Oncology has been heavily featured across MD Consult this week, with many News stories emanating from the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, as well as a key article ahead of press in The Lancet Oncology. The latter has been receiving much attention in the wider media, as the study’s results suggest that cancer rates are set to skyrocket by as much as 75% by 2030, with a particular emphasis on those cancers which are strongly associated with obesity, smoking and other lifestyle factors. While those numbers seem daunting, there was encouraging news presented at the meeting as well as published in The New England Journal of Medicine: a new immunotherapy targeting the PD-1 pathway is showing very promising results for patients with a variety of different cancers. Other News items from the meeting are also online.
The latest full issue of The Lancet Oncology is in the Journals now, with articles examining the incidence of infection-related cancers, the prognostic value of microRNAs in nasopharyngeal carcinoma and a study exploring whether polyglutamine diseases, such as Huntington’s disease, offer protection against cancer. While it seems clear that these devastating illnesses do, in fact, prevent sufferers from developing cancer, the underlying mechanism is still unknown. Also new in this section is the June issue of Wilderness & Environmental Medicine. One paper on mountain biking injuries notes the growing popularity of the sport, and in light of the injuries uncovered by their analysis, the authors suggest that riders may want to consider more robust injury-prevention gear. Another article analyzes deaths caused by animals (the majority of them non-venomous); in fact, the most common cause of animal-related fatalities appears to be farm animals, including cows, horses and pigs. But dogs were also a common – and growing – cause of death, especially among children. Improved education about these situations was urged. There is also a look back at the origins of wilderness medicine, including lessons relevant today for both the battlefield and the great outdoors.
New this week in the Clinics is Sleep Medicine Clinics. The emphasis of this issue is hypersomnia, and articles cover its neurophysiology and neurochemistry, diagnostic criteria for hypersomnia, and things to consider when examining patients with hypersomnia symptoms. A range of conditions that may underlie or contribute to this excessive sleepiness are described in one paper, while another looks at behaviors that can cause this disorder. Hypersomnia in children and the elderly is also examined. Another new Clinic is the latest Clinics in Sports Medicine, which focuses on spinal injuries in athletes. The injuries common to specific sports are addressed in two separate articles; the first looks at those involving throwing (baseball), rotational issues (golf and rowing) and contact injuries (soccer and the other football). The second details injuries resulting from ‘aesthetic’ sports – dance, gymnastics and figure skating. There is an overview of spinal interventions, typically for athletes complaining of back pain, and degenerative diseases relating to sports participation are also listed.
Check back next week for more of what’s new on MD Consult.
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