University of Utah

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 15, 2025 -- Most children with multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) recover quickly, according to a study published online Jan. 13 in JAMA Pediatrics . Dongngan T. Truong, M.D., from the University of Utah and Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City, and colleagues characterized the frequency and time course of cardiac dysfunction (left ventricular ejection fraction [LVEF] <55 percent), coronary artery aneurysms, and noncardiac involvement through six months after MIS-C in a cohort study with 1,204 participants. The researchers found that 45.9 percent of the participants required vasoactive support, 1.4 percent required extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, and 0.3 percent died during hospitalization. Overall, 42.3 percent of 322 participants with echocardiograms reviewed by the echocardiography core laboratory had LVEF <55 percent during hospitalization; all but one of those with follow-up normalized by six months. The lowest LVEF was seen in association with Black race, higher C-reactive protein, and abnormal troponin level. At any time point, 15 participants had coronary artery z scores of ≥2.5; one had a large/giant aneurysm. Twelve of 13 with z scores ≥2.5 during hospitalization had normalized by six months. At two weeks and six months, a return to greater than 90 percent of pre-MIS-C health status was reported by 83.6 and 95.1 percent, respectively. The most common symptom reported at two weeks was fatigue (15.9 percent), which decreased to 3.4 percent by six months. "Results suggest that cardiovascular and noncardiovascular morbidities were rare by six months after hospital discharge, despite severe illness in many patients during the acute phase," the authors write. Several authors disclosed ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Children's Brain Tumor Network (CBTN) welcomes Intermountain Primary Children's Hospital as a new member institution. The CBTN principal investigators are Dr. Samuel Cheshier, pediatric neurosurgeon, and Dr. Nicholas Whipple, pediatric neuro-oncologist, at Huntsman Cancer Institute at University of Utah and Intermountain Primary Children's Hospital. "Intermountain Primary Children's Hospital is excited to join with the Children's Brain Tumor Network to advance care for children and young adults diagnosed with brain and central nervous system tumors," said Dr. Cheshier. Dr. Whipple shared, "We're grateful to join with other CBTN member institutions as we work to improve the standard of care for children and their families, including here in the Intermountain West." As a participating CBTN member site, Intermountain Primary Children's Hospital contributes consented samples of childhood tissue to improve understanding of brain tumor biology. Each sample is deidentified before undergoing genetic sequencing, a process that converts the donated tissue into data to provide the greatest value to researchers worldwide, while protecting the privacy of each child. No single institution can collect enough samples on its own, making collaboration through CBTN an essential step towards more effective treatments for children. Intermountain Primary Children's Hospital is the pediatric specialty teaching hospital of the University of Utah Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine, caring for more than 100 newly diagnosed children with brain and central nervous system tumors every year. The hospital currently has more than 1,000 active studies, including approximately 250 clinical trials. Pediatric neuro-oncology and neurosurgery services currently have 48 IRB-approved clinical trials open to enrollment. "We extend a warm welcome to Intermountain Primary Children's Hospital as a new CBTN member institution," said Sabine Mueller, MD, PhD, MAS, CBTN Co-Executive Chair. "Adding the expertise of Primary Children's in clinical trial management, along with their excellence in interdisciplinary research supports CBTN's efforts to create better futures for the kids we treat." About Children's Brain Tumor Network (CBTN) Children's Brain Tumor Network (CBTN) is a collaborative research effort to accelerate treatments for children with brain tumors. Collectively, CBTN's 34 international member institutions have enrolled more than 7,700 study participants and more than 78,000 biospecimen samples to create the world's most comprehensive repository of childhood brain tumors. CBTN's suite of informatics and analytics platforms enables researchers to collaborate in real-time on behalf of children diagnosed with a brain tumor. Learn more at cbtn.org. Contact: Bobby Moulder Children's Brain Tumor Network [email protected] (484) 258-8539 SOURCE Children’s Brain Tumor Network WANT YOUR COMPANY'S NEWS FEATURED ON PRNEWSWIRE.COM? 440k+ Newsrooms & Influencers 9k+ Digital Media Outlets 270k+ Journalists Opted In GET STARTED

THURSDAY, Dec. 26, 2024 -- That morning cup of coffee or afternoon spot of tea might be protecting you from cancer. A new evidence review says that coffee and tea consumption are linked to a lower risk of cancers of the mouth , throat, and head and neck, per the results published in the journal Cancer . “Even decaffeinated coffee had some positive impact,” senior researcher Yuan-Chin Amy Lee , an epidemiologist with the University of Utah School of Medicine, said in a news release from the journal’s publisher. Head and neck cancer is the seventh most common cancer worldwide, with approximately 745,000 new cases and 364,000 deaths in 2020 alone, researchers said in background notes. For the study, researchers pooled data from 14 prior studies involving more than 9,500 people with head and neck cancer and nearly 16,000 healthy folks. They found that people who drank more than four cups of coffee a day, compared with folks who don’t drink coffee, had: Drinking three to four cups of coffee a day was tied to a 41% lower risk of hypopharyngeal cancer, a type of cancer that occurs at the bottom of the throat, researchers found. Tea drinking lowered the odds of this cancer by 29%. And caffeine didn’t appear to be the only driver in these lowered risk -- drinking decaf coffee was associated with a 25% lower risk of mouth cancer, results show. Previous studies have found that coffee drinking suppresses biological activity that can support cancer, researchers added. Drinking one cup of tea or less a day lowered risk of head and neck cancer by 9% overall, researchers found. However, more than 1 cup of tea daily was associated with 38% higher odds of throat cancer, the paper states. This increased risk might be caused by tea promoting acid reflux in those who imbibe. Reflux has been associated with a higher risk of throat cancer. “Coffee and tea habits are fairly complex, and these findings support the need for more data and further studies around the impact that coffee and tea can have on reducing cancer risk,” Lee said. Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.