Weekly Update Nr.1: Carotid Stenosis, Malaria, ADHD guidelines
1. The management of Asymptomatic Carotid Stenosis.
The diagnosis of ACS is often casual. It happens when the physician is using ultrasound or other imaging to study blood vessels near the carotid region, or when studying the coronaries. The big debate is between two types of therapy, the Medical and the Surgical ones. Two studies are made, one in USA in 1995 and one in Europe in 2004. From these studies comes that the risk of stroke in people with ACS is 5% higher than in other people with normal carotids. Considering the intraoperatory risks, it is thought that the need of surgery is very low. Physicians are studying ways of finding parameters of the plaque in imaging, that would help define the risk factors of stroke. However the most considered form of therapy as for now, is the Medical Pharmacological one. It consists of five types of treatments:
Reducing hypertension, controlling diabetes, controlling fats with statins, quitting smoking and controlling the level of platelets with anti-aggregants (Aspirin)
2. A vaccine for Malaria?
The RTS,S/AS01 is the name of the pharmacological agent that is being tried as an effective vaccine against malaria. Also it’s still in the third fase of Clinical Evaluation, it has given it’s first promising results. A total of 15,460 children in two age categories — 6 to 12 weeks and 5 to 17 months — were enrolled. The report describes vaccine efficacy against P. falciparum malaria in the first 6000 of 8923 children in the older age category, together with an evaluation of the first 250 cases of severe malaria from the two age groups. Protective efficacy against P. falciparum malaria (55% protection against all malaria episodes) was at the upper end of expectations from earlier studies, whereas the overall reduction in severe malaria (35% protection) was slightly less than anticipated.
This study needs more than 3 years to end the clinical evaluation, so these statistics are not official yet, however the good news is that maybe this time the vaccine will be ready for millions of people in risk every year.
3. Some new guidelines for the diagnosis of ADHD
This week, the American Academy of Pediatrics has issued some changes in the management of children with ADHD. These recommendations serve as new ways to keep safe these children. The new recommendations include:
- Mothers should breast-feed exclusively for 6 months, if possible, to lower risk for sudden infant death syndrome. However, while protection against SIDS increases with exclusivity, any breast-feeding appears more protective than none.
- Infants should receive all recommended vaccines, as evidence suggests immunization cuts SIDS risk.
- Bumper pads should not be used in cribs. They increase risks for suffocation, entrapment, and strangulation, and there’s no evidence that they prevent injury.
Children with ADHD
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Tagged American Academy of Pediatrics, aspirin, blood vessels, Cardiovascular Disorders, cardiovascular problems, cardiovascular system, carotid stenosis, carotid stenosis guidelines 2011, Central Nervous System, clinical evaluation, GlaxoSmithKline, hypertension, Malaria vaccine, protective efficacy, quitting smoking, risk factors of stroke, statinsquitting, vaccine efficacy
