Category: General Interest

Categories : Gastrointestinal General InterestTags :

Woman Suffered ‘Excruciating’ Pain From Rare Gastrointestinal Condition

On By ModernMedia

An undiagnosed, rare gastrointestinal condition left a 32-year old UK woman in “excruciating” pain for 16 months before a life-saving emergency operation.

In January 2020,  Rebecca Bostock started to experience stomach swelling and had difficult keeping her food down. After she was rushed into hospital on Good Friday this year, her mysterious illness was found to be Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome (SMAS).

“I don’t want anyone to go through what I went through,” she said.

Ms Bostock, 32, underwent an emergency operation at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital. Nurses there told her they had only treated three cases of SMAS in 27 years. She was also told that she likely survived because she had been rushed into hospital on that day.

“My stomach was swollen so much that I couldn’t breathe, I was being sick and couldn’t keep any medication down,” Ms Bestock said. “I was on a downward spiral. They took me into imaging and diagnosed SMAS and I was taken away for the operation. They said I needed the operation straight away or I wouldn’t survive even a couple more hours.”

Ms Bostock said she had been experiencing pain for 16 months, with stomach swelling, fever, sickness, diarrhoea and dizziness, and visited the GP and emergency departments several times. She was told there that the pain was likely to be caused by endometriosis or irritable bowel syndrome. 

“I was referred to a gynaecologist around the time of the first lockdown but everything shut down and I didn’t see one for months,” she said. “I was advised to change my diet, which seemed to help at first, but then the symptoms deteriorated again to the point where I struggled to walk and couldn’t breathe.”

SMAS is a rare disease, affecting some 0.1 to 0.3% of the population, and is defined as compression of the third portion of the duodenum between the abdominal aorta and the superior mesenteric artery. It is now mostly treated by laparoscopic duodenojejunostomy. The operation released the blockage, “re-plumbing” her stomach as the surgeon told her.

She is still unable to eat solid foods but hopes to introduce them to her diet soon and wants to raise awareness of the rare condition so that others can learn to spot the signs earlier.

“I want to tell my story to raise awareness I feel blessed and relieved,” she said. “I’m so thankful to the doctors and nurses who saved my life. I get so emotional thinking about it and I can’t thank them enough. It is so rare and even doctors don’t know about it, so helping people to spot the signs and be able to rule it out is so important.”

Source: BBC News

Categories : General InterestTags :

Wrangle Over GoFundMe For Family of Deceased Nurse

On By ModernMedia

The family of a pregnant nurse who died with COVID have yet to receive any money from a GoFundMe campaign that names them as beneficiaries.

Mary Agyapong, 28, died after giving birth in April 2020 at Luton and Dunstable Hospital, where she worked. At 35 weeks pregnant, she was admitted to hospital April 5 after having collapsed with breathing difficulties, but was discharged the same day, despite her misgivings. She was readmitted two days later with COVID symptoms. She gave birth to a daughter by Caesarean section and was then transferred to intensive care on April 8, where she died four days later.

On April 15, family friend Rhoda Asiedu set up a GoFundMe page to support “Mary’s husband, and the couple’s children… during this heavy and trying time”, and has raised more than £186 000 (R3 720 000). This money had been placed into a trust, according to her lawyers.

Ms Agyapong’s widower said he found it “surprising” he had not been involved.

Coroner Emma Whitting, at an inquest held last month, said that it was “unclear” how mother-of-two Ms Agyapong contracted COVID before her death. She then urged Prime Minister Boris Johnson to begin a public inquiry into the pandemic.

The funds raised were paid to Ms Asiedu’s legal team, Blue Trinity, who said it had been placed “on trust” for the education of Ms Agyapong’s children and that 80% would be released when they turned 21. The remaining 20% would be provided to Ms Agyapong’s widower Ernest Boateng for “maintenance and upkeep” of the children, but he had “failed to co-operate with the trustees to arrange a schedule of maintenance”.
Blue Trinity however has not responded to requests from the BBC or Mr Boateng’s legal team to see the trust documents.

“I just try to keep my head above the water,” said Mr Boateng, who is studying law. “I find it very surprising that we have not been asked or involved with this GoFundMe money – it’s beyond my understanding.”

GoFundMe stated that it was clear from the outset that the money would be placed in a trust, adding: “Our records show the wording of the page has not been changed since it launched on 15 April 2020.”

However, an archived snapshot of the webpage on 16 April found by the BBC made no reference to a trust at all. When fundraiser Ms Asiedu was contacted by the BBC, she directed media requests to her legal team.

Source: BBC News

Categories : Cancer General Interest PaediatricsTags :

Donated Afro Hair Wigs Now Possible Thanks to UK Girl

On By ModernMedia
A silhouetted woman with afro hair reading a book by a window. Photo by Thought Catalog from Pexels

A British girl who was told her afro hair was too delicate to donate for wig-making prompted a new wig-making approach to use it, BBC News reports.

When eleven year old Carly Gorton wanted to donate her afro hair to the Little Princess Trust charity, which makes natural hair wigs for children who have lost theirs from cancer treatment and other causes, she was initially frustrated as the charity said the hair was too delicate. Undeterred, Carly had urged the charity to rethink, which it did.

Following research and a trial to make them possible, the charity described the new wigs as a “historic breakthrough”.

“It’s really beautiful,” said Carly, of one of the new wigs.

A BMJ study showed that wigs positively impact psychological wellbeing for people with alopecia, attributed to increasing their confidence of going out in public and the perception of fewer comments about hair loss.

At a special school assembly, Carly’s mother Anna Mudeka then cut her daughter’s hair and it was donated for use in the first new wigs to be worn by other children.

Phil Brace, The Little Princess Trust’s chief executive, said Carly’s “determination” to donate her hair had pushed them to find a solution.

The charity worked with the 120-year-old London company Raoul to develop a wefting method to weave and tie the donated locks.

Carly’s mother, Anna Mudeka, said: “History has been made and we are so proud of Carly.

“Through her sheer determination and everyone pulling together to hear her voice, children of black and mixed heritage can now donate their hair to the Little Princess Trust.”

Ms Mudeka, of Southburgh, added that children needing wigs through illness could now receive a wig “true to their heritage”.

Carly and her mother’s campaign had created a “fundamental change in wig manufacturing”, said Mr Brace. “The commitment and work that has gone on has shown just what is possible when groups of people get together and bring different skills to find a solution.”

Source: BBC News

Categories : COVID General InterestTags :

Liquor Industry Questions Alcohol Ban Effectiveness

On By ModernMedia

Representatives from the liquor industry have said that the South African government must consider data from a new report that shows little alcohol ban effectiveness on trauma cases. However, other studies show negative effects of alcohol during lockdown, and a surge in violent trauma in Cape Town after alcohol bans were lifted.

In a statement on Thursday, the South African Liquor Brand owners Association (Salba) referenced a new report showing that, compared to other countries, South Africa saw similar trauma cases with its lockdown and alcohol ban to those that only had a lockdown.

The report had financial support from Distell, led by independent data expert Ian McGorian of Silver Fox Consulting, in collaboration with professor Mike Murray from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

The report found that trauma cases in South Africa under lockdown dropped 60%. But other countries also saw the same drop with no alcohol ban, including the UK (57%), Ireland (62%), Italy (56.6%) and the USA (54%), casting doubt over the effectiveness of alcohol bans in curbing trauma. The researchers also commented that curfews may have explained more of a reduction in trauma cases than alcohol bans.

While members of the liquor industry recognised the impact of alcohol on South African society, they said that government needs to be more objective with its lockdown regulations.

Salba chairperson Sibani Mngadi said the alcohol ban over Easter Weekend, while simultaneously allowing larger gatherings, made even less sense in reducing COVID transmission. This suggests that government was not considering science in its decision making, he said.

However, a multicentre study from Colorado, USA showed that even while trauma cases during lockdown fell by 33%, alcohol screens increased from 34% to 37%, and alcohol positive patients rose from 32% to 39%.

A study of Cape Town trauma admissions saw a dramatic drop of 53% in trauma admissions during the hard lockdown and an immediate rebound coinciding with the resumption of alcohol sales, with a 107% increase in gunshots wounds compared to pre-lockdown conditions.

The researchers noted that in South Africa the trauma demographic is much younger, with much higher rates of violence, with about half of homicide victims in SA testing positive for alcohol.

Distell chief executive Richard Rushton said the industry was merely asking that the data should be viewed objectively to improve dialogue with decision makers.

“We are all on the same side, and we want to help find solutions. We are very clear that alcohol abuse is unacceptable and causes harm. Our view is that the focus must be on finding ways to deal with high-risk drinkers, rather than using blunt instruments that penalise all South Africans.

“Any proposed new regulations need to be evidence-based, rational and target problem areas,” he said.

Business Leadership SA chief executive Busisiwe Mavuso said that lockdown could have been better managed, as 220 000 jobs had been lost along billions of rands in tax to the fiscus, while uncertainty still plagued alcohol producers.

“The decisions made to confront the health crisis should not have unintended consequences for the economy, and that is exactly what has happened with the bans on alcohol,” she said.

Mr Mavuso added that, since the start of the pandemic, business has been a willing partner to government and “needs to be part of the solution to ensure we fight this pandemic with the least possible damage to the economy”.

“The data analysis by the alcohol industry is an important intervention and must be taken seriously as we move forward.”

Source: BusinessTech

Categories : General InterestTags :

‘Absolutely Revolutionary’ Kaftrio Drug Betters Lives of Cystic Fibrosis Patients

On By ModernMedia

In an article by the BBC, one woman with cystic fibrosis recounts how the “absolute revolutionary” Kaftrio drug has improved her life.

Jody Lewis, 31, is an avid rider and one of around 80 people in Wales to have had Kaftrio, a “revolutionary” drug treatment for cystic fibrosis, at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital.

Cystic fibrosis is a genetic condition resulting in faulty cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) proteins which regulate the transfer of chloride ions into and out of the cells. The condition causes thick, sticky mucus to build up in the lungs, gastrointentinal system and other organs.

The treatment is suitable for around 90% of CF patients aged 12 and over and has been approved for use in the UK. Kaftrio is a triple combination of elexacaftor, tezacaftor which corrects the faulty CFTR protein, and  ivacaftor, which potentiates CFTR. 

Ms Lewis, said since taking it she had “a whole future and life” ahead of her.
Her condition worsened about two and a half years ago, when she was put on continuous oxygen supply, needing four or five oxygen bottles a day, almost placed on a ventilator and considered for a lung transplant. This meant stopping riding and changing how she cared for her four dogs.

“I’d have to change my complete lifestyle just to survive. I get that I’d have a second chance at life but it wouldn’t be me, it wouldn’t be true to who I am,” she said. At her worst, she said she could barely cope with simple tasks such as making tea.

This all changed when she started taking Kaftrio last year.

“Within a week, my [oxygen saturation] was going up and up to 94, 96 and I wasn’t even on oxygen and I can’t remember the last time I saw those numbers, it was mad.

“I’m now as good as I was back when I was 25, so I’ve like regained six years of my life,” she said.

“When I was 25 I was fine, I was in work, living a normal life, so it’s given me all that back really,” she said, adding that it was “really emotional” and “fantastic” to be able to ride her horse again after two and a half years..

“I’ve got a whole future and life in front of me that I’ve never had to think about.”

Consultant Martin Ledson, clinical lead for respiratory medicine at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, described the drug treatment as “absolutely revolutionary”, saying that it had changed the lives of 222 of the hospital’s patients.

He said that when his patients were born, they could expect to live to their 30s, so they have “lived all their lives with the knowledge that their life expectation could be 30 or even less”.

“What this drug does is extend that life expectancy who knows how long?

“Not only that, the patients immediately – within 24 hours – feel amazingly better. Their breathing tests improve, they get less chest infections, their digestion improves, they put on weight and in many cases need to take less treatment,” he said.

Source: BBC News

Categories : General InterestTags :

Russian Doctors Perform Heart Surgery in Burning Hospital

On By ModernMedia

Russian doctors stayed behind in a burning hospital to complete open-heart surgery on a patient after a fire broke out on the roof while they were operating.

It took firefighters over two hours to put out the blaze in the city of Blagoveshchensk. Using fans to keep smoke out of the operating room where a group of eight doctors and nurses was working on the patient, they also ran a power cable in to keep it supplied with electricity.

The heart bypass operation was finished in two hours before removing the patient to another site, the emergencies ministry said.

“There’s nothing else we could do. We had to save the person. We did everything at the highest level,” surgeon Valentin Filatov was quoted as saying by REN TV. 

According to the ministry, when the fire broke out on the roof,  128 people were immediately evacuated from the hospital, which is extremely old. There were no reported injuries.

“The clinic was built more than a century ago, in 1907, and the fire spread like lightning through the wooden ceilings of the roof,” the ministry said. The fire was believed to have been started by a short circuit. The hospital is the only one in the region with a specialist cardiological unit.

“A bow to the medics and firefighters,” said the local regional governor, Vasiliy Orlov.

Source: Reuters

Categories : COVID General InterestTags :

CDC Director Fears ‘Impending Doom’ as COVID Cases Rise Again

On By ModernMedia

Rochelle Walensky, MD, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director, says that she fears “impending doom” as COVID deaths in the US edge upwards as people increasingly ignore health restrictions and start to travel.

Beginning her usual COVID status update,  Dr Walensky spoke as she often did of “concerning trends in the data.”

Dr Walensky spoke about the country surpassing 30 million COVID cases; of a 10% increase in the 7-day average of COVID-19 cases over the past week, to slightly below 60 000 cases; and of an uptick in hospitalisations, from a 7-day average of around 4600 per day to around 4800 per day.

“And deaths, which typically lag behind cases and hospitalizations, have now started to rise,” she said, pointing to a nearly 3% increase to a 7-day average of “approximately 1000 deaths per day.”

“I’m going to pause here,” she said. “I’m going to lose the script and I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom.”  

At the start of her tenure, Walensky said she had pledged to always tell the truth even if it wasn’t something Americans wanted to hear.

“We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are, and so much reason for hope. But right now I’m scared,” she said.

She recalled her time caring for COVID patients, saying: “I know what it’s like as a physician to stand in that patient room, gowned, gloved, masked, shielded and to be the last person to touch someone else’s loved one because their loved one couldn’t be there.

“I know what it’s like when you’re the physician, when you’re the healthcare provider, and you’re worried that you don’t have the resources to care for the patients in front of you.” 

She also recalled “that feeling of nausea, when you read the ‘Crisis Standards of Care’ and you wonder whether there are going to be enough ventilators to go around and who’s going to make that choice.”

She emphasised that she was speaking “not only as your CDC director, but as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter, to ask you to just please hold on a little while longer.”

She sympathised, she said, with those “wanting to be done” with the pandemic.

“We are just almost there, but not quite yet. And so I’m asking you to just hold on a little longer, to get vaccinated when you can. So that all of those people that we all love will still be here when this pandemic ends.”

Dr Walensky warned that the US pandemic trajectory was looking dangerously similar to that of European countries like Germany that were still struggling to contain the virus.

“We are not powerless. We can change this trajectory of the pandemic,” she said.

“But it will take all of us recommitting to following the public health prevention strategies consistently while we work to get the American public vaccinated.”

According to the New York Times’  COVID vaccination tracker, 146 million vaccinations have been administered in the US to date, with 2.76 million doses being given daily. At this rate, 70% of the adult population will have been vaccinated by June 16.

She urged community and religious leaders, officials, and other influencers to help support the vaccination programme.

“For the health of our country, we must work together now to prevent a fourth surge.”

Source: MedPage Today

Categories : COVID General InterestTags :

Pandemic Steals the Enjoyment of Terminally Ill Patients’ Last Years

On By ModernMedia

Welsh grandmother Maggie Shaftoe has a terminal brain tumour and doctors have told her she has less than two years to live.

Life with a terminal illness during the coronavirus pandemic and being in lockdown has caused difficulties for one couple making final memories.

Macmillan Cancer Support calls it an “acutely challenging time” for people living with a terminal diagnosis.

In 2017, the 63-year-old great-grandmother was diagnosed with an Anaplastic Pleomorphic Xanthoastrocytoma (APXA) brain tumour, which is very rare and most commonly occurs in children and young people with an average age for diagnosis at 12 years old. Her cancer was discovered by chance through a regular epilepsy check up and an MRI scan.

Mrs Shaftoe said that she has not seen her 11 grandchildren and great-granddaughter and she’s “just waiting for things to get back to normal”.

Together for more than 50 years, Mrs Shaftoe and her husband Chris first met as teenagers in a church choir in London. Mr Shaftoe said at this stage they “should be making the most of the time she has left and making memories with our family”.

“I think we’d like to go somewhere like Disneyland, or Lapland to see the northern lights or she’d love to go to the Cheddar Gorge,” said Mr Shaftoe, 65.

“But the pandemic has buried us in a great big hole and I don’t expect the situation to change.

“We’re noticing that Maggie’s memory is fading quite quickly now and she is getting worse day by day, and we understand what is coming,” he said.

In 2017 Mrs Shaftoe had an operation to remove the tumour and the following year had radiotherapy.

But Mr Shaftoe said this has only “delayed the inevitable” and his wife’s life expectancy “hangs on the effectiveness” of two anti-cancer drugs.

Since the operation, she has suffered difficulty with her memory, impaired speech, balance problems and is partially blind.

Doctors have told the couple that typically life expectancy for a patient with APXA would be five years.

Cancer Research UK said that the pandemic has had a “devastating impact on the lives of cancer patients”.

“Dealing with a cancer diagnosis and treatment is extremely difficult at any time, but the pandemic has added the stress of uncertainty, delays and shielding for some cancer patients,” said Martin Ledwick,  head information nurse at the charity.

Mrs Shaftoe remains positive despite the situation, saying it helps to laugh.

“If you can make a joke of something, make a joke of it,” she said, speaking during Brain Tumour Awareness month.

“You go out to make a cup of tea and you end up peeling potatoes, and come back in and wonder why I haven’t got a cup of tea – you have to laugh at silly little things.”

However managing during lockdown has been “very difficult” and mundane tasks could be a “major headache”, according to her husband, who has medical conditions of his own.

Mr Shaftoe says they now have a carer who comes for an hour each morning.

But he said: “We need more care. We have spent most of the pandemic without a carer and it has been absolutely nightmarish trying to get Maggie one.”

Macmillan Cancer Support in Wales said it has heard from many people in isolation, which makes “a challenging situation even more difficult”.

“We know this is an acutely challenging time for people with cancer, the NHS and cancer care, and particularly for people who are living with a terminal diagnosis,” said Richard Pugh, Macmillan’s head of partnerships.

Source: BBC News

Categories : COVID General InterestTags :

A Dozen Accounts Responsible for Majority of COVID Misinformation

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Connor Danylenko from Pexels

According to a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), the majority of COVID and vaccine misinformation posts emanate from a dozen accounts.

Out of 812 000 anti-vaccine messages shared or posted on social media platforms between Feb 1 and March 16, 2021, 65% were attributed to just a handful of individuals, whom the report authors have dubbed the “Disinformation Dozen”, 13 users spread across 12 accounts (one of the accounts refers to a couple, Ty and Charlene Bollinger, who are alternative medicine activists).

Some of the individuals named include entrepreneur Joseph Mercola, author Robert F Kennedy Jr and chiropractor Ben Tapper, with the report including examples of the COVID misinformation that they shared on various social media platforms.

Mercola for example has shared his views on unproven COVID cures in various anti-vaxxer groups on Facebook, including one article saying “hydrogen peroxide treatment can successfully treat most viral respiratory illnesses, including coronavirus” getting 4600 shares.

The report notes that Robert Kennedy Jr often shares misinformation linked COVID vaccines to deaths, and his organisation, Children’s Health Defense, released a film in March that targeted American black and Latino communities with anti-vaccine messages. 

“According to our recent report, anti-vaccine activists on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter reach more than 59 million followers, making these the largest and most important social media platforms for anti-vaxxers,” said CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed.

“Despite repeatedly violating Facebook, Instagram and Twitter’s terms of service agreements, nine of the Disinformation Dozen remain on all three platforms, while just three have been comprehensively removed from just one platform,” the report added.

To combat the disinformation problem, the CCDH urged social media companies to deplatform the Disinformation Dozen, along with key organisations associated with the 12 individuals.

In a statement to Engadet, Facebook took issue with the report, claiming that “it taken action against some of the group”. However, the report contends that Facebook’s algorithm struggle to identify COVID misinformation.

Source: The Star

Categories : General InterestTags :

Heart Doctors’ Twitter Popularity Is Unrelated to Their Publications

On By ModernMedia
Phone with popular social media apps including Facebook and Twitter. Photo by Tracy Le Blanc from Pexels.

Having large numbers of widely cited publications has no bearing on the Twitter popularity of academics in the interventional cardiology community, a new study has found. 

The study, by Davide Capodanno, MD, PhD, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Policlinico “G Rodolico-San Marco” in Catania, Italy, and colleagues, found that academic impact through papers and citations, as calculated by the Hirsch index (or h-index) was found to be unrelated to whether or not academics were in the top quartile of Twitter followers (> 736 followers).

“Indeed, accounts generating a stream of valuable content are more likely to be followed. In addition, some accounts may take advantage of celebrity to amplify their success, in a kind of incremental cycle,” wrote the authors.
Rather, Twitter followers were defined by factors mostly related to time and effort spent on the platform.

Having abundant tweets (> 505 tweets, adjusted OR 16.39), along with individual charisma (‘Kardashian index’ >5, adjusted OR 8.66), were the most significant predictors. Large number of accounts user follows (> 309 following), tweet rate (> 2.6 tweets per week), a large cooperation network and being affiliated to the US were also predictive of the heart doctors’ Twitter popularity.

“Indeed, accounts generating a stream of valuable content are more likely to be followed. In addition, some accounts may take advantage of celebrity to amplify their success, in a kind of incremental cycle,” according to the authors.

Individual charisma per the ‘Kardashian index‘, which measures discrepancy between social media reputation and publication record, was not a significant factor in the rate at which someone amassed followers.

“In aggregate, our results suggest that a prediction rule for durable popularity on Twitter is to be active and generate valuable contents rather than relying on individual academic or social reputation,” Capodanno’s team concluded.

An earlier study had shown that the reverse was true; the more Twitter followers, the greater their academic standing.
Limitations include not being able to account for anonymous or pseudonym accounts, and the results may not be generalisable to the interventional cardiology community as a whole.

Source: MedPage Today

Journal information: D’Arrigo P, et al “Determinants of popularity and natural history of social media accounts in interventional cardiology” JACC Cardiovasc Interv 2021; DOI: 10.1016/j.jcin.2021.01.021.