Medical Bulletin 16/Jun/2025

The findings suggest that COVID vaccination can reduce the risk of long-term kidney function decline and mortality.

The researchers analysed approximately 3,500 patients hospitalised with COVID-19 between March 1, 2020, and March 30, 2022. Of those patients, 972 developed acute kidney injury, with 42.3% unvaccinated and 48% having received at least two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccines or one dose of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine.

They found that 15.8% of unvaccinated patients were more likely to need a type of dialysis for critically ill patients called continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) compared with 10.9% of vaccinated patients.

In addition, unvaccinated patients had 2.56 times the odds of needing CRRT after hospital discharge, 5.54 times the risk of dying in the hospital, and 4.78 times higher risk of dying during long-term follow-up compared with vaccinated patients.

“It is important for individuals to discuss the benefits of getting vaccinated for Covid-19 with their doctors, as it can decrease the chances of needing dialysis, which can severely affect the quality of life of patients and lead to further complications, including death,” said lead author Dr. Niloofar Nobakht, Associate Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

Reference: https://healthcare-in-europe.com/en/news/covid19-vaccine-dialysis-mortality-aki.html

How Early Can Cancer Be Detected Before Symptoms Appear?

New Delhi: Genetic material shed by tumors can be detected in the bloodstream three years prior to cancer diagnosis, according to a study published in Cancer Discovery.

To determine how early cancers could be detected prior to clinical signs or symptoms, researchers assessed plasma samples that were collected for the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study. They used highly accurate and sensitive sequencing techniques to analyze blood samples from 26 participants in the ARIC study who were diagnosed with cancer within six months after sample collection, and 26 from similar participants who were not diagnosed with cancer.

At the time of blood sample collection, eight of these 52 participants scored positively on a multicancer early detection (MCED) laboratory test. All eight were diagnosed within four months following blood collection. For six of the eight individuals, investigators also were able to assess additional blood samples collected 3.1-3.5 years prior to diagnosis, and in four of these cases, tumor-derived mutations could also be identified in samples taken at the earlier timepoint.

Investigators were surprised they could detect cancer-derived mutations in the blood so much earlier, says lead study author Yuxuan Wang, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Three years earlier provides time for intervention. The tumors are likely to be much less advanced and more likely to be curable."

Reference: Yuxuan Wang, Corinne E. Joshu, Samuel D. Curtis, Christopher Douville, Vernon A. Burk, Meng Ru, Maria Popoli, Janine Ptak, Lisa Dobbyn, Natalie Silliman, Josef Coresh, Eric Boerwinkle, Anna Prizment, Chetan Bettegowda, Kenneth W. Kinzler, Nickolas Papadopoulos, Elizabeth A. Platz, Bert Vogelstein. Detection of cancers three years prior to diagnosis using plasma cell-free DNA. Cancer Discovery, 2025; DOI: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-25-0375

Sleeping 2 Extra Hours on Weekends May Calm Teen Anxiety

New Delhi: A new study presented at the SLEEP 2025 annual meeting and published in journal sleep, found that teens who get moderate -- but not excessive -- catch-up sleep on weekends have fewer symptoms of anxiety.

Results show that teens who got up to two more hours of sleep on weekends than on weekdays exhibited fewer anxiety symptoms compared with those who did not sleep longer on weekends. However, longer durations of catch-up sleep on weekends were associated with slightly more internalizing symptoms.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends that teenagers 13 to 18 years of age should sleep 8 to 10 hours on a regular basis to promote optimal health. However, CDC data show that only 23% of high school students get sufficient sleep on an average school night.

Consistently getting sufficient sleep is associated with better health outcomes including improved attention, behavior, learning, memory, emotional regulation, quality of life, and mental and physical health. In contrast, insufficient sleep in teenagers is associated with increased risks of problems such as depression and suicidal thoughts.

The study involved 1,877 adolescents with a mean age of 13.5 years. Sleep duration was estimated using Fitbit devices, while internalizing symptoms were assessed using the Child Behavior Checklist survey. Weekend catch-up sleep was calculated as the difference between weekend and weekday sleep duration.

"The results show that both sleeping less on weekends than weekdays and sleeping substantially more on weekends were associated with higher anxiety symptoms," said lead author Sojeong Kim, a doctoral candidate in the department of clinical psychology and psychology graduate advisor at the University of Oregon in Eugene. "In contrast, moderate catch-up sleep -- defined as less than two hours -- was associated with lower anxiety symptoms, suggesting that some weekend recovery sleep may be beneficial."

Reference: Sojeong Kim, Jason Carbone, Melynda Casement. 0263 The Sweet Spot of Weekend Catch-Up Sleep: A Protective Factor Against Depressive Symptoms? SLEEP, 2025; 48 (Supplement_1): A115 DOI: 10.1093/sleep/zsaf090.0263