Healthcare today
Healthcare across the world faces existential challenges: escalating demands against constrained resources, increasing co-morbidities and widening inequalities in health.
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Healthcare today posts, most recent first.
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Item confirms Peer-reviewed
A Chinese dual GLP-1/GIP agonist produced 11% to 18% weight loss at 24 weeks in phase 2
In a 120-participant phase 2 trial in Chinese adults with overweight or obesity and no diabetes, once-weekly BGM0504 produced mean weight loss of 10.7% to 18.3% across three doses at 24 weeks, against a 0.1% gain on placebo, with mostly gastrointestinal adverse events rising with dose.
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Item refines Peer-reviewed
FAP relatives found by family screening had a median SMR of 0.66, symptomatic cases 11.09
In a UK registry of 1,917 people with familial adenomatous polyposis, relatives identified through family screening had mortality comparable to the general population (median SMR 0.66), while those presenting with symptoms had a median SMR of 11.09.
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Item refines Preprint · not peer-reviewed
Plasma p-tau217 tracked Alzheimer's-type atrophy but not general brain ageing
In 818 cognitively unimpaired participants of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, plasma p-tau217 measured before symptoms was associated with later mild cognitive impairment or dementia due to Alzheimer's disease and was the only marker associated with medial temporal lobe atrophy.
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Item new Preprint · not peer-reviewed
Daraxonrasib is estimated at $500,637 per QALY in pancreatic cancer at US launch price
A modelled economic evaluation of daraxonrasib in previously treated metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma estimated 0.506 additional QALYs at an incremental cost of $253,171, or $500,637 per QALY at the $39,800 monthly launch price, in a preprint not yet peer reviewed.
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Item refines Peer-reviewed
Cancer polygenic scores were weaker in African-ancestry than European-ancestry veterans
Among 560,287 US veterans, all 13 cancer-specific polygenic risk scores were associated with their own cancer in European-ancestry participants (OR 1.05 to 1.70 per standard deviation), but only 5 of 13 reached significance in African-ancestry participants, with smaller effects (OR 1.01 to 1.48).
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Item new Peer-reviewed
Women and deprived patients had higher one-year mortality in English aortic disease
Among 33,793 new thoracic aortic disease diagnoses in England between 2013 and 2018, one-year mortality was higher among women, older patients and those from deprived areas, and patients from deprived areas were less likely to receive early intervention or genetic referral.
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Item new Peer-reviewed
1 in 4 Black US students left a suicide-injury survey item blank, against 1 in 10 white
Across 163,489 US high school students surveyed between 2001 and 2021, 11.1% left the suicide-attempt item blank and 13.9% the injury item, with injury missingness averaging 25.8% among Black adolescents against 9.7% among white adolescents.
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Item confirms Peer-reviewed
Cardiac rehabilitation cut heart attacks by 28% and admissions by 35% across 107 trials
An updated Cochrane review of 107 randomised trials in 26,886 adults with coronary heart disease found that exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation reduced myocardial infarction (RR 0.72, 95% CI 0.54 to 0.95) and all-cause hospital admission (RR 0.65, 0.51 to 0.82) at 6 to 12 months.
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Item confirms Preprint · not peer-reviewed
AT2-stimulating antihypertensives were linked to less dementia in two US cohorts
In 1.6 million Medicare beneficiaries and 80,267 Vanderbilt patients aged 65 and over with hypertension, incident Alzheimer's disease and related dementias were less common among users of angiotensin II receptor-stimulating than receptor-inhibiting antihypertensives (6.7% against 8.2% in Medicare).
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Item new Peer-reviewed
Mortality was about a quarter higher for Australians in same-sex relationships
Australian census records linked to death registrations for 2011 to 2023 show all-cause mortality about a quarter higher among adults in same-sex than different-sex relationships, and external-cause mortality two to three times higher, both before and after the 2017 marriage reform.
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Item confirms Peer-reviewed
31% of US adults starting a GLP-1 drug for obesity were persistent users over 12 months
Among 201,229 commercially insured US adults with obesity and no diabetes who started a GLP-1 receptor agonist, 30.7% followed a persistent-use trajectory over 12 months and 43.1% had discontinued within the first half-year, with 20.3% persistent among 1,139 paediatric initiators.
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Item refines Preprint · not peer-reviewed
Self-guided lipid app cut LDL-cholesterol by 3.9% more than usual care over six months
In a pragmatic online trial of 278 adults with LDL-cholesterol above their risk-adapted target, a fully self-guided lifestyle app added to usual care reduced LDL by 3.9% more than usual care alone at six months, with 41.7% versus 23.8% achieving a fall of at least 10%.
