A cancer diagnosis can take a heavy emotional toll on a patient’s spouse, even years after the diagnosis, as new research shows. In a study of more than 3 million Danes and Swedes, spouses of patients with cancer faced an increased risk of developing a psychiatric disorder, including substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and stress-related conditions, … Read more
Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Centre. A new study provides more evidence that endocarditis associated with drug use is a significant and growing health concern, and further demonstrates that this risk has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The rate of infective endocarditis among individuals in the … Read more
A novel “smartphone psychotherapy” application has been shown to relieve some of the anxiety and fear about cancer recurrence (FCR) that often causes distress to cancer survivors. The intervention is comprised of smartphone problem-solving therapy and behavioral activation apps, and was tested in a study that involved 447 survivors of breast cancer. The results showed … Read more
Patients hospitalized for substance use disorder (SUD) are significantly more likely to die from other medical conditions later in life, a new study suggests. Researchers looked at mortality following a diagnosis of 28 different medical conditions, including heart failure, cancer, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and stroke, and found patients with a history of alcohol or drug … Read more
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released updated and expanded recommendations for prescribing opioids for adults with acute and chronic pain not related to cancer, sickle cell disease, or palliative/end-of-life care. The 2022 Clinical Practice Guideline provides guidance on determining whether to initiate opioids for pain; selecting opioids and determining opioid … Read more
Prenatal exposure to high-dose folic acid is associated with a greater than twofold increased risk for cancer in children of mothers with epilepsy, new data from a Scandinavian registry of more than 3 million pregnancies suggests. The increased risk for cancer did not change after considering other factors that could explain the risk, such as … Read more
Something was gnawing at Manish Agrawal, MD. Every day, the oncologist treated patients with standard cancer therapies, but his care could never touch their deepest pains: their despair about death. “In 20 years, I’ve treated close to 100,000 patients,” Agrawal says, “and the one thing I know we don’t do well is dying.” Hospitalist Shoshana … Read more
Patients who received a first prescription for medicinal cannabis for chronic pain were more likely to have new onset of arrhythmia — bradyarrhythmia, tachyarrhythmia, or a conduction disorder — within 6 months than were similar nonusers, in a new case-control study. There were no between-group differences in the incidence of heart failure or acute coronary … Read more
Medications that help smokers quit appear to have another benefit: reducing heavy drinking. Researchers in the United States and Russia have found that a variety of therapies to reduce the craving for nicotine ― including prescription and over-the-counter medications ― cut smoking and drinking levels in tandem. People who stopped smoking entirely reduced their drinking … Read more
The Weekend That I graduated from law school, my mother told me that she had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, a neurological disease for which there is currently no cure. As I recalled in a recent essay, I spent the following year watching as her muscles atrophied until she … Read more