BETHESDA, MD - Invasive fungal wound infections are on the increase in military personnel wounded by improvised explosive devices, leading to significant morbidity and even death in some cases where the victims initially survived. All of the cases were related to blast injury, with 92% of them occurring during foot patrols in southern Afghanistan. More
Nurses' Union Ratifies Contract with VA WASHINGTON - National Nurses United announced this month that RNs have ratified their first national NNU contract in the VA system, covering 9,000 nurses in 22 hospitals. National Nurses United is the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in the U.S., with 185,000 members, according to the organization. A key contract item was RNs’ right to report unsafe conditions without reprisal.More
ROCKVILLE, MD - Morphine has met its match - and then some. After 200 years as the gold standard in battlefield analgesia, morphine is increasingly giving way to ketamine, a phencyclidine (PCP) derivative initially used in veterinary medicine. Combat medics rate ketamine as more effective than morphine or fentanyl in providing rapid relief of severe pain, according to an ongoing survey conducted by the Naval Operational Medical Lessons Learned Center, Pensacola, FL.More
BETHESDA, MD - For patients with intractable complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), treatment with high doses of ketamine may offer a cure or dramatically reduce pain and improve functioning. Better still, this innovative treatment soon might be available on an outpatient basis. Researchers at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC), Bethesda, MD, already have treated two patients with severe CRPS as outpatients.More
LOS ANGELES - The approval last year of the first new drugs for treatment of hepatitis C (HCV) in 20 years substantially increased the rate of virologic cure for patients with the most common form of the disease. At the same time, the complex regime of medications has made adherence more difficult, increased the likelihood of development of treatment-resistant strains of HCV and made the role of the pharmacist in HCV management more important than ever. The new drugs, boceprevir and telaprevir, are the first commercially available HCV direct-acting antiviral agents.More
Specialty Update on Oncology
Cancer Treatment Too Often Determined by Age Age, not overall health or prognosis, plays too large a role in determining what patients get cancer treatment, according to a new study from the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco. The study focused on more than 20,000 patients 65 and older with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and found that younger patients were more likely to receive treatment than older patients, regardless of their health status or chance for improvement. More
Specialty Update on Coagulation
VA Telerehab Program Improves Post-Stroke Functioning Participating in a home telerehabilitation program improves lower-body physical functioning after a stroke, as well as increasing the likelihood of maintaining a regular fitness routine, enhancing money-management skills and improving the capability to prepare meals and take care of personal needs such as bathing, according to a recent study.The program, called STeleR, was developed at the Richard Roudebush VAMC, Indianapolis.More
Brenda L. Mooney Editorial Director, U.S. Medicine mooney@usmedicine.com 39 York Street Lambertville, NJ 08530
