Medical Bulletin 25/January/2024

Here are the top medical news of the day:

Long COVID and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome strongly interlinked

People suffering from Long COVID or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis /Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) could benefit from a coordinated treatment strategy, a new University of Otago study has found.

The pilot study, published in Scientific Reports, a Nature journal, has confirmed what researchers have suspected for some time: the two conditions are closely related.

Reference: Strong links found between Long COVID and ME/CFS: Otago study; Scientific Reports; DOI:10.1038/s41598-023-49402-9

A new way of looking at Parkinson’s Disease says study

An international research team led by Krembil Brain Institute Neurologist and Senior Scientist, Dr. Anthony Lang, has proposed a new model for classifying Parkinson’s disease (PD).

In recent decades, researchers have uncovered several biological factors that underlie PD. Key factors include a build up of the protein α-synuclein in the brain, which leads to neuron degeneration, and genetic factors that increase one’s risk of developing the disease. They have also begun to develop reliable methods to test for these factors, called biomarkers, in living patients.

Despite these advancements, doctors still diagnose the disease based on clinical features, such as the presence of tremors and other common motor symptoms.

In a recent article published in Lancet Neurology, Dr. Lang’s team proposed a new, biologically based model for classifying PD, called SynNeurGe.

Reference: A “radically different” way of looking at Parkinson’s Disease; The Lancet Neurology

One-week FDG PET/CT predicts treatment response in advanced melanoma

Cancer immunotherapy has helped transform the standard of care for many malignancies, but not all patients respond to therapy, and the treatment can cause severe adverse events.Typically, immunotherapy patients are imaged around three months after starting treatment to monitor their progress.

The research team led by Michael D. Farwell, an associate professor of radiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania hypothesized that by using F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET/CT, which is one of the most common and readily available ways to test for cancer, patients could experience metabolic changes in tumors after a week on immunotherapy.

The study is published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

Reference: One-week FDG PET/CT predicts treatment response in advanced melanoma; Clinical Cancer Research