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Genital swabbing better than urine testing to detect STIs in women
An analysis to find the best method to test for sexually transmitted infections in women, especially gonorrhea, chlamydia, and trichomoniasis, revealed that the vaginal swab method was more accurate than urine tests. Though vaginal swabs are advised by guidelines, people often use urine tests. Researchers hope this evidence encourages providers to use vaginal swabs.
University of Alabama at Birmingham
What to do when genetic testing incidentally reveals cardiac risk?
AHA's guidance advises communicating the risk of cardiovascular disease to patients who agreed to learn about these risks before testing. The initial interpretation of CVD risk could change over time. Physicians should develop a multidisciplinary framework to evaluate, re-evaluate, and determine the CVD risk associated with the variant to manage patients and their families.
Cardiovascular Business
Screening for diabetes should not be based on body weight
A study revealed that reducing the minimum age for diabetes screening to 18 years could help increase the number of cases detected, regardless of BMI or body weight. But, this method could also lead to greater testing among those who do not have diabetes or prediabetes. The USPSTF guidelines also suggest earlier screening of people at higher risk regardless of age or low BMI.
Popular Science
Life expectancy can help in advising surveillance colonoscopy
The chances of finding advanced colon polyps and colorectal cancer on surveillance colonoscopy in older adults aged above 65 years were found to be low irrespective of life expectancy, as per a study. But 58.1% of them with a life expectancy of fewer than 5 years were also advised another coloscopy. The findings could help in deciding to pursue or stop further colonoscopy.
Twitter @JAMAInternalMed
Newly identified biomarkers could detect pancreatic cancer risk
Researchers used the digital spatial RNA profiling technique to identify markers for differentiating leading variants of intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms to know which neoplasms will progress to prevent pancreatic cancer from developing. They also identified distinct markers to define another common variant that leads to a less aggressive disease.
Duke University Health System
How to communicate diagnostic uncertainties to patients?
Researchers developed a communication tool for physicians to communicate diagnostic uncertainties. It suggests physicians inform patients about the unclear diagnosis, promote patient engagement, balance the style of conversation and workload, agree with time constraints and workflow, and document the conversation to provide it to patients after the visit.
In.gr
Artificial intelligence can detect disease activity in ulcerative colitis
A study found that an AI model can help differentiate histological disease activity and remission with 85% specificity and 89% sensitivity from biopsy samples of patients with ulcerative colitis. The model was also able to predict flare-ups in patients. These predictions were also confirmed by external validation cohorts, suggesting this AI model could be a game changer.
Health Day
Are handheld devices that quantify bilirubin in neonates accurate?
A systematic review and meta-analysis suggest that point-of-care handheld devices used to measure bilirubin levels in neonates could underestimate the levels with a 14 μmol/L pooled mean difference. Moreover, the precision of handheld devices was limited compared to that of laboratory measurements. These findings have implications for neonatal jaundice management.
Twitter @JAMAPediatrics
A urine test could predict bladder cancer 12 years before symptoms
The test can detect 60 genetic mutations from urine samples and early-stage cancers for up to 12 years before the actual symptoms of cancer occur. This test can avoid unnecessary cystoscopies. The test predicted bladder cancer in 86% of participants who eventually developed it. It accurately predicted the absence of bladder cancer in 96% of participants.
LabPulse.com
ACG's clinical guidelines on managing biliary strictures
These evidence-based recommendations focus on diagnosing and draining the perihilar and extrahepatic and biliary strictures. They recommend endoscopic ultrasound with biopsy or aspiration as the preferred method for diagnosing malignancy. EUS plus rapid on-site evaluation is advised for acquiring tissue samples, and multimodality sampling is advised for suspected malignancy.
Healio
