Category Archives: Medical research

AstraZeneca reviews diversity in trials to ensure drugs work for all

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Firm aims to apply ‘equity lens’ across clinical tests to ensure diverse population groups take part

The pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca is conducting a major review of diversity across its trials in an attempt to ensure its medicines work for all population groups, although it has admitted that including pregnant women is a particular challenge.

The head of oncology at Britain’s biggest drugmaker, David Fredrickson told the Guardian that the firm was among those leading efforts to improve participation of people of colour and other under-represented groups in clinical trials.

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More monkeypox cases detected in UK ‘on daily basis’, says scientist

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Twenty cases confirmed in UK amid reports of child being admitted to intensive care in London hospital

More monkeypox cases are being detected in Britain “on a daily basis”, a senior doctor has warned, amid reports that a child has been admitted to intensive care with the disease.

Dr Susan Hopkins, a chief medical adviser to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), said an update on confirmed cases would be released on Monday as efforts continue to contain the outbreak using contact tracing, testing and vaccination.

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British scientist says US anti-abortion lawyers misused his work to attack Roe v Wade

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Giandomenico Iannetti, a pain expert at UCL, angrily denies that his research suggests foetuses can feel pain before 24 weeks

A University College London scientist has accused lawyers in the US of misusing his groundbreaking work on the brain to justify the dismantling of Roe v Wade, the landmark ruling that legalised abortion nationally in America.

Giandomenico Iannetti said his research, which used imaging to understand the adult brain’s response to pain, had been wrongly interpreted to make an anti-abortion argument.

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Australian researchers uncover clue to rare and severe response to Covid in children

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Breakthrough could improve diagnosis and lead to development of treatment for condition that has baffled doctors for two years

In the first months after Covid emerged, doctors were baffled by rare and severe responses to the virus in some children, whose symptoms included lung disease, blood clotting and heart damage.

Two years later and researchers led by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute [MCRI] in Melbourne have uncovered the proteins involved in these acute inflammatory responses in children.

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Number of UK children suffering from hepatitis rises to 145

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Concerns rise about surge as scientists say lack of exposure to viruses during Covid restrictions could be factor

The number of children in the UK suffering from severe hepatitis has risen to 145 as concerns mount about the mysterious surge in cases.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) announced an increase of 34 cases but said most children have recovered and no children have died. There has been no increase from the 10 children who have required a liver transplant, reported on Monday.

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More than half of Americans have had Covid, including three of four children

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A CDC report showed a striking increase in those with coronavirus antibodies between December and February

More than half of Americans show signs of a previous Covid-19 infection, including three out of every four children, according to a new report released on Tuesday.

The findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) come after researchers examined blood samples from more than 200,000 Americans and looked for virus-fighting antibodies made from infections, not vaccines. They found that signs of past infection rose dramatically between December and February, when the more contagious Omicron variant surged through the US.

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Only 29% of UK Covid hospital patients recover within a year

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Of the 750,000 hospitalised, many still report fatigue, muscle pain, insomnia and breathlessness, with women worst affected

Fewer than one in three people who have been hospitalised with Covid-19 have fully recovered a year after they succumbed to infection.

That is the shock finding of a survey into the impact of long Covid in the UK. The team of scientists and doctors at Leicester University also found that women had poorer recovery rates than men after hospitalisation, while obesity was also likely to hinder a person’s prospects of health improvements.

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Pigs can pass deadly superbugs to people, study reveals

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Research into C difficile found antibiotic resistance is growing as a result of overuse on farm stock

Scientists have uncovered evidence that dangerous versions of superbugs can spread from pigs to humans. The discovery underlines fears that intensive use of antibiotics on farms is leading to the spread of microbes resistant to them.

The discovery of the link has been made by Semeh Bejaoui and Dorte Frees of Copenhagen University and Soren Persson at Denmark’s Statens Serum Institute and focuses on the superbug Clostridioides difficile, which is considered one of the world’s major antibiotic resistance threats.

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First person to have Covid infection for more than a year identified in UK

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Researchers at London hospitals call for urgent new treatments for persistent infections

Doctors in the UK have called for urgent new treatments to clear persistent Covid infections after identifying the first person in the world known to have harboured the virus for more than a year.

The patient, who had a weakened immune system, caught the virus in 2020 and tested positive for Covid for 505 days before they died. Previously, the longest known PCR-confirmed case of Covid was a US cancer survivor in her 40s who tested positive for 335 days.

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Lifelong excess weight can nearly double risk of womb cancer – study

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Bristol study finds that for every five extra BMI units a woman’s risk of endometrial cancer increases by 88%

Lifelong excess weight may almost double a woman’s risk of developing womb cancer, research suggests.

Scientists and doctors have known for some time that being overweight or obese increases the risk of the disease. About one in three cases in the UK (34%) are linked to excess weight.

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Lessons from Covid can start a health revolution, says lab chief

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Director of network that processed millions of tests says smart diagnostics could tackle other major diseases

Two years of mass Covid testing have paved the way for a revolution in how we diagnose other diseases, the founding director of the Lighthouse labs network has said.

In his first interview since the pandemic began, Prof Chris Molloy said that people’s familiarity with using swabs for Covid tests meant that they could also discover and monitor their risk of other conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease.

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Omicron variant does cause different symptoms from Delta, study finds

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Data from UK’s Zoe Covid study confirms reports Omicron patients recover more quickly and are less likely to lose sense of smell or taste

People who have the Omicron Covid variant tend to have symptoms for a shorter period, a lower risk of being admitted to hospital and a different set of symptoms from those who have Delta, research has suggested.

As the highly transmissible Omicron variant shot to dominance towards the end of last year, it emerged that, while it is better at dodging the body’s immune responses than Delta, it also produces less severe disease.

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Hundreds fitted with artificial pancreas in NHS type 1 diabetes trial

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Adults and children wear device that monitors glucose level and adjusts amount of insulin delivered

Hundreds of adults and children with type 1 diabetes in England have been fitted with an artificial pancreas that experts say could become the “holy grail” for managing the disease, in a world-first trial on the NHS.

The groundbreaking device uses an algorithm to determine the amount of insulin that should be administered and reads blood sugar levels to keep them steady. The NHS trial has so far found the technology more effective at managing diabetes than current devices and that it requires far less input from patients.

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China shuts down city of 17.5m people in bid to halt Covid outbreak

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Authorities adopt a zero tolerance policy in Shenzhen, imposing a lockdown and testing every resident three times

China’s government has locked down Shenzhen, a city of 17.5 million people, as it tries to contain its worst ever Covid-19 outbreak across multiple provinces, with case numbers tripling from Saturday to Sunday.

A government notice on Sunday said all residential communities were now under “closed management”, meaning they would be locked down. Every resident would undergo three rounds of testing, for which they were allowed to leave their homes, and all buses and subways were suspended.

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Sports concussion expert who resigned amid plagiarism claims accused of copying more articles

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Analysis of 10 pieces by neurologist Dr Paul McCrory, who quit the Concussion in Sport Group, suggests he may have copied other work without proper attribution

A neurologist who resigned from a global sports concussion organisation amid allegations of plagiarism in a medical journal editorial has been accused of copying material in other articles without attribution.

Dr Paul McCrory, who in 2016 described concussion among NFL players as “overblown” and has advised the AFL on the issue, stood down as chair of Concussion in Sport Group (CISG) this week after the British Journal of Sports Medicine retracted the 2005 editorial, citing an “unlawful and indefensible breach of copyright” of the work of Prof Steve Haake.

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Higher levels of PFAS exposure may increase chance of Covid, studies say

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Four studies are first to support theory PFAS could hinder body’s ability to fight virus, but authors say more is research needed

Higher levels of exposure to toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” may increase the likelihood of Covid-19 infection, more serious symptoms and death, a group of recent studies have found.

Public health advocates and researchers have feared since the coronavirus pandemic’s onset that PFAS, which are known to be immunotoxic, could hinder the body’s ability to fight Covid-19, and the four studies represent the first bit of research supporting the theory. However, the authors caution that more research is needed.

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First person to receive heart transplant from pig dies, says Maryland hospital

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  • David Bennett dies two months after groundbreaking surgery
  • His condition began deteriorating several days earlier

Two months after a pioneering operation, the first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig has died, the US hospital that performed the surgery announced on Wednesday.

A handyman by trade, David Bennett, 57, had undergone the experimental procedure in Baltimore, Maryland, after suffering from heart failure and being out of other options.

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Covid can shrink brain and damage its tissue, finds research

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Worst effect on region linked to smell, while infected people typically scored lower on mental skills test

The first major study to compare brain scans of people before and after they catch Covid has revealed shrinkage and tissue damage in regions linked to smell and mental capacities months after subjects tested positive.

It comes as the largest study to date of the genetics of Covid-19 identified 16 new genetic variants associated with severe illness, and named a number of existing drugs that could be repurposed to prevent patients from getting severely ill, some of which are already in clinical trials.

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Cutting back on final drink of day ‘could improve brain health’

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Study of UK adults shows negative effects of alcohol consumption grow stronger with each additional drink

Cutting back on the final drink of the evening could substantially improve brain health, scientists have said.

A major study of more than 36,000 adults suggests that the negative effects of alcohol consumption grow stronger with each additional drink. So those who drink several units each day potentially have the most to gain by reducing their drinking.

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Arthritis drug could help save Covid patients – study

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Rheumatoid arthritis drug baricitinib can reduce risk of death from severe Covid by about a fifth

A drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis could help to save the lives of patients with severe Covid, researchers have found, and they say its benefits can be seen even when it is used on top of other medications.

Experts involved in the Randomised Evaluation of Covid-19 Therapy (Recovery) trial say baricitinib, an anti-inflammatory drug taken as a tablet, can reduce the risk of death from severe Covid by about a fifth.

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