Influenza
First H7N9 patient discharged from hospital, and more are recovering. A four-year-old boy, one of scores of patients in east China diagnosed with with the H7N9 bird flu infection, has fully recovered and been released from a Shanghai hospital. The boy is the first H7N9 patient to be cured and discharged. According to Lu Hongzhou, a professor with the Shanghai Public Health Clinic Center, if an H7N9 patient can be given treatment no later than five days after he or she shows flu symptoms, China’s current therapeutic methods can be effective in treating the disease. The World Health Organization says there is no evidence H7H9 passes from person to person.
Two other patients confirmed to have caught H7N9 bird flu in China’s Zhejiang Province have also shown signs of recovery. Tests on a 51-year-old female patient came back H7N9 viral nucleic acid negative, indicating she had recovered. A 67-year-old male was also recovering after being in critical condition.
Until mid-April, all reported cases of the new strain of avian influenza had been detected in Shanghai and the east China provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Anhui. On April 13, however, the Chinese capital of Beijing reported its first case, a seven year old, who was in stable condition.
Alzheimer’s disease
Alzheimer’s gene ABCA7 significantly increases late-onset risk among African Americans. A variation in the gene ABCA7 causes a twofold increase in the risk of late onset Alzheimer’s disease among African Americans, according to a meta-analysis by a team of researchers including experts from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. This is the largest analysis to date to determine genetic risk associated with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD) specifically in African American individuals. The study appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Consortium (ADGC), led by Gerard Schellenberg, PhD, professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine, compared genetic data from nearly 6,000 African Americans over the age of 60, with and without Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers found that the genotypes with the strongest association with the risk of LOAD among African Americans were ABCA7 (odds ratio, 1.8) and APOE (odds ratio, 2.3), genotypes also associated with increased risk among individuals of European ancestry. The association with ABCA7 was 60% stronger among African Americans than had been observed among individuals of European ancestry. Researchers note that the study, if duplicated, may have implications for genetic testing and for treatment.
Cardiology
New test helps doctors in Europe assess the prognosis of chronic heart failure patients. Abbott has gained CE Marking (Conformité Européenne) for its ARCHITECT Galectin-3 assay, a test to aid doctors in assessing the prognosis of patients diagnosed with chronic heart failure (HF). The test was developed in partnership with BG Medicine, Inc., to run on Abbott’s ARCHITECT immunochemistry platform.
Several studies demonstrate that HF patients with higher levels of the protein galectin-3 present are more likely to have worse outcomes, including rehospitalization and death. “Galectin-3 reflects the pathophysiology of heart failure and is one of the most powerful prognostic indicators in heart failure. It helps clinicians identify which patients are at high risk for worsening heart failure early in the course of their disease,” says Dr. Rudolf de Boer, Associate Professor in Cardiology at the University Medical Centre Groningen, the Netherlands.
The ARCHITECT Galectin-3 test is available in several European countries. Abbott expects to submit a 510(k) clearance application for the assay this year and anticipates a U.S. launch next year.
Alcohol Use
Older people may be at greater risk for alcohol impairment than teens. According to a study conducted by scientists at Baylor University, an acute dose of alcohol may cause greater impairment in coordination, learning, and memory in the elderly than in young people. While previous data have indicated that aged people show significantly greater impairments than younger adults when alcohol is consumed, understanding the neurobiology underlying that increased sensitivity in the aged has been hampered by the lack of an adequate animal model.
The Baylor research, the first of its kind, established a baseline of the acute effects of alcohol in aged populations, which can aid future research into neurobiology and in determining the effect of prolonged alcohol abuse. The experiment included adult and aged rats (at least 18 months old).
Researchers said the findings have profound significance for older people. It is estimated that in the United States, as many as 13% of men and 8% of women over age 65 engage in risky drinking behavior.
“Health implications such as falls, accidents, and poor medicine-taking are pretty easy to conclude,” said Douglas B. Matthews, PhD, senior author of the paper, published online in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
Global Action
African Society for Laboratory Medicine helps African labs surmount technical obstacles. The African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM) is a pan-African professional body working with countries to advocate for the critical role and needs of laboratory medicine. Since its inception in 2011, ASLM has focused on building capacity in African healthcare laboratories. To this end, ASLM has leapfrogged over many traditional barriers to adoption of medical technology, enabling medical labs in Africa to benefit from state-of-the-art software solutions that power some of the largest laboratories in America.
ASLM has now partnered with SoftTech Health in a program to network the laboratories continent-wide with the LabQMS (Quality Management Software). The first site for the new partnership was the KEMRI/CDC HIVR lab in Kenya. “The SoftTech system is transforming the Kenya Medical Research Institute/CDC HIV Research lab into a paperless, efficiency-driven organization, making critical information available instantly,” says Dr. Clement Zeh, Director of the KEMRI/CDC HIVR lab.
“By skipping over the traditional processes of establishing physical infrastructural technologies, and going directly to wireless and cloud-based technologies instead, we’re helping labs in Africa to use the same software tools that top labs in America use,” says Craig Madison, Senior Partner of SoftTech Health. “We’ve seen the laboratory sites in Kenya very readily transitioning to using software to improve quality and efficiency.”
