Medical Bulletin 15/December/2023

Here are the top medical news of the day:

Adults with cognitive disabilities are more likely to have worse experiences with health care system

People with cognitive disabilities – like autism, attention deficit and memory loss – are less satisfied with their health care than those in the general population, according to a study published by a Rutgers researcher.

The study, published in Disability and Health Journal, examined how a national sample of adults experience the care they receive and the factors that contribute to their experiences.

“People with cognitive disabilities were less likely than people without cognitive disabilities to report that providers listened carefully to them, explained things or gave advice in a way that was easy to understand, spent enough time with them, or showed respect for what they had to say,” said Elizabeth Stone, a faculty member of the Rutgers Center for Health Services Research at the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research and the lead author of the study.

Reference: Adults with cognitive disabilities are more likely to have worse experiences with health care system; Disability and Health Journal, DOI: 10.1016/j.dhjo.2023.101547

A sugar analysis could reveal different types of cancer

In the future, a little saliva may be enough to detect an incipient cancer. Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have developed an effective way to interpret the changes in sugar molecules that occur in cancer cells.

“We have analysed data from about 220 patients with 11 differently diagnosed cancers and have identified differences in the substructure of the glycan depending on the type of cancer. By letting our newly developed method, enhanced by AI, work through large amounts of data, we were able to find these connections,” says Daniel Bojar, associate senior lecturer in bioinformatics at the University of Gothenburg and lead author of the study published in Cell Reports Methods.

Reference: A sugar analysis could reveal different types of cancer; Cell Reports Methods,DOI:10.1016/j.crmeth.2023.100652

Deaths from heart valve infections dropped across U.S. overall, but surged among young adults

Death rates related to infective endocarditis declined in most adults across the U.S. within the last two decades, yet accelerated among young adults ages 25 to 44 years old, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access, peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association.

Infective endocarditis, also called bacterial endocarditis, is an infection caused by bacteria that enter the bloodstream and settle in the heart lining, a heart valve or a blood vessel. The disease is rare, however, people with previous valve surgeries, heart valve abnormalities, artificial valves, congenital heart defects or previous infective endocarditis have a greater risk of developing it. It can also be a complication of injecting illicit drugs.

An analysis of death certificate data from 1999 to 2020 showed a decline in deaths related to infective endocarditis throughout most of the United States yet found an alarming increase of 2%-5% among adults ages 25-44.

Reference: Deaths from heart valve infections drop across U.S. overall, but surged among young adults; Journal of the American Heart Association; DOI:10.1161/JAHA.123.031589