Cardiac mission saves 13 children’s lives with complex surgeries

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All over the globe, A&K Global Health excels in matching people who need healthcare with the right organizations to fund it and the right doctors and hospitals to provide it. A recent international surgical mission at Mater Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya delivered a powerful example of our life-saving coordination and management in action.

For two weeks last November, a team of cardiac surgeons from Kardiocentrum University Hospital in Motol, Czech Republic and Kramala Hospital in Bratislava, Slovakia, embedded with Mater’s resident surgical and support staff. In conjunction with the National Hospital Insurance Fund’s (NHIF) cardiac surgery program, the mission aimed to address the most urgent pediatric cardiac cases on the hospital’s waiting list. It conducted 13 complex surgeries in just 13 days, including one Rastelli procedure – the first to be performed at Mater Hospital. All 13 surgeries were successful, and all 13 children have since returned home to their families from the hospital.

One of these children’s remarkable stories was featured in Kenya’s The Standard shortly after the mission concluded. “Godious Kiptoo Chumba is a two-year-old patient who has benefitted from the NHIF cardiac program…at Mater Hospital,” read the testimonial. “His father…could not hide his joy and relief after his son was successfully operated on. ‘We are very happy that our son’s surgery was successful. It was a very long process before we got to where we are but we are indeed very grateful. What wonderful work NHIF has done to reach out to Kenyans!’”

Because 10 of the 13 children who received surgeries were sponsored by the NHIF and managed by A&K Global Health, Mater Hospital and the visiting surgeons organized an event at the mission’s end to acknowledge and appreciate everyone’s role. It was an emotional evening for the local and foreign doctors alike: in their presentation to our CEO, Morgan Darwin, the surgeons stressed that these patients would have died without A&K Global Health’s involvement. Several medical professionals were moved to tears as they expressed their gratitude.

There are so many beautiful stories to be told about this mission,” said Mr. Darwin. “There are the 13 children who now have the chance to live long and healthy lives. There’s also the dedication, determination, and professionalism of the Kenyan and foreign surgeons – their courage, cooperation, and teamwork, across different countries and cultures, directly enabled these life-saving procedures to be successful. It was our great privilege, as the implementer and manager of the NHIF cardiac program, to witness this surgical mission’s impact at Mater.”

A&K Global Health has more collaborative surgical initiatives on the horizon. At Mater as at every hospital involved in the NHIF’s cardiac surgery program, we are using our experience and expert knowledge to put together surgical alliances that benefit every participant, from patients and families to Kenyan as well as international surgeons and medical professionals. And we’ll continue to showcase here on the A&K Global Health blog the incredible positive returns that occur when we bring people together, united toward the common goal of expanding healthcare.

Source:http://akglobalhealth.com/cardiac-mission-saves-13-childrens-lives-complex-surgeries/

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India’s first uterine transplant, Baroda woman to get her mother’s womb.

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The wonders of science never cease to amaze us. And while the rest of the first world countries are pretty used to ground-breaking medical inventions and procedures, India is slowly catching up.What seemed impossible almost a decade ago has now become the norm. 

And pretty seen soon, the nation is going to have its first uterine transplant. Wondering what that is? Well, ‘it’s is the surgical procedure whereby a healthy uterus is transplanted into an organism of which the uterus is absent or diseased.’

According to a report published in the Indian Express, a 26-year-old Baroda-based woman will undergo the surgery in Pune on May 18. Prior to this, she had suffered four abortions, lost two two babies after carrying them full-term, and has a defected uterus.

“Atlu sehen karyu che, have sano dar (I have gone through a lot and am no longer worried),”she said in an interview to the leading daily. “Mara chokri ne balak thay bas etla mate operation che (I am doing this so that my daughter can have her own child),” added her 44-year-old mother.

Interestingly, Pune’s Galaxy Care Laprascopy Institute (GCLI) will witness two other similar surgeries on May 19 and one in June. “The three surgeries will be conducted for free by a 12-member team of gynaecologists, endocrinologists and IVF specialists. In all the cases, the women will be receiving wombs from their respective mothers,” reported Zee News.

Though, it’s India’s first uterine transplant, the first surgery in the world took place in Sweden in 2012. So, in order to prep up for the surgery a team of Indian doctors visited Sweden. “Before going ahead in our hospital, we followed a rigorous process while choosing the donor and the recipient of womb,” said Dr Shailesh Puntambekar, medical director, GCLI, in an interview to Hindustan Times.

There’s no doubt this new medical procedure is a blessing for women, who can’t conceive due to a scarred or non-existent womb.

Source:http://www.oddnaari.in/news/story/odd-baroda-woman-uterine-transplant-india-first-womb-surgery-125374-2017-05-12

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Focus shifts to expensive pacemakers, lenses, catheters

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After the capping of cardiac stent prices, the Rajya Sabha petitions committee has turned its attention to overpricing of other medical devices. On Tuesday, the committee heard the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) and the department of pharmaceuticals (DoP) on the issue. 

The health ministry has classified 22 medical devices, including cardiac stents, as drugs under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940. These include intraocular lens, knee and hip implants, syringes and catheters.

The committee is hearing a petition filed by one Sulagna Chattopadhyay on overpricing of medical devices. The petition had sought measures to regulate the price of medical devices and to investigate the role of regulatory bodies like the drug controller in preventing overpricing.

The All India Drug Action Network, a civil society group working on pricing of drugs and devices, argued before the committee that it was equally important for pacemakers, implantable cardioverter defibrillator, artificial heart valves, intraocular lenses, and hip and knee replacements to be made accessible via price control. The committee has been holding hearings since the beginning of 2016. It has visited several places including Bengaluru, Coorg, Mumbai and Bhopal to hold hearings.

“We asked for more cath labs in the public health system and for fixing procedure rates so cardiac procedures become more affordable. We also want price control of other devices such as pacemakers, cochlear implants and artificial joints,” said Dr Ravi D’Souza of Sochara, a group working on public health. D’Souza had deposed before the committee in Bhopal. 

“After stents, the panel’s focus has shifted to other medical devices. However, there are still loopholes it can help fix: the cost of catheters, balloons, guidewires, which are high. Barely a dent has been made in overall angioplasty costs. Medical device firms and their associations are on a misinformation campaign to safeguard their interests by preventing price regulation of other devices. The committee should move swiftly and recommend price checks on other devices to benefit the poor,” said Malini Aisola of AIDAN. Chattopadhyay said she too has asked for the price of balloons, catheters and guide wires also to be capped to make angioplasty truly affordable. 

(This article was originally published in The Times of India) 

Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/healthcare/focus-shifts-to-expensive-pacemakers-lenses-catheters/articleshow/58624368.cms

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Hypertension may lead to stroke or cardio-vascular diseases: Indus Health Plus report

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The sample size for the study was 21,623 people who underwent preventive health check-up during January – December 2016

On the occasion of World Hypertension Day on May 17, 2017, a study by Indus Health Plus revealed that 27 per cent males and 24 per cent females from 25-35 years age group have reported of pre-hypertension. If left untreated, it would develop into hypertension eventually, leading to stroke or cardio-vascular diseases (CVDs). The sample size for the study was 21,623 people who underwent preventive health check-up during January – December 2016.

The report states that incidences of hypertension is increasing consistently in Mumbai area, with 35 per cent to 40 per cent urban people and 18 per cent to 20 per cent rural people suffering from it.

Amol Naikawadi, Preventive Healthcare Specialist, Indus Health Plus says, “90 per cent of the population are unaware about the silent symptoms of hypertension. Mumbaikars are not meeting healthy lifestyle recommendations that are important in preventing hypertension and its complications. While those from urban areas blamed work pressure and job insecurity for rising levels of stress and eventually hypertension, people from semi-rural and rural area blamed the increasing cost and increased in-house expenditure. If not treated on time, hypertension can lead to heart problems, renal and multiple organ failure. A timely and routine check-up can reduce the risk of hypertension.”

Source: http://www.expressbpd.com/healthcare/happening-now/hypertension-may-lead-to-stroke-or-cardio-vascular-diseases-indus-health-plus-report/385488/?SocialMedia

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Early MRI may lower costs for prostate cancer treatment

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Study finds MRI and MRI-guided biopsy cheaper long-term than standard ultrasound.

A diagnostic MRI followed by one of three MRI-guided biopsy strategies is a cost-effective method to detect prostate cancer, according to a new study out of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center. Researchers compared MR-guided approaches to the current standard of transrectal ultrasound guided biopsies and found that these approaches yielded net health benefits that were well within commonly accepted threshold for costs-benefit ratios and thus are cost-effective strategies for detecting prostate cancer. The paradigm-shifting research was published in the preeminent journal Radiology.

“Many consider MRIs to be cost-prohibitive, especially when evaluating for a common entity such as prostate cancer. This was our expectation as well, prior to doing this work, but our study found the opposite. We found that performing MRI before biopsy and using that information to alter biopsy pathways would be a strategy that would add health benefits to the patient population in a cost effective manner,” said Vikas Gulani, MD, PhD, study advisor and associate professor of radiology, urology, and biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and member of both the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center and Case Center for Imaging Research.

The study was jointly first-authored by Shivani Pahwa, MD, department of radiology, and Nicholas Schiltz, PhD, department of biostatistics; and was developed in close collaboration with Lee Ponsky, MD, department of urology, and Mark Griswold, PhD, department of radiology.

The researchers found using MRI to help detect lesions and guide biopsies increased standardized quality-adjusted life years for patients and was cost-effective in 94.05% of simulations. The benefits were consistent across age groups, and could change how doctors identify and sample cancer lesions.

The current standard of care for detecting prostate cancer involves 12 biopsy samples collected during an invasive transrectal ultrasound. Since most tumors are not visible on ultrasound, up to 40% of clinically significant tumors are missed via this method, and many found are clinically insignificant. The approach regularly results in patients entering treatment pathways with potential negative side effects, to treat low-risk tumors. Biopsies may also cause bleeding and complications, increasing health care costs.

MRI offers a non-invasive alternative to transrectal ultrasound which can help better steer biopsy pathways. Doctors could use MRI to evaluate patients for potentially harmful lesions, and then use that information in one of three MRI guided strategies for biopsying potential foci of cancer, and bypass biopsy if a scan is completely negative. Although scans are expensive, they can add health benefits by triaging patients into proper treatment pathways. MR tends to miss low risk cancer, the overtreatment of which is a major contributor to high health and financial costs in prostate cancer. Similarly, a negative MRI is a very good predictor of exclusion of aggressive disease. A combination of such factors is likely the reason for the cost effectiveness of the MRI guided strategies. Current estimates place prostate cancer care costs in the United States at over $10 billion annually, and the price tag is rising.

The findings may help streamline prostate cancer treatment protocols to better serve patients. Said Gulani, “Costs are escalating in part due to expensive and inefficient diagnostic pathways, and placement of patients in incorrect treatment groups. If we can maximize efficiency in how we identify clinically significant lesions and diagnose patients, we can reduce unnecessary treatments for our patients, and reduce costs to our hospitals.”

Source: Case Western Reserve University

URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170517154720.htm

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Cancer-cardiac connection illuminates promising new drug for heart failure

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A team of researchers at the Gladstone Institutes uncovered a new strategy to treat heart failure, a leading contributor to mortality and healthcare costs in the United States. Despite widespread use of currently-approved drugs, approximately 40% of patients with heart failure die within 5 years of their initial diagnosis.

“The current standard of care is clearly not sufficient, which highlights the urgent need for new therapeutic approaches,” said Saptarsi Haldar, MD, an associate investigator at Gladstone and senior author of a new study featured on the cover of the scientific journal Science Translational Medicine. “In our previous work, we found that a drug-like small molecule called JQ1 can prevent the development of heart failure in mouse models when administered at the very onset of the disease. However, as the majority of patients requiring treatment already have longstanding cardiac dysfunction, we needed to determine if our strategy could also treat established heart failure.”

As part of an emerging treatment strategy, drugs derived from JQ1 are currently under study in early-phase human cancer trials. These drugs act by inhibiting a protein called BRD4, a member of a family of proteins called BET bromodomains, which directly influences heart failure. With this study, the scientists found that JQ1 can effectively treat severe, pre-established heart failure in both small animal and human cell models by blocking inflammation and fibrosis (scarring of the heart tissue).

“It has long been known that inflammation and fibrosis are key conspirators in the development of heart failure, but targeting these processes with drugs has remained a significant challenge,” added Haldar, who is also a practicing cardiologist and an associate professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. “By inhibiting the function of the protein BRD4, an approach that simultaneously blocks both of these processes, we are using a new and different strategy altogether to tackle the problem.”

Currently available drugs used for heart failure work at the surface of heart cells. In contrast, Haldar’s approach goes to the root of the problem and blocks destructive processes in the cell’s command center, or nucleus.

“We treated mouse models of heart failure with JQ1, similarly to how patients would be treated in a clinic,” said Qiming Duan, MD, PhD, postdoctoral scholar in Haldar’s lab and co-first author of the study. “We showed that this approach effectively treats pre-established heart failure that occurs both after a massive heart attack or in response to persistent high blood pressure (mechanical overload), suggesting it could be used to treat a wide array of patients.”

Using Gladstone’s unique expertise, the scientists then used induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), generated from adult human skin cells, to create a type of beating heart cell known as cardiomyocytes.

“After testing the drug in mice, we wanted to check whether JQ1 would have the same effect in humans,” explained co-first author Sarah McMahon, a UCSF graduate student in Haldar’s lab. “We tested the drug on human cardiomyocytes, as they are cells that not only beat, but can also trigger the processes of inflammation and fibrosis, which in turn make heart failure progressively worse. Similar to our animal studies, we found that JQ1 was also effective in human heart cells, reaffirming the clinical relevance of our results.”

The study also showed that, in contrast to several cancer drugs that have been documented to cause cardiac toxicity, BRD4 inhibitors may be a class of anti-cancer therapeutics that has protective effects in the human heart.

“Our study demonstrates a new therapeutic approach to successfully target inflammation and fibrosis, representing a major advance in the field,” concluded Haldar. “We also believe our current work has important near-term translational impact in human heart failure. Given that drugs derived from JQ1 are already being tested in cancer clinical trials, their safety and efficacy in humans are already being defined. This key information could accelerate the development of a new heart failure drug and make it available to patients more quickly.”

Story Source:Materials provided by Gladstone Institutes.

URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170517143623.htm

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Costs for generic hepatitis C drugs available in India would be paid back in 5 to 10 years

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Use of the generic versions of directly-acting antiviral (DAA) drugs that are available in India to treat hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is not only cost effective but actually saves lifetime costs for treating infected patients in that country. A report from an international research team appears in the open-access journal PLOS ONE and describes finding that the upfront costs of DAA are offset by the avoidance of costs incurred to treat late-stage disease.

“More than 9 million people are infected with HCV in India, and more than 70 million worldwide,” says Jagpreet Chhatwal, PhD, of the Institute for Technology Assessment at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), senior and corresponding author of the paper. “These persons are at risk of developing serious conditions such as cirrhosis and liver cancer, which can be fatal. However, only a fraction of them have been treated with these drugs so far.”

First introduced in 2011, DAAs such as sofosbuvir (Sovaldi) and ledipasvir (which is combined with sofosbuvir in Harvoni) have proven to be remarkably successful in the battle against HCV infection, with cure rates exceeding 95 percent. In developed countries, treatment with DAAs is very expensive — reaching nearly $65,000 in the U.S. — although it meets standards for cost effectiveness. In those countries the advent of these drugs has drastically changed the landscape of HCV infection. But other countries have lagged behind in their use.

Through agreements with the pharmaceutical companies that developed these drugs, generic drug manufacturers in India are now able to produce versions that cost as little as $300 for the entire duration of treatment. But the absence of data on the cost effectiveness of these drugs in that country and low budgets for HCV treatment have meant that only a small proportion of people needing these drugs have received them.

The research team — including investigators from Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Lucknow, India, and the World Health Organization — used a mathematical model to compare the outcomes of DAA treatment with those of no DAA treatment based on profiles of 30 hypothetical patients with characteristics typical of Indian patients with HCV infection. Factors incorporated into the model included the natural history of HCV disease, the costs of DAA administration, the costs of treating the adverse outcomes of HCV disease, and quality of life of individuals infected with HCV.

The model indicated that, compared with no DAA treatment, use of the generic drugs in HCV-infected Indian patients would increase life expectancy by more than eight years while reducing lifetime health care costs by more than $1,300 per person. Payback for the upfront costs of DAA drugs would be achieved in an overall average of less than 10 years — under 5 years for patients at advanced stages of HCV disease and almost 12 years if treatment begins at earlier stages. Even though there was wide variation in the factors — such as patient age, disease stage, and viral genotype — input to the model, results always indicated that generic DAA treatment reduced lifetime costs.

“Our hypothesis was that treatment would be cost saving, given the low drug costs in India. However, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the full payback was achieved so soon after treatment,” says Chhatwal, who is an assistant professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School. “Our finding that treatment pays back its initial costs makes a very strong statement — that investment in HCV screening and treatment should be a priority for public health agencies in India and other countries where generic DAAs are available. It could also be argued that generic DAAs should be made available in other low- and middle-income countries where HCV infection is common and budgets for treatment limited.”

Lead author Rakesh Aggarwal, MD, DM, of the Department of Gastroenterology at Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS), a WHO Collaborating Center on Viral Hepatitis, says, “This is a win-win situation for the low- and low-middle-income countries where the generic DAAs can be sold. If these countries spend money on HCV treatment today, they will recoup it in the form of reduced health care expenditure within less than one decade. There is hardly any other health care intervention with such good return. Our results should show political leaders in those countries that they have a wonderful opportunity to make a difference for their constituents.”

Story Source:Materials provided by Massachusetts General Hospital.

URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170517184519.htm

Cutting down on cancer surgeries

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New microscopy technique could reduce repeat surgeries for breast cancer patients

Engineers at the Optical Imaging Laboratory led by Caltech’s Lihong Wang have developed an imaging technology that could help surgeons removing breast cancer lumps confirm that they have cut out the entire tumor — reducing the need for additional surgeries.

About 300,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer are discovered annually. Of these, 60 to 75 percent of patients underwent breast-conserving surgery.

Breast-conserving surgeries, or lumpectomies, attempt to remove the entire tumor while retaining as much of the undamaged breast tissue as possible. (In contrast, a mastectomy removes the entire breast.) The extracted tissue is then sent to a lab where it is rendered into thin slices, stained with a dye to highlight key features, and then analyzed. If tumor cells are found on the surface of the tissue sample, it indicates that the surgeon has cut through, not around, the tumor — meaning that a portion of the tumor remains inside the patient, who will then need a follow-up surgery to have more tissue removed.

After a week or two waiting for lab results, 20 to 60 percent of patients find out that they must return for a second surgery to have more tissue removed. But, asks Wang, “what if we could get rid of the waiting? With 3D photoacoustic microscopy, we could analyze the tumor right in the operating room, and know immediately whether more tissue needs to be removed.” Wang is a Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering in Caltech’s Division of Engineering and Applied Science. His lab invented 3D photoacoustic microscopy.

Photoacoustic microscopy, or PAM, excites a tissue sample with a low-energy laser, which causes the tissue to vibrate. The system measures the ultrasonic waves emitted by the vibrating tissue. Because nuclei vibrate more strongly than surrounding material, PAM reveals the size of nuclei and the packing density of cells. Cancerous tissue tends to have larger nuclei and more densely packed cells.

Indeed, as described by Wang and his team in a paper publishing in the journal Science Advances on May 17, PAM produces images capable of highlighting cancerous features, with no slicing or staining required.

Wang conducted this research while the Optical Imaging Laboratory was located at Washington University in St. Louis. He moved the lab to Caltech’s Andrew and Peggy Cherng Department of Medical Engineering in January 2017.

Although Wang’s team has focused primarily on breast cancer tumors, his work has potential applications for any analysis of excised tumors — from melanoma to pancreatic cancer. In a proof-of-concept scan described in the new paper, PAM analyzed a sample in about three hours. Comparable traditional microscopy takes about seven hours to achieve the same results. However, Wang says that PAM’s analysis time could be cut down to 10 minutes or less with the addition of faster laser pulse repetition and parallel imaging. This would make the technology useful for clinical applications.

“Because the device never directly touches a patient, there will be fewer regulatory hurdles to overcome before gaining FDA approval for use by surgeons,” Wang says. “Potentially, we could make this tool available to surgeons within several years.”

Story Source: Materials provided by California Institute of Technology.

URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170517154728.htm

Stool microbes predict advanced liver disease

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Proof-of-concept study suggests a noninvasive test for specific microbial population patterns could be used to detect advanced nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) — a condition that can lead to liver cirrhosis and cancer — isn’t typically detected until it’s well advanced. Even then, diagnosis requires an invasive liver biopsy. To detect NAFLD earlier and more easily, researchers in the NAFLD Research Center at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, Human Longevity, Inc. and the J. Craig Venter Institute report that the unique microbial makeup of a patient’s stool sample — or gut microbiome — can be used to predict advanced NAFLD with 88 to 94 percent accuracy.

The proof-of-concept study, which involved 135 participants, is published May 2 in Cell Metabolism.

“We estimate that as many as 100 million adults and children in the U.S. may have NAFLD. Determining exactly who has or is at risk for the disease is a critical unmet medical need,” said first author Rohit Loomba, MD, professor of medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, director of the NAFLD Research Center and a faculty member in the Center for Microbiome Innovation at UC San Diego. “There are about 50 new NAFLD drugs in the pipeline, including about five that will likely be approved for use in the next two years. If we are better able to diagnose this condition, we will be better at enrolling the right types of patients in these trials, and ultimately will be better equipped to prevent and treat it.”

The precise cause of NAFLD is unknown, but diet and genetics play substantial roles. Up to 50 percent of obese people are believed to have NAFLD. As mounting evidence continues to suggest that the makeup of a person’s gut microbiome may influence his or her risk for obesity, Loomba and team began to wonder if the gut microbiome might also be linked to obesity-associated liver disease. If so, they hypothesized that a stool-based “read-out” of what’s living in a person’s gut might provide insight into his or her NAFLD status.

To answer these questions, Loomba and team examined two different patient groups. The first group included 86 patients with NAFLD, as diagnosed by biopsy. Of these, 72 had mild/moderate NAFLD and 14 had advanced disease. Collaborators at Human Longevity, Inc. sequenced the microbial genes extracted from each participant’s stool sample and used that information to determine which species were living where, and the relative abundance of each. The researchers found 37 bacterial species that distinguished mild/moderate NAFLD from advanced disease, allowing them to predict which patients had advanced disease with 93.6 percent accuracy.

The team validated this finding with a second study group that included 16 patients with advanced NAFLD and 33 healthy people as controls. In this case, they found nine bacterial species whose relative numbers allowed them to distinguish NAFLD patients from the healthy volunteers, with 88 percent accuracy. Seven of these bacterial species overlapped with the signature 37 used in the previous group.

There are four main types of bacteria found in the human gut: Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Actinobacteria. Loomba and team found that patients with advanced NAFLD tend to have more Proteobacteria and fewer Firmicutes in their stool than those with early stage NAFLD. At the species level, one major difference the researchers found was in the abundance of E. coli — these bacteria were three-fold more common in advanced NAFLD patients than early stage patients.

“We believe our study sets the stage for a potential stool-based test to detect advanced liver fibrosis based simply on microbial patterns,” said senior author Karen E. Nelson, PhD, president of the J. Craig Venter Institute, “or at least help us minimize the number of patients who have to undergo liver biopsies.”

While Loomba estimates that a stool-based microbiome diagnostic might cost $1,500 if it were on the market today, he predicts that cost will lower to less than $400 in the next five years due to advances in genomic sequencing and analysis technologies.

While excited, the researchers caution that so far this new diagnostic approach has only been tested in a relatively small patient group at a single, highly specialized medical center. The team is now applying for grant funding to expand their study in a larger cohort across multiple sites. Even if successful, a stool-based test for NAFLD wouldn’t be available to patients for at least five years, they said. Loomba also points out that while a distinct set of microbial species may be associated with advanced NAFLD, this study does not suggest that the presence or absence of these microbes causes NAFLD or vice versa.

“We are looking forward to further studies to assess the role, if any, these microbial species play in gut permeability, liver inflammation and cross-talk with other factors to induce liver injury, and ultimately influence disease progression in NAFLD,” said study co-author David A. Brenner, MD, vice chancellor of UC San Diego Health Sciences and dean of UC San Diego School of Medicine.

“Understanding the microbiome, just as sequencing the human genome, is one part of the puzzle on human health and disease,” said study co-author J. Craig Venter, PhD, co-founder and executive chairman of Human Longevity, Inc. “New technologies, such as machine learning, are allowing for tremendous advances to interpret these data.”

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of California – San Diego.

Original written by Heather Buschman.Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Antibiotics may up miscarriage risk

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Women who take common antibiotics to treat infections during the early stages of pregnancy may be at a two-fold higher risk of suffering a miscarriage, a new study warns.

Researchers from the Universite de Montreal in Canada looked at data from about 8,702 cases, defined as clinically detected spontaneous abortions, which were matched with 87,020 controls. The mean gestational age at the time of miscarriage was 14 weeks.

Researchers found that many classes of common antibiotics, such as macrolides, quinolones, tetracyclines, sulfonamides and metronidazole, were associated with increased risk of miscarriage in early pregnancy.

Erythromycin and nitrofurantoin, often used to treat urinary tract infections in pregnant women, were not associated with increased risk, the researchers said.These findings may be useful for policy-makers to update guidelines for the treatment of infections during pregnancy , the researchers noted.

The study was published in the ‘Canadian Medical Association Journal’.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health-news/antibiotics-may-up-miscarriage-risk/articleshow/58471222.cms

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