (20 Hz, 1 mA, 1 hour per day). …
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Some older triptan drugs are better at relieving acute migraine pain than newer drugs, a systematic review and analysis of 137 randomized controlled trials suggests. As published in BMJ, researchers considered pain relief and freedom from pain at 2 hours in addition to sustained freedom from pain at 24 hours for nearly 90,000 participants who were randomized to one of 17 oral migraine drugs or placebo. All 17 drugs studied were more effective than placebo. …
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From 2025 to 2050, the world could see more than 39 million deaths that are directly attributable to antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Researchers from several global institutions studied 520 million individual records and estimated deaths and illnesses attributable to AMR across 204 countries from 1990 through 2021. As it turns out, deaths from AMR fell more than 50% among children younger than age 5 but increased more than 80% among adults 70 and older, according to …
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A newly discovered COVID strain known as XEC has emerged worldwide, according to an outbreak tracking tool by Scripps Research. The omicron variant KP.3.1.1 made up 52.7% of COVID-19 cases between September 1 and September 14, 2024, yet the XEC COVID-19 variant and another known as MV.1 seem likely to become the next dominant strains, according to a news item in USA Today. First appearing late June in Berlin, Germany, the XEC strain has been …
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Alaska’s state health department confirmed that an infant has died from pertussis amid the ongoing epidemic in Alaska, which has been observed mostly in south central regions of the state. Infants are at the highest risk for severe disease, and 12% of cases have been reported in infants. Of those infants, 45% have been hospitalized. In all, 70% of cases are among children under the age of 15 years old. As of September 6, 2024, …
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Researchers surveyed adult patients in the waiting rooms of 6 public, safety-net primary care clinics and 2 private emergency departments in Texas and found that more than half of the respondents said they would use leftover antibiotics if they were feeling sick. Among the 546 volunteering patients surveyed, the most common situations that would inspire patients to use non-prescription antibiotics were having access to leftover antibiotics (50.4%), experiencing symptom improvement with prior use of antibiotics …
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Liraglutide, the long-acting glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drug, was approved for weight loss in among pediatric patients aged 12 and older who are obese. Recently, manufacturer Novo Nordisk found in a sponsored study that children between the ages of 6 and 12—a younger population—were able to reduce their body mass index by 7.4% in a 56-week trial using daily liraglutide injections, as published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The trial of 92 children met …
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New research suggests that saline nasal drops can reduce the length of the common cold in children by 2 days, according to a press release from the European Respiratory Society. The trial included 407 children up to 6 years old who were either given hypertonic saline nasal drops or usual care when they developed a cold. Parents were instructed to apply 3 saline drops per nostril, a minimum of 4 times per day, until the …
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Older adults who receive the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine are 75% less likely to be hospitalized from RSV compared to those who are not vaccinated, according to a research letter in JAMA. By analyzing electronic medical record data from October 2023 to March 2024 for adults aged 60 years and older who were hospitalized with an acute respiratory illness, researchers selected a control group of 2,611 patients—who tested negative for RSV, COVID-19, and influenza—and …
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A new epinephrine nasal spray has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, in adult and pediatric patients who weight at least 66 pounds, according to an FDA press release. Until now, epinephrine has only been available for patients as an injection or auto-injection device. The agency says the new delivery mechanism addresses an unmet need in that some people who need urgent epinephrine treatment …
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