Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Skin-Color Cells Cause Higher Pain Tolerance In Redheads
They may be ginger — but their skin isn’t. In a seemingly paradoxical study, US researchers found that redheads have a preternaturally high pain tolerance — wait for it — due to a mechanism that ups their susceptibility to sunburns. "These findings describe the mechanistic basis behind earlier evidence suggesting varied pain thresholds in different pigmentation backgrounds," said Dr. David Fisher of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Massachusetts. He led the fiery study published in the journal Science Advances. (Cost, 4/6)
New data on women who received the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine inadvertently in early pregnancy shows the vaccine did not cause miscarriages or adverse birth outcomes, according to a study yesterday in JAMA Network Open. The HPV vaccine is not recommend in pregnancy, but safety data are limited on inadvertent exposure. (4/6)
The American College of Physicians (ACP) has released new guidelines recommending a short course of antibiotics for four common bacterial infections. The best practice advice, published yesterday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, addresses antibiotic therapy for four of the most common bacterial infections seen in inpatient and outpatient settings: community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), acute bronchitis with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), urinary tract infection (UTI), and cellulitis. The recommendations are based on published clinical guidelines and peer-reviewed literature, including randomized clinical trials that have compared shorter antibiotic courses to longer ones. (Dall, 4/6)
Until recently, the standard treatment for patients newly diagnosed with advanced liver cancer was a drug that blocks certain cell molecules. Unfortunately, Sorafenib has rough side effects and usually doesn’t work; only about 11% of late-stage patients survive five years. Immune-boosting drugs called checkpoint inhibitors are improving that grim outlook. A year ago, results of a groundbreaking clinical trial led to the first approval in a dozen years of a new initial treatment regimen that includes Tecentriq, a checkpoint inhibitor. (McCullough, 4/7)
