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Can COVID-19 lead to erectile dysfunction? A team of researchers has found traces of the virus in penile tissue long after the patients have recovered. For their study, published in the World Journal of Men’s Health, the researchers collected penile tissues from four men who got penile prosthesis surgery for erectile dysfunction (ED). Two of them had been infected

Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. Minutes after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued its new guidance Thursday that those fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can now (mostly) ditch their masks both indoors and out, Twitter and other social media lit up with reaction. Some

Inpatient consults for alcohol-related GI and liver diseases surged after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and remained elevated, researchers found. The proportion of inpatients requiring endoscopic interventions for their alcohol-related GI and liver diseases also increased, suggesting a worsening trend in severity, according to data presented at a pre-meeting press conference for

The warmer weather and longer days have inspired reminders to “stay hydrated” and drink eight glasses of water – or about two liters – a day. Not to burst anyone’s water bottle, but healthy people can actually die from drinking too much water. I am an exercise physiologist, and my research focuses on overhydration and

Several years ago, as some US emergency departments (EDs) prepared to implement the recently approved high-sensitivity assay for cardiac troponins, there was still apprehension about broadly applying the exquisitely sensitive test to the mass of patients who would present with chest discomfort. Would the assay’s prowess in detecting myocardial damage, whether or not from acute

About 2% of asymptomatic college students carried 90% of COVID-19 viral load levels on a Colorado campus last year, new research reveals. Furthermore, the viral loads in these students were as elevated as those seen in hospitalized patients. “College campuses were one of the few places where people without any symptoms or suspicions of exposure

Note that some links may require registration or subscription. Over the coming weeks, Ohio will award $1 million to five residents who received a COVID-19 shot, in a lottery aimed at boosting the vaccination rate across the state. (CBS News) As of Thursday at 8:00 a.m. EDT, the unofficial U.S. COVID-19 toll reached 32,815,408 cases

Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, signed off on an advisory panel’s recommendation today endorsing the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in adolescents ages 12 to 15. Earlier in the afternoon the CDC’s Advisory

Finerenone, an investigational agent from a new drug class, just scored a second pivotal-trial win after showing significant benefit for slowing progression of diabetic kidney disease in patients with type 2 diabetes in the FIDELIO-DKD pivotal trial with more than 5700 patients. Top-line results from FIGARO-DKD showed significant benefit for the primary endpoint of cardiovascular

The thought of a 30-minute walk home after my 26-hour shift at the VA hospital was overwhelming. So, I called for an Uber ride. A middle-aged Black man dressed in a nice suit picked me up. “That color looks good on you,” he said, referring to the ceil blue scrubs that I’d worn every day

Third-generation fluoroquinolones may not pose the same risk to tendon health as earlier-generation agents, the findings of a new study suggest. If confirmed, this will be good news for patients who are allergic to beta-lactam antibiotics and others in whom fluoroquinolones are the antibiotics of choice because of their favorable pharmacokinetic properties and broad-spectrum activity, according

Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. State health officials today shared plans to distribute Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to 12- to 15-year-olds after the FDA authorized its use in this age group late Monday. Some states hope to start the vaccinations as early as Thursday, officials said at an Association

A novel gene therapy for severe combined immunodeficiency from adenosine deaminase deficiency (ADA-SCID) restored immune cell counts without death or need for enzyme replacement therapy, researchers reported. Survival without needing to re-initiate pegylated ADA enzyme replacement therapy, or have a rescue allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (AHCT), was 95% to 97% at last follow-up at

The more complicated a primary endpoint, the greater a puzzle it can be for clinicians to interpret the results. It’s likely even tougher for patients, who don’t help choose the events studied in clinical trials yet are increasingly sharing in the management decisions they influence. That creates an opening for a more patient-centered take on

Genital skin exams in girls must be conducted with special care and alertness for signs of abuse, a dermatologist told colleagues at the American Academy of Dermatology Virtual Meeting Experience. “One in four adult women report being childhood victims of sexual abuse, which is just a staggering number. This is an opportunity for us to identify these

“There were a number of patients that were in the hinterlands.” — William Schweizer, MD, of NYU Langone Health, discussing the pregnant women that fled New York City to give birth during the pandemic. “This made us hypothesize that eating a Mediterranean-like diet might act like a brake against Alzheimer’s progression.” — Tommaso Ballarini, PhD,

In cognitively unimpaired middle-aged adults at high genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), higher intake of dietary docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) was associated with greater resistance to disease-related brain atrophy on neuroimaging.    DHA intake, measured using a food frequency questionnaire, was found to be significantly related to greater cortical thickness, the AD signature in individuals

Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. Vice President Kamala Harris’ maternal uncle, Balachandran Gopalan, talks to media outside his house in New Delhi, India, last November. WASHINGTON (AP) — G. Balachandran turned 80 this spring — a milestone of a birthday in India, where he lives. If

Almost 30% of patients with advanced melanoma that progressed on prior checkpoint inhibition responded to pembrolizumab (Keytruda) plus low-dose ipilimumab (Yervoy), according to updated findings from a prospective trial. Overall, 20 of 70 patients had objective responses to the combination, including five complete responses. Median duration of response was 16.6 months, and the cohort had

The first clinical trial of fecal microbiota transplantation in patients with psoriatic arthritis has found the procedure to be as safe as a sham procedure, but it didn’t show any effectiveness in decreasing PsA symptoms over 6 months, a team of researchers in Denmark reported in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (2021 Apr 29. 10.1136/annrheumdis-2020-219511).

An experimental varenicline nasal spray can reduce signs and symptoms of dry eye disease, the results of a phase 3 trial suggest. Dr Michael Raizman Squirting the spray into their noses causes patients’ eyes to water. It also makes them sneeze, but it doesn’t irritate their eyes the way many eye drops do, said Michael

How do you define Alzheimer’s disease? The International Working Group (IWG) argued that for everyday clinical use, a biological definition alone — the basis of the National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer’s Association (NIA-AA) framework — is not enough. Cognitively unimpaired individuals can have biomarker evidence of both amyloid beta and tau pathology but

May 7, 2021 — Planning to hit the beach this summer? You might want to throw some bug spray into that beach bag along with your sunscreen. For the first time, Lyme disease-carrying ticks — typically associated with woodlands in New England and other forested regions of the U.S. — have been found in abundance near beaches in Northern California,

Allergen disclosure legislation accurately covers the main triggers of anaphylaxis in different countries, according to a systematic review of food anaphylaxis studies. This “first global snapshot” of regional differences in food anaphylaxis fills “a significant evidence gap” in ensuring safe global trade of food, said the study’s senior author Professor Paul Turner, from the National Heart

Just as reports of severe lung illnesses related to vaping began to make headlines in 2019, rates of cannabis vaping among high school students were soaring, according to high-quality survey data. Results from the long-running Monitoring the Future study showed that 4.9% (95% CI 4.3%-5.5%) of high school students reported “frequent” vaping of cannabis products

The COVID-19 pandemic may have increased the prevalence of myopia by confining young children indoors, researchers say. Spending more time inside focused on computer screens appears to have most affected the eyesight of the youngest school children, said Xuehan Qian, MD, PhD, of Tianjin Medical University Eye Hospital in Tianjin, China. “We should be worried

In patients with proton pump inhibitor (PPI)–dependent gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), a procedure known as endoscopic full-thickness plication (EFTP) — performed with the novel GERD-X device — improved both symptoms and quality of life, compared with a sham procedure. It also had few side effects and a short procedure time, according to a new randomized,

Organ procurement organizations (OPOs) have been exploiting taxpayers for decades — NHL and NFL season tickets, board meetings in California wine country, private jets chartered for organ delivery but hijacked for CEO jaunts — all while failing to do what they’re supposed to do: procure organs for needy patients. During a virtual hearing Tuesday, Rep.