TTHealthWatch is a weekly podcast from Texas Tech. In it, Elizabeth Tracey, director of electronic media for Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, and Rick Lange, MD, president of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso, take a look at the leading medical stories of the week.
Today’s subjects consist of electronic pushes for influenza shots, decreasing plaques in coronary arteries, electronic sepsis signals, and handling cachexia in individuals with cancer.
Program notes:
0:40 Regression of atherosclerotic plaques
1:40 Statins or antibodies to lower cholesterol
2:41 Many react to regular treatment
2:52 Electronic pushes for influenza vaccination
3:52 Letter determining danger
4:52 Received from Danish federal government
5:53 No domestic method to disperse
6:46 Cancer cachexia treatment
7:50 Change in body weight at 12 weeks
8:51 Sepsis screening in hospitalized clients
9:51 Alerts in about 15% of screening group
10:51 Identify organ dysfunction
12:13 End
Records:
Elizabeth: Can we utilize electronic pushes to get individuals to get an influenza shot?
Rick: Addressing weight-loss in individuals that have cancer.
Elizabeth: Monitoring for sepsis in clients in the health center.
Rick: And how reducing cholesterol impacts coronary atherosclerosis.
Elizabeth: That’s what we’re speaking about today on TT HealthWatch, your weekly take a look at the medical headings from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso. I’m Elizabeth Tracey, a Baltimore-based medical reporter.
Rick: And I’m Rick Lange, president of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso, where I’m likewise dean of the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine.
Elizabeth: This is a really soft toss and I’m going to state let’s turn initially to JAMA Cardiologyhaving a look at, gosh, do statins really trigger regression of atherosclerotic plaques in some clients? It’s something that I have actually been rather thinking about, since I’m a geek, for a long time.
Rick: Coronary atherosclerosis is quite popular which is the deposition of cholesterol into the wall of the capillary that offer nutrition to the heart. We have actually understood for an extended period of time that when you lower cholesterol, you can lower the danger of stroke and cardiac arrest.
There have actually been some trials that recommended that when we do this we can really minimize the development of atherosclerosis in coronary arteries. Those research studies have actually been fairly little. The modifications in atherosclerosis have actually been fairly modest, a 1% or 2% reduction in the clog in coronary arteries. There are some plaques that are more susceptible to burst and trigger cardiovascular disease than other ones. They usually have a great deal of lipid or cholesterol in the capillary wall. They usually have an extremely thin cap over them, so they are most likely to burst.
