Morning MEDtalks with Dr KK Aggarwal 27th October 2018

Cleveland Clinic top 10 medical innovations for 2019

1. Alternative therapy for pain: fighting the opioid crisis
2. The advent of artificial intelligence in healthcare
3. Expanded window for acute stroke intervention
4. Advances in immunotherapy for cancer treatment
5. Patient-specific products achieved with 3D printing, which provide patients the most advanced care, while minimizing the risk of complications at the same time
6. Virtual and mixed reality for medical education provide simulation training that may enhance traditional medical schooling
7. Visor for prehospital stroke diagnosis to speed up diagnosis and the time to treatment
8. Innovation in robotic surgery leading to more precise and effective surgeries with improved surgical outcomes
9. Mitral and tricuspid valve percutaneous replacement and repair
10. RNA-based therapies

Harm reduction: No Bharat Stage IV vehicle shall be sold in India from April 1, 2020, says Supreme Court of India. On Wednesday, a three judge bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur made it clear that only BS VI compliant vehicle shall be sold in the country from April 1st, 2020. The bench said the need of the hour was to move to a cleaner fuel. The apex court was deciding whether grace period should be given to automobile manufacturers for the sale of BS-VI non-compliant vehicles after April 1, 2020. The Bharat stage emission standards are standards instituted by the government to regulate output of air pollutants from motor vehicles. The Bharat Stage VI (or BS-VI) emission norm would come into force from April 1, 2020 across the country. The BS IV norms have been enforced across the country since April 2017. In 2016, the Centre had announced that the country would skip the BS-V norms altogether and adopt BS-VI norms by 2020… (PTI, Oct 23, 2018).

United Nations Member States adopt the Declaration of Astana. All UN member states have unanimously vowed to strengthen primary health care, as an “essential step” towards achieving universal health coverage for all at the Global Conference on Primary Health Care, being held in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan this week. Known as the Declaration of Astana, it reaffirms the historic 1978 Declaration of Alma-Ata, the first accord reached by world leaders on primary health care.

The signatories to the Declaration made pledges in four key areas: for bold political choices for health to be made across all sectors; to build sustainable primary health care; to empower individuals and communities; and to align stakeholder support to national policies, strategies and plans.

More extensive and frequent Holter ECG monitoring may detect atrial fibrillation (AF) by 6 months that would otherwise only be detected within 3 years with standard care, according to secondary analysis of the Finding Atrial Fibrillation in Stroke – Evaluation of Enhanced and Prolonged Holter Monitoring (FIND-AF) trial presented October 18, 2018 at the 11th World Stroke Congress (WSC) 2018 in Montreal.

Today is World Day for Audiovisual Heritage: Audiovisual documents, such as films, radio and television programs, are our common heritage and contain the primary records of the history of the 20th and 21st centuries. Unfortunately, that heritage is now endangered, because sound recordings and moving images can be deliberately destroyed or irretrievably lost as a result of neglect, decay and technological obsolescence. Through initiatives such as the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage and the Memory of the World Programme, the work of preservation professionals is encouraged, in order to manage the range of technical, political, social, financial and other factors that threaten the safeguarding of our audiovisual heritage.

PicoAMH Elisa, a new diagnostic test to help in the determination of a patient’s menopausal status has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The PicoAMH Elisa test measures the amount of Anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH) in the blood. AMH levels represent one indicator available to clinicians to determine whether a woman is approaching or is likely to have reached her final menstrual period. The test is meant to be used only in conjunction with other clinical assessments and laboratory findings.

CDC recommends use of routine hepatitis A vaccination for all homeless people. An advisory committee of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) unanimously voted Wednesday to recommend the use of routine hepatitis A vaccination for all homeless people ages 1 year and older to protect them against infection. The CDC is expected to approve the committees recommendation… (CNN).

Stress may affect memory and brain size in middle age. Compared to those with average levels of cortisol, middle-aged people with high levels of cortisol have impaired memory, even before symptoms of memory loss started to show, according to a study published in the October 24, 2018, online issue of Neurology. Those with high cortisol had an average total cerebral brain volume of 88.5% of total cranial volume compared to 88.7% of total cranial volume in those with normal levels of cortisol.

Nobel Prizes that changed medicine forever: Selman Waksman (1952) “For his discovery of streptomycin, the first antibiotic effective against tuberculosis” While studying the effect of soil microorganisms on tubercle bacteria, Selman Waksman and his laboratory discovered the effect of the bacterium Streptomycin griseus. With the collaboration of Albert Schatz, who isolated streptomycin, an effective medication for TB was born, followed by the development of a submerged culture technique that enabled large scale production of streptomycin.  

Video to watch: TEDx Video: Doctor-patient relationship www.youtube(dot)com/ watch?v=i9ml1vKK2DQ

Dr KK Aggarwal

Padma Shri Awardee

President Elect CMAAO

President Heart Care Foundation of India