Medical Bulletin 21/March/2023

Here are the top medical news for the day:

Before surgery immunotherapy plus chemotherapy improves patient outcomes in operable lung cancer: Study

Among patients diagnosed with NSCLC, roughly 30% have potentially resectable disease, meaning their tumor can be surgically removed. While many of these patients can potentially be cured with surgery, it is estimated that more than half will have a recurrence without additional therapy. Unfortunately, chemotherapy given either before or after surgery provides only a minimal survival benefit.

In a Phase II trial led by researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, adding ipilimumab to a neoadjuvant, or pre-surgical, combination of nivolumab plus platinum-based chemotherapy, resulted in a major pathologic response (MPR) in half of all treated patients with early-stage, resectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Reference:

Tina Cascone et a,JOURNALNature Medicine,UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS M. D. ANDERSON CANCER CENTER

Key type of pancreatic cell loss may contribute to diabetes, finds study

In the study, published March 16 in Nature Cell Biology, Dr. James Lo, associate professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, and colleagues measured gene expression in individual beta cells collected from mice to determine how many different types of beta cells exist in the pancreas. The team discovered four distinct beta cell types, including one that stood out. The cluster 1 group of beta cells produced more insulin than other beta cells and appeared better able to metabolize sugar. The study also showed that loss of this beta cell type might contribute to type 2 diabetes.

“Before this, people thought a beta cell was a beta cell, and they just counted total beta cells,” said Dr. Lo, who is also a member of the Weill Center for Metabolic Health and the Cardiovascular Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine and a cardiologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. “But this study tells us it might be important to subtype the beta cells and that we need study the role of these special cluster 1 beta cells in diabetes.”

Reference:

Dr. James Lo etal,WEILL CORNELL MEDICINE,Nature Cell Biology.

Recent study tests if replacements for missing teeth lower the risk of poor cognition

A recent study aimed to find out if missing teeth replacement with fixed prostheses may protect against cognitive decline. The study was presented at the 52nd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the AADOCR, in conjunction with the 47th Annual Meeting of the CADR. The AADOCR/CADR Annual Meeting & Exhibition took place at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland on March 15-18, 2023.

The study by Elizabeth Kaye of Boston University examined 577 men in the VA Normative Aging Study (NAS) and Dental Longitudinal Study. Tooth status and type of replacement, if any, were recorded at triennial dental exams (1969-2001). Masticatory efficiency was assessed with carrot chewing tests. The Spatial Copying Task (SCT) was administered up to four times between 1995 and 2001. The investigators defined poor cognition as any weighted SCT score <13 (lowest tertile of initial SCT scores in all NAS participants). Tooth-level Cox proportional regression, accounting for clustering within individuals, estimated the hazard of poor cognition, adjusted for education, epilepsy medication use, and time-varying values of tooth status (present, absent, fixed bridge/implant, removable replacement), age, cigarette smoking, and coronary heart disease.

Reference:

Elizabeth Kaye et al,INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR DENTAL RESEARCH.