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Item refines Preprint · not peer-reviewed
AI on breast biopsy slides flagged intermediate-risk patients who gained from chemotherapy
Applied without retraining to 6,735 TAILORx trial participants, an AI model reading H&E slides alongside clinical variables predicted disease-free interval (C-index 0.736) and, within the intermediate-risk group, separated patients who gained from chemotherapy from those who did not.
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Item confirms Peer-reviewed
Slow gait and a low cognitive score at 66 together predict later dementia in Korea
Among 741,655 Korean 66-year-olds followed for a mean of 10.9 years, those with both cognitive impairment and a Timed Up and Go over 10 seconds had a 1.74-fold higher hazard of dementia, alongside raised risks of death, disability and long-term care use.
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Item refines Peer-reviewed
Former US service members died of despair causes more often than civilians in two states
Linking Massachusetts and Minnesota death certificates for 176,719 decedents aged 18-64 to military personnel files, former service members had proportionate mortality ratios for alcohol, drug and suicide deaths of 111.9 in Massachusetts and 106.7 in Minnesota relative to non-military decedents.
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Item new Peer-reviewed
Higher particulate exposure before surgery tracked worse gastric cancer survival in China
In 4,441 patients who had radical surgery for stage I-III gastric cancer in Zhejiang, China, each standard-deviation rise in pre-surgery PM2.5 exposure was associated with 15% higher all-cause mortality and 31% higher gastric cancer-specific mortality.
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Item confirms Peer-reviewed
Empagliflozin's cardiovascular benefit in Medicare data does not vary by social group
In US Medicare claims for adults aged 65 and over with type 2 diabetes, empagliflozin initiation was associated with lower rates of major cardiovascular events, heart failure hospitalisation and all-cause mortality than DPP-4 inhibitors, with no difference by sociodemographic subgroup.
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Item confirms Peer-reviewed
Current smokers were twice as likely to skip follow-up after lung CT screening
In a Japanese community low-dose CT screening programme, 19.3% of abnormal findings had no documented diagnostic follow-up within a year, and current smokers had roughly twice the odds of nonattendance as former smokers (adjusted OR 2.15, 95% CI 1.71-2.70).
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Item confirms Peer-reviewed
GLP-1 use with raised CRP tracked lower mortality but no change in heart attacks
In a matched cohort of 100,018 US adults with obesity and raised C-reactive protein, GLP-1 exposure was associated with a lower composite of death, myocardial infarction and stroke (HR 0.80), almost entirely through all-cause mortality (HR 0.61), with no difference in infarction.
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Item new Peer-reviewed
Aumolertinib with radiotherapy gave median PFS of 34 vs 7.4 months in stage III NSCLC
In a Chinese phase III trial stopped early after 43 of a planned 98 patients were randomised, chemotherapy-free aumolertinib with definitive radiotherapy gave a median progression-free survival of 34.0 months against 7.4 months for chemoradiotherapy in EGFR-mutated unresectable stage III NSCLC.
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Item refines Peer-reviewed
Variability in blood pressure tracks aortic aneurysm risk in UK Biobank
In 189,770 UK Biobank participants with linked primary care records, visit-to-visit systolic blood pressure variability was associated with 33% to 54% higher risk of incident abdominal aortic aneurysm over a median 10.7 years, independent of mean systolic pressure.
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Item refines Peer-reviewed
Remote exercise rehabilitation raised peak oxygen uptake in cardiac patients
A meta-analysis of 13 randomised trials in 958 adults with cardiovascular disease found exercise-based telerehabilitation improved peak oxygen uptake by 2.58 mL/kg/min against usual care, on a 95% prediction interval running from -1.28 to 6.44 and substantial heterogeneity.
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Item confirms Peer-reviewed
US life expectancy ranked 38th in 2023 as the gap with peer countries widened
An analysis of US and comparator mortality data finds US life expectancy ranked 38th globally in 2023, with the gap against 16 high-income countries widening and the rising death rates concentrated at younger and working ages.
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Item refines Peer-reviewed
Only the cognitive part of education's polygenic score tracks Alzheimer's disease
Across four cohorts totalling 3,483 participants, the cognitive component of an educational attainment polygenic score was inversely associated with Alzheimer's diagnosis and with Braak stage, while the non-cognitive component showed no association with any outcome.
