Health

Alberta detects estimated 600 new variant cases of COVID-19

Published

2 years ago

April 5, 2021

Harry Miller

Nearly 40 per cent of Alberta’s active cases are now variant cases as the province reported another 600 variant cases of COVID-19 on Sunday.

With an estimated 600 new variant cases detected, 38 per cent of Alberta’s total active cases are variants of concern, according to Alberta Health. Just over two weeks ago, the variant cases represented only 11 per cent of the province’s active case count.

The update comes the day after the province reported a “significant” outbreak of the highly contagious P.1 variant which was first identified in Brazil. The spread of P.1 in the community is concerning because research suggests the strain is up to 2.5 times more transmissible than the currently dominant strain.

Alberta Health told Postmedia Saturday the outbreak involved a traveller who returned from out-of-country, but said Sunday they were no longer able to confirm that detail.

Alberta reported an estimated total of 950 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, which came from about 11,200 completed tests for a test positivity rate of approximately eight per cent.

According to Alberta Health, hospitalizations remain stable. When the number of hospitalizations was last updated on Thursday, there were 292 in hospital which included the 59 receiving care in intensive-care units.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, once again encouraged people to follow the public health measures in place on her Twitter account Sunday.

Following the COVID-19 public health restrictions is an act of kindness that protects you, your loved ones and your community,” Hinshaw said.

Alberta Health released only preliminary data on Sunday due to the long weekend.

“In the meantime, please continue to follow the health measures that are in place to slow the spread of COVID-19 and help protect those around you,” said Hinshaw on Twitter.

About 8,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine were administered by the end of the day on Saturday. Alberta has given approximately 693,000 doses to date.

AHS’ online booking tool and Health Link’s phone line at 811 will open on Monday at 8 a.m. for those who were born in or before 1963 with an eligible underlying condition within Phase 2B of the province’s vaccine rollout. Additional birth years in Phase 2B will become eligible as more vaccines arrive.

To prepare for the influx of people looking to book their appointment, the online tool will be offline from 9 p.m. on Sunday to midnight, and between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. on Monday.

“We have made enhancements to the online booking tool to allow up to three additional family members who are eligible to receive their vaccine to book at the same time, and at the same clinic,” said AHS in a tweet on Sunday.

Phase 2B is the largest eligible group to date and represents about 650,000 Albertans. AHS encourages people to try later in the day if call volumes are high or the online tool struggles to load.

Phase 2B began at participating pharmacies in Calgary, Edmonton and Red Deer last week and the province started immunizing those with eligible underlying conditions such as cancer patients, transplant recipients, individuals with disabilities, dementia and other conditions that present higher risk of severe outcomes from COVID-19.

Cases among seniors aged 80 and older have not seen the increase that other populations in Alberta have during this third wave of infections. Many in this age category received their COVID-19 vaccine in the early stages of the province’s immunization program, which has given them a defence against the virus.

Last week, however, there was a small increase in cases among those older than 80 and outbreaks were declared in several new continuing-care sites.

As of Thursday, provincewide there are 25 long-term care and supportive living sites with outbreaks.

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GLP-1 Agonists Protected Kidneys in T2D With Advanced DKD – Medscape

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2 hours ago

January 31, 2023

Harry Miller

Researchers published the study covered in this summary on Research Square as a preprint that has not yet been peer reviewed.

Key Takeaways

In patients with advanced diabetic kidney disease (DKD; estimated glomerular filtration rate [eGFR] < 30 mL/min/1.73m²), treatment with a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonist had a neutral effect on cardiovascular outcomes but significantly linked with preservation of kidney function and improved survival in a propensity-score matched, retrospective analysis of observational data from more than 2000 people with type 2 diabetes in Taiwan.

Why This Matters

Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of mortality in people with type 2 diabetes and among those with chronic kidney disease.
GLP-1 agonists reduce all-cause mortality and cardiovascular death in people with type 2 diabetes, but their role in patients with advanced DKD is controversial.
Research on the effect of GLP-1 agonists on cardiovascular outcomes in patients with advanced DKD is limited. Trials that have assessed GLP-1 agonists in people with type 2 diabetes have generally excluded those with advanced DKD and completely excluded those with end-stage kidney disease (eGFR < 30 mL/min/1.73m²).
Treatment with GLP-1 agonists has been associated with a significant reduction in composite cardiovascular outcomes in people with type 2 diabetes and relatively fair kidney function (eGFR > 30 mL/min/1.73m²), but among people with type 2 diabetes and lower levels of kidney function, research has shown neutral composite cardiovascular outcomes levels. However, limitations of previous studies include being mainly based on subgroup analysis or including a limited sample of patients.

Study Design

Retrospective analysis of observational data from nearly 9000 people in Taiwan with type 2 diabetes and an eGFR < 30 mL/min/1.73m² who received a first prescription for a GLP-1 agonist or dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP-4) inhibitor in 2012-2021 and had the data necessary for this analysis in their records.
The data came from the largest multi-institutional electronic medical record database in Taiwan, which includes two medical centers and five general hospitals and information on more than 11 million patients, from 2001 to 2019.
Researchers used propensity scoring to match 602 people treated with a GLP-1 agonist with 1479 people treated with a DPP-4 inhibitor.

Key Results

During a mean follow-up of 2.1 years, the rate of the composite cardiovascular outcome (cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, and ischemic stroke) did not significantly differ between the GLP-1 agonist and DPP-4 inhibitor groups, with incidence rates of 13.0% and 13.8%, respectively, and a nonsignificant hazard ratio of 0.88. Rates of each of the three components of the composite endpoint also did not significantly differ between the two groups.
Progression to end-stage kidney disease with dialysis was significantly lower in those treated with a GLP-1 agonist compared with a DPP-4 inhibitor, with incidence rates of 23.4% and 27.5%, respectively, and a significant hazard ratio of 0.72.
The incidence of a greater than 50% drop in eGFR from baseline was 32.2% with GLP-1 agonist treatment compared to 35.9% with a DPP-4 inhibitor, with a significant hazard ratio of 0.74.
Median time until patients needed new-onset dialysis was 1.9 years with GLP-1 agonist treatment and 1.3 years with DPP-4 inhibitor treatment, which was a significant difference.
The rate of all-cause death was 18.4% with GLP-1 agonist treatment compared with 25.1% with DPP-4 inhibitor treatment, a hazard ratio of 0.71 that was significant.

Limitations

Because the study was a retrospective analysis of observational data it cannot prove causality.
The study could be subject to residual confounding despite propensity-score matching.
The data came from health records that could have included coding errors.
Treatment compliance was unknown.

Disclosures

This is a summary of a preprint research study, “The cardiovascular and renal effects of glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists in patients with advanced diabetic kidney disease,” by researchers in Taiwan on Research Square and provided to you by Medscape. This study has not yet been peer reviewed. The full text of the study can be found on researchsquare.com.

Credits:
Lead image: One Photo/Dreamstime

Send comments and news tips to news@medscape.net.

Cite this: GLP-1 Agonists Protected Kidneys in Type 2 Diabetes With Advanced DKD – Medscape – Jan 31, 2023.

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Research by UBC professor lays groundwork for life-saving breast cancer treatment – UBC Faculty of Medicine

Published

3 hours ago

January 31, 2023

Harry Miller

A drug originally designed to prevent osteoporosis is now expected to save and improve the lives of millions of people with breast cancer, thanks in part to decades of foundational research by Dr. Josef Penninger, a professor in UBC’s Faculty of Medicine and director of the Life Sciences Institute.

The achievement highlights how UBC scientists are developing effective new treatments — and unlocking the full potential of existing drugs – through research into the fundamental biological principles behind disease. By advancing scientific discoveries from the lab to the clinic, UBC researchers are bringing life-changing treatments to patients everywhere.

The drug, called Denosumab, was recently shown in a long-term Phase 3 clinical trial to improve survival among postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive early breast cancer receiving aromatase inhibitor treatment. Moreover, the drug markedly improved patients’ quality of life by reducing broken bones by 50 per cent, a common side effect of breast cancer treatment. The results of the trial were recently reported in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Denosumab is a monoclonal antibody developed by American biopharmaceutical company Amgen to prevent bone loss. In the early 2000s, research by Dr. Penninger and his team revealed the therapeutic potential of Denosumab, as well as the drug’s surprising connections with breast cancer.

“More than two decades ago we started the experimental groundwork that revealed Donosumab’s potential as a treatment for breast cancer patients,” says Dr. Penninger. “These results are incredibly exciting and will help improve the lives of millions of patients. I am very proud of all the people in my lab over the years who did that work and helped pave the way for this achievement.”

Discovering the link between osteoporosis and breast cancer

Denosumab works by binding to and inhibiting the activity of a protein called RANKL, which plays a key role in bone-resorbing cells called osteoclasts. By blocking RANKL, denosumab reduces the activity of osteoclasts and slows down bone resorption, helping to increase bone density and preventing osteoporosis.

Dr. Josef Penninger

Dr. Penninger and his team began to draw the connection between osteoporosis and HR-positive breast cancer when they generated the first RANKL “knock-out” mice in the late 1990s.

A knockout mouse is a laboratory mouse that has been genetically engineered to have certain genes deactivated, or “knocked-out”. Dr. Penninger’s team engineered mice that lacked the genes necessary to produce the RANKL protein in an effort to study the protein’s essential function in bone metabolism.

However, to the researchers’ surprise, they discovered that the RANKL-deficient mice failed to develop a lactating mammary gland in pregnancy – a process that depends on sex hormones.

“This proved an evolutionary link: showing how bone loss is regulated by sex hormones, and how pregnant mammals activate RANKL to form breast tissue for lactation among other functions,” says Dr. Penninger.

Based on this initial finding, Dr. Penninger’s team went on to show that RANKL played a key role in progestin-driven breast cancer, as well as breast cancer driven by BRCA1 mutations.

“Further researcher revealed how RANKL controls the stem cells in the breast that respond to sex hormones and thereby drives growth of the breast tissue at every menstruation cycle and in particular in pregnancy and lactation,” adds Dr. Penninger.

In the case of breast cancer, RANKL spurs mammary epithelial cells to divide, and helps to maintain the stem cells that give rise to breast tumours.

A dual benefit drug

One in eight Canadian women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime according to the Canadian Breast Cancer Network. An estimated 70 to 80 per cent of these breast cancers are hormone receptor-positive (HR-positive), making it the most prevalent breast cancer subtype.

The current standard treatment for HR-positive breast cancer involves surgery and radiation, followed by treatment with aromatase inhibitors for 5 to 7 years. While aromatase inhibitors diminish sex hormones that drive new cancer growth, they can have serious adverse effects on bone health, including increased risk of osteoporosis and fractures.

The now-published clinical trial, led by the Austrian Breast and Colorectal Cancer Study Group, was conducted to see if Denosumab could help in two ways: by reducing these negative effects on bone health, while also improving breast cancer survival outcomes.

“These results are incredibly exciting and will help improve the lives of millions of patients.”
Dr. Josef Penninger

The results reveal that 6 mg of Denosumab every six months — the recommended treatment level for osteoporosis — improved disease-free survival, bone metastasis-free survival, and overall survival among participants. It also effectively reduced bone fractures over the long term.

“Blocking RANKL in breast cancer patients reduces broken bones by 50 per cent, massively improving their quality of life, and even at a very low treatment dose,” says Dr. Penninger. “We now know that RANKL drives breast cancer cell growth, is the critical mechanism behind bone loss, and has also an effect on anti-cancer immunity and immunological rewiring in pregnancy. These clinical results in patients show how blocking RANKL could save the lives of 50,000 women among one million women with the diagnosis of breast cancer.”

Based on the data, the researchers behind the trials are recommending that Denosumab be considered for routine clinical use in postmenopausal breast cancer patients receiving aromatase inhibitor therapy.

These trials were largely based on the foundational research published by the Penninger laboratory, including Kong et al. Nature 1999, Fata et al. Cell 2000, Jones Nature 2006, Schramek et al. Nature 2010, Sigl et al. Cell Research 2016, and Paolino et al. Nature 2021.

Dr. Penninger is now part of a large international prevention trial evaluating Denosumab in young women who carry BRCA1 mutations.

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Respiratory illness peaked in December at Chatham Kent Health Alliance: Suni – Chatham-Kent This Week

Published

5 hours ago

January 31, 2023

Harry Miller

Chatham-Kent Health Alliance officials are reporting a drop in patients visiting the emergency departments with respiratory illnesses between December and January, but admissions from the emergency rooms to the hospitals remain high.

Caen Suni, the hospital group’s vice president of clinical programs and operations, said patients with illnesses like influenza, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus dropped 50 per cent in January compared to December among children and by one-third among adults.

“The community is I think essentially working its way through seasonal illness at this point,” he said during a media teleconference Monday.

December also showed a 25 per cent increase over December 2021 for pediatric admissions and of those, 77 per cent were for respiratory illnesses, Suni said.

“That’s impactful and I think that’s what we’ve seen across the health sector in our entire region at this point,” he said.

Suni said the number of people seeking treatment at the emergency departments – which includes patients not admitted – is not “historically high,” but admissions to the hospitals increased in December by three per cent over the previous month.

This translates to an extra two to three extra patients a day who require a bed. The health alliance also experienced almost 2.5 per cent more admissions in December than any month in the previous year.

However, December also had the lowest daily average of visits to the emergency departments of any month during the Health Alliance’s current fiscal year.

This means a higher proportion of patients require admission to the hospital and patients presenting at the emergency departments are more ill, Suni said.

Since December, the trends are now “pointing towards a decrease,” Suni said, “which we’re thankful for, as the community bounces back from seasonal illness.”

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