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Credit. IStock Share Fast Facts New @HopkinsMedicine study finds African-American women with common form of hair loss at increased risk of uterine fibroids - Click to Tweet New study in @JAMADerm shows most common form of alopecia (hair loss) in African-American women associated with higher risks of uterine fibroids - Click to Tweet In a study of medical records gathered on hundreds of thousands of African-American women, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have evidence that women with a common form of hair loss have an increased chance of developing uterine leiomyomas, or fibroids.In a report on the research, published in the December 27 issue of JAMA Dermatology, the researchers call on physicians who treat women with central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia (CCCA) to make patients aware that they may be at increased risk for fibroids and should be screened for the condition, particularly if they have symptoms such as heavy bleeding and pain. CCCA predominantly affects black women and is the most common form of permanent alopecia in this population. The excess scar tissue that forms as a result of this type of hair loss may also explain the higher risk for uterine fibroids, which are characterized by fibrous growths in the lining of the womb.

Crystal Aguh, M.D., assistant professor of dermatology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, says the scarring associated with CCCA is similar to the scarring associated with excess fibrous tissue elsewhere in the body, a situation that may explain why women with this type of hair loss are at a higher risk for fibroids.People of African descent, she notes, are more prone to develop other disorders of abnormal scarring, termed fibroproliferative disorders, such as keloids (a type of raised scar after trauma), scleroderma (an autoimmune disorder marked by thickening of the skin as well as internal organs), some types of lupus and clogged arteries. During a four-year period from 2013-2017, the researchers analyzed patient data from the Johns Hopkins electronic medical record system (Epic) of 487,104 black women ages 18 and over. The prevalence of those with fibroids was compared in patients with and without CCCA. Overall, the researchers found that 13.9 percent of women with CCCA also had a history of uterine fibroids compared to only 3.3 percent of black women without the condition.

In absolute numbers, out of the 486,000 women who were reviewed, 16,212 had fibroids.Within that population, 447 had CCCA, of which 62 had fibroids. The findings translate to a fivefold increased risk of uterine fibroids in women with CCCA, compared to age, sex and race matched controls. Aguh cautions that their study does not suggest any cause and effect relationship, or prove a common cause for both conditions. ÂThe cause of the link between the two conditions remains unclear,â she says.

However, the association was strong enough, she adds, to recommend that physicians and patients be made aware of it. Women with this type of scarring alopecia should be screened not only for fibroids, but also for other disorders associated with excess fibrous tissue, Aguh says. An estimated 70 percent of white women and between 80 and 90 percent of African-American women will develop fibroids by age 50, according to the NIH, and while CCCA is likely underdiagnosed, some estimates report a prevalence of rates as high as 17 percent of black women having this condition. The other authors on this paper were Ginette A.

Okoye, M.D. Of Johns Hopkins and Yemisi Dina of Meharry Medical College.Credit. The New England Journal of Medicine Share Fast Facts This study clears up how big an effect the mutational burden has on outcomes to immune checkpoint inhibitors across many different cancer types. - Click to Tweet The number of mutations in a tumorâs DNA is a good predictor of whether it will respond to a class of cancer immunotherapy drugs known as checkpoint inhibitors.

- Click to Tweet The âmutational burden,â or the number of mutations present in a tumorâs DNA, is a good predictor of whether that cancer type will respond to a class of cancer immunotherapy drugs known as checkpoint inhibitors, a new study led by Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers shows. The finding, published in the Dec. 21 New England Journal of Medicine, could be used to guide future clinical trials for these drugs. Checkpoint inhibitors are a relatively new class of drug that helps the immune system recognize cancer by interfering with mechanisms cancer cells use to hide from immune cells.

As a result, the drugs cause the immune system to fight cancer in the same way that it would fight an . These medicines have had remarkable success in treating some types of cancers that historically have had poor prognoses, such as advanced melanoma and lung cancer. However, these therapies have had little effect on other deadly cancer types, such as pancreatic cancer and glioblastoma. The mutational burden of certain tumor types has previously been proposed as an explanation for why certain cancers respond better than others to immune checkpoint inhibitors says study leader Mark Yarchoan, M.D., chief medical oncology fellow.

Work by Dung Le, M.D., associate professor of oncology, and other researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and its Bloomberg~Kimmel Cancer Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy showed that colon cancers that carry a high number of mutations are more likely to respond to checkpoint inhibitors than those that have fewer mutations. However, exactly how big an effect the mutational burden has on outcomes to immune checkpoint inhibitors across many different cancer types was unclear. To investigate this question, Yarchoan and colleagues Alexander Hopkins, Ph.D., research fellow, and Elizabeth Jaffee, M.D., co-director of the Skip Viragh Center for Pancreas Cancer Clinical Research and Patient Care and associate director of the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute, combed the medical literature for the results of clinical trials using checkpoint inhibitors on various different types of cancer. They combined these findings with data on the mutational burden of thousands of tumor samples from patients with different tumor types.

Analyzing 27 different cancer types for which both pieces of information were available, the researchers found a strong correlation. The higher a cancer typeâs mutational burden tends to be, the more likely it is to respond to checkpoint inhibitors. More than half of the differences in how well cancers responded to immune checkpoint inhibitors could be explained by the mutational burden of that cancer. ÂThe idea that a tumor type with more mutations might be easier to treat than one with fewer sounds a little counterintuitive.

Itâs one of those things that doesnât sound right when you hear it,â says Hopkins. ÂBut with immunotherapy, the more mutations you have, the more chances the immune system has to recognize the tumor.â Although this finding held true for the vast majority of cancer types they studied, there were some outliers in their analysis, says Yarchoan. For example, Merkel cell cancer, a rare and highly aggressive skin cancer, tends to have a moderate number of mutations yet responds extremely well to checkpoint inhibitors. However, he explains, this cancer type is often caused by a cialis, which seems to encourage a strong immune response despite the cancerâs lower mutational burden.

In contrast, the most common type of colorectal cancer has moderate mutational burden, yet responds poorly to checkpoint inhibitors for reasons that are still unclear. Yarchoan notes that these findings could help guide clinical trials to test checkpoint inhibitors on cancer types for which these drugs havenât yet been tried. Future studies might also focus on finding ways to prompt cancers with low mutational burdens to behave like those with higher mutational burdens so that they will respond better to these therapies. He and his colleagues plan to extend this line of research by investigating whether mutational burden might be a good predictor of whether cancers in individual patients might respond well to this class of immunotherapy drugs.

ÂThe end goal is precision medicineâmoving beyond whatâs true for big groups of patients to see whether we can use this information to help any given patient,â he says. Yarchoan receives funding from the Norman &. Ruth Rales Foundation and the Conquer Cancer Foundation. Through a licensing agreement with Aduro Biotech, Jaffee has the potential to receive royalties in the future..

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If you lost your job or your hours were reduced, you may be eligible for this assistance. 2) You may be able to elect COBRA coverage and take advantage of the premium assistance under the American Rescue Plan even if you didnât sign up for COBRA coverage when it was first offered, or if you had COBRA coverage and then dropped it. Your health plan how to get cialis online must provide you with notice of your rights to the premium subsidy and the new election opportunity.

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You can get help. At the Department of Labor, weâre taking action to remove barriers to coverage for mental health and substance use treatment in employer health plans. Thatâs a priority how to get cialis online for me.

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AbstractIn âChronic her explanation fatigue syndrome and an illness-focused how to get cialis online approach to care. Controversy, morality and paradoxâ, authors Michael Sharpe and Monica Greco begin by characterising myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) as illness-without-disease. On that basis they ask why patients reject treatments for illness-without-disease, and they answer with a philosophical idea. Whiteheadâs âbifurcation of natureâ, they suggest, still dominates public and professional thinking, and that conceptual how to get cialis online confusion leads patients to reject the treatment they need.

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Etchells E, Ho M, Shojania KG cialis black price. Value of small sample sizes in rapid-cycle quality improvement projects. BMJ Qual Safe 2016;25:202â6.The article has cialis black price been corrected since it was published online.

The authors want to alert readers to the following error identified in the published version. The error is in the last paragraph of the section âSmall samples can make ârapid improvementâ Rapidâ, wherein the minimum sample size has been considered as six instead of eight.For this first (convenience) sample of 10 volunteer users, 5/10 (50%) completed the form without any input or instructions cialis black price. The other five became frustrated and gave up.

Table 1 tells you that, with an observed success rate of 50% and a desired target of 90%, cialis black price any audit with a sample of six or more allows you to confidently reject the null hypothesis that your form is working at a 90% success rate.For decades, those working in hospitals normalised the incessant alarms from medical devices as a necessary, almost comforting, reality of a high tech industry. While nurses drowned in excessive, frequently uninformative alarms, other members of the healthcare team often paid little attention. Fortunately, times are changing and managing alarm fatigue is now a key patient safety priority in acute care environments.1Adverse patient events from alarm fatigue, particularly related to excessive physiological monitor alarms, have received widespread attention over the last decade, including from the news media.2â5 In the USA, hospitals redoubled alarm safety efforts following the 2013 Joint Commission Sentinel Event Alert and subsequent National Patient Safety Goals on alarm safety.1 2 6 We are now beginning to understand how to reduce excessive non-actionable alarms (including invalid alarms as well as those that cialis black price are valid but not actionable or informative),7 8 better manage alarm notifications and ultimately improve patient safety.

Alarm data are readily available and measuring alarm response time during patient care is possible.7 9 Yet we have few high-quality reports describing clear improvement to clinical alarm burden, and most published interventions are of limited scope, duration or both.10 11 To demonstrate value in alarm quality improvement (QI) efforts moving forward, we need more rigorous evidence for interventions and more meaningful outcome measures.In this issue of BMJ Quality and Safety, Pater et al12 report the results of a comprehensive multidisciplinary alarm management QI project executed over 3Â½ years in a 17-bed paediatric acute care cardiology unit. The primary project cialis black price goal was to reduce alarm notifications from continuous bedside monitoring. Although limited to a single unit, the project is an important contribution to the scant literature on alarm management in paediatric settings for three reasons.

First, the initiative lasted longer than most that have been reported, which allowed for tailoring of alarm interventions to the needs of the unit and patient population and measuring the impacts and sustainability over time. Second, the scope of the intervention bundle encompassed a wide variety of changes including cialis black price adoption of a smartphone notification system. Addition of time delays between when alarm thresholds are violated and when an alarm notification is issued.

Implementation of an alarm notification escalation algorithm after a certain amount of time in alarm cialis black price threshold violation. Deactivation of numerous technical alarms (such as respiratory lead detachment). Monitoring of electrode cialis black price lead replacement every 24âhours.

And discussion of alarm parameters on daily rounds. Third, the authors introduced a novel strategy for reducing the stress that alarms may cause patients and families by deactivating inroom alarm audio, although no outcomes were reported attributable directly to this component of the intervention.This project constitutes an important contribution to the published literature cialis black price. However, Pater et al faced two challenges that are ubiquitous in the field of clinical alarm management.

(1) Identification of meaningful outcome measures and (2) Lack of high-quality evidence cialis black price for most interventions. With regards to the first challenge, the primary outcome measure used in the study comprised âinitial alarm notificationsâ, defined as the first notification of a monitor alarm delivered to the nurseâs mobile device. Although initial alarm notifications declined by 68% following the intervention, these notifications accounted for only about half of all alarm notifications.

The other half included second and third notifications for alarms exceeding specified delay thresholds, which were sent both to the mobile device cialis black price of the primary nurse and to âbuddyâ nurses, potentially increasing alarm burden. On the other hand, eliminating inroom audible alarms may have reduced the perceived alarm burden for nurses compared with having both bedside and mobile device notifications. Determining the true benefit of a reduction in a subset of alarms presents complex challenges.Alarm frequency is the most commonly used outcome measure in alarm research and QI projects, but reduction in alarms does not necessarily indicate improved patient safety or a highly functional alarm management system cialis black price.

Alarm reduction could easily be achieved in an undesirable way by simply turning off alarms. Unfortunately, most studies have not been powered to statistically evaluate improvements in patient cialis black price safety. (Pater et al did monitor patient safety balancing measures, which remained stable after intervention implementation).

To assess change in nursesâ perceptions of alarm frequency, Pater et al conducted a prepost survey, which despite the small sample size (n=38 preintervention and n=25 postintervention) managed to show improvement, with the percentage of cialis black price nurses agreeing they could respond to alarms appropriately and quickly increasing from 32% to 76% (p<0.001). That said, this survey was not a validated measure of alarm fatigue. In fact, we currently have no widely accepted, validated tool for assessing alarm fatigue.11As we look towards future evaluations of alarm management strategies, the focus needs cialis black price to shift away from simply reducing the frequency of alarms to more meaningful outcome metrics.

In addition to alarm rates, outcomes such as response time to actual patient alarms7 9 or to simulated alarms injected into real patient care environments13 may be better indicators of whether the entire alarm response system is functioning correctly. Larger, multisite studies are needed to assess patient outcomes.In addition to meaningful outcome measures, the second challenge for alarm QI projects is the lack of good evidence for alarm management interventions. Most alarm reduction interventions have not been systematically evaluated at all or only in small studies without a control group.10 11 As a result, alarm management cialis black price projects tend to involve complex and costly bundles of interventions of uncertain benefit.

The cost of these interventions is due in part to the growing industry of technology solutions for alarm management. Some institutions have also made massive investments in personnel, such as monitor âwatchersâ to help nurses identify actionable alarms, for which there is also little evidence.14Future alarm management QI initiatives will benefit from a higher quality evidence base for the growing list of potential alarm management cialis black price interventions. Pragmatic trials that leverage meaningful outcome measures to assess alarm interventions are warranted.

In addition, we need to evaluate interventions that address the full spectrum of the alarm management cialis black price system. Most alarm management interventions to date have focused primarily on filtering out non-actionable alarms. Far less emphasis has been placed on ensuring that the nurse receiving the notification cialis black price is available to respond to the alarm, a prime opportunity for future work.Even if alarms are actionable, we know that nurses may not always respond quickly for a variety of reasons.7 15â17 Factors like insufficient staffing, high severity of illness on the unit and unbalanced nursing skill mix all likely contribute to inadequate alarm response.

In critical care, nurses have reported that the nature of their work requires that they function as a team to respond to one anotherâs alarms.15 Although not ideal, nurses have developed heuristics based on factors like family presence at the bedside to help them prioritise alarm response in hectic work environments.7 16 Emphasising outcomes like faster alarm response time without addressing systems factors risks trading one patient safety problem for another. We do not want to engender more frequent interruptions of high-risk activities, like medication administration,18 19 because nurses feel compelled to respond more quickly to alarms.The robust QI initiative carried out by Pater et al reflects the type of thoughtful approach needed to implement and tailor alarm management cialis black price interventions for a particular unit, demonstrating a generalisable process for others to emulate. Ultimately, every alarm offers a potential benefit (opportunity to rescue a patient) and comes with a potential cost (eg, increased alarm fatigue, interruptions of other activities).

This trade-off needs to be optimised in the context of the individual unit, accounting for the unit-specific and systems factors that influence the cost of each additional alarm, including non-actionable alarm rates, unit layout, severity of illness and nurse staffing.17 20 With more robust outcome measures and more evidence to support interventions, we can increase the value of alarm QI initiatives and accelerate progress towards optimising alarm management systems.AcknowledgmentsWe thank Charles McCulloch, PhD (University of California, San Francisco) for comments on an early draft..

Etchells E, Ho M, how to get cialis online Shojania https://kuecheaktiv-sparschweinmarkt.de/buy-propecia-finasteride-online/ KG. Value of small sample sizes in rapid-cycle quality improvement projects. BMJ Qual Safe how to get cialis online 2016;25:202â6.The article has been corrected since it was published online.

The authors want to alert readers to the following error identified in the published version. The error is in the last paragraph of the section âSmall samples can make ârapid improvementâ Rapidâ, wherein the minimum sample size has been how to get cialis online considered as six instead of eight.For this first (convenience) sample of 10 volunteer users, 5/10 (50%) completed the form without any input or instructions. The other five became frustrated and gave up.

Table 1 tells you that, with an observed success rate of 50% and a desired target of 90%, any audit with a sample of six or more allows you how to get cialis online to confidently reject the null hypothesis that your form is working at a 90% success rate.For decades, those working in hospitals normalised the incessant alarms from medical devices as a necessary, almost comforting, reality of a high tech industry. While nurses drowned in excessive, frequently uninformative alarms, other members of the healthcare team often paid little attention. Fortunately, times are changing and managing alarm fatigue is now a key patient safety priority in acute care environments.1Adverse patient events from alarm fatigue, particularly related to excessive physiological monitor alarms, have received widespread attention over the last decade, including from the news media.2â5 In the USA, hospitals redoubled alarm safety efforts following the 2013 Joint Commission Sentinel Event Alert and subsequent National Patient Safety Goals on alarm safety.1 2 6 We are now beginning to understand how to reduce excessive non-actionable alarms (including invalid alarms as well as those how to get cialis online that are valid but not actionable or informative),7 8 better manage alarm notifications and ultimately improve patient safety.

Alarm data are readily available and measuring alarm response time during patient care is possible.7 9 Yet we have few high-quality reports describing clear improvement to clinical alarm burden, and most published interventions are of limited scope, duration or both.10 11 To demonstrate value in alarm quality improvement (QI) efforts moving forward, we need more rigorous evidence for interventions and more meaningful outcome measures.In this issue of BMJ Quality and Safety, Pater et al12 report the results of a comprehensive multidisciplinary alarm management QI project executed over 3Â½ years in a 17-bed paediatric acute care cardiology unit. The primary project goal was to how to get cialis online reduce alarm notifications from continuous bedside monitoring. Although limited to a single unit, the project is an important contribution to the scant literature on alarm management in paediatric settings for three reasons.

First, the initiative lasted longer than most that have been reported, which allowed for tailoring of alarm interventions to the needs of the unit and patient population and measuring the impacts and sustainability over time. Second, the scope of the intervention bundle how to get cialis online encompassed a wide variety of changes including adoption of a smartphone notification system. Addition of time delays between when alarm thresholds are violated and when an alarm notification is issued.

Implementation of an alarm notification escalation algorithm after a certain amount of time how to get cialis online in alarm threshold violation. Deactivation of numerous technical alarms (such as respiratory lead detachment). Monitoring of electrode lead replacement every how to get cialis online 24âhours.

And discussion of alarm parameters on daily rounds. Third, the authors introduced a novel strategy for reducing the stress that alarms may cause patients and families by deactivating inroom alarm audio, although no outcomes were reported attributable directly how to get cialis online to this component of the intervention.This project constitutes an important contribution to the published literature. However, Pater et al faced two challenges that are ubiquitous in the field of clinical alarm management.

(1) Identification how to get cialis online of meaningful outcome measures and (2) Lack of high-quality evidence for most interventions. With regards to the first challenge, the primary outcome measure used in the study comprised âinitial alarm notificationsâ, defined as the first notification of a monitor alarm delivered to the nurseâs mobile device. Although initial alarm notifications declined by 68% following the intervention, these notifications accounted for only about half of all alarm notifications.

The other half included second and third notifications for alarms exceeding specified delay thresholds, which were sent both to the mobile device of the primary nurse and to âbuddyâ nurses, potentially increasing how to get cialis online alarm burden. On the other hand, eliminating inroom audible alarms may have reduced the perceived alarm burden for nurses compared with having both bedside and mobile device notifications. Determining the true benefit of a reduction in a subset of alarms presents complex challenges.Alarm frequency is the most commonly used outcome measure in alarm how to get cialis online research and QI projects, but reduction in alarms does not necessarily indicate improved patient safety or a highly functional alarm management system.

Alarm reduction could easily be achieved in an undesirable way by simply turning off alarms. Unfortunately, most studies have not been powered to statistically evaluate improvements in patient how to get cialis online safety. (Pater et al did monitor patient safety balancing measures, which remained stable after intervention implementation).

To assess change in nursesâ perceptions of alarm frequency, Pater et al conducted how to get cialis online a prepost survey, which despite the small sample size (n=38 preintervention and n=25 postintervention) managed to show improvement, with the percentage of nurses agreeing they could respond to alarms appropriately and quickly increasing from 32% to 76% (p<0.001). That said, this survey was not a validated measure of alarm fatigue. In fact, how to get cialis online we currently have no widely accepted, validated tool for assessing alarm fatigue.11As we look towards future evaluations of alarm management strategies, the focus needs to shift away from simply reducing the frequency of alarms to more meaningful outcome metrics.

In addition to alarm rates, outcomes such as response time to actual patient alarms7 9 or to simulated alarms injected into real patient care environments13 may be better indicators of whether the entire alarm response system is functioning correctly. Larger, multisite studies are needed to assess patient outcomes.In addition to meaningful outcome measures, the second challenge for alarm QI projects is the lack of good evidence for alarm management interventions. Most alarm how to get cialis online reduction interventions have not been systematically evaluated at all or only in small studies without a control group.10 11 As a result, alarm management projects tend to involve complex and costly bundles of interventions of uncertain benefit.

The cost of these interventions is due in part to the growing industry of technology solutions for alarm management. Some institutions have also made massive investments in personnel, such as monitor âwatchersâ to help nurses identify actionable alarms, for which there is also little evidence.14Future alarm management QI initiatives will benefit from a higher quality evidence base for how to get cialis online the growing list of potential alarm management interventions. Pragmatic trials that leverage meaningful outcome measures to assess alarm interventions are warranted.

In addition, we need to evaluate interventions that address the full spectrum of the how to get cialis online alarm management system. Most alarm management interventions to date have focused primarily on filtering out non-actionable alarms. Far less emphasis has been placed on ensuring that the nurse receiving the notification is available to respond to the alarm, a prime opportunity for future work.Even if alarms are actionable, we know that nurses may not always respond quickly for a variety of reasons.7 15â17 Factors how to get cialis online like insufficient staffing, high severity of illness on the unit and unbalanced nursing skill mix all likely contribute to inadequate alarm response.

In critical care, nurses have reported that the nature of their work requires that they function as a team to respond to one anotherâs alarms.15 Although not ideal, nurses have developed heuristics based on factors like family presence at the bedside to help them prioritise alarm response in hectic work environments.7 16 Emphasising outcomes like faster alarm response time without addressing systems factors risks trading one patient safety problem for another. We do not want to engender more frequent interruptions of high-risk activities, like medication administration,18 19 because nurses feel compelled to respond more quickly to alarms.The robust QI initiative carried out by Pater et al reflects the type of thoughtful approach needed to implement and tailor alarm management interventions for a particular unit, demonstrating a generalisable process for others to emulate how to get cialis online. Ultimately, every alarm offers a potential benefit (opportunity to rescue a patient) and comes with a potential cost (eg, increased alarm fatigue, interruptions of other activities).