Chest
-
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) isolation from clinical specimens is the standard for TB diagnosis. Positive MTB cultures are rarely questioned, but false-positive culture rates range from 2% to 4%. In December 2011, two smear-negative, culture-positive TB cases were reported to the Oklahoma State Department of Health (OSDH) in people without TB signs or symptoms. ⋯ Patient 1 was not treated for TB because her physician doubted the culture result. Patient 2, an organ transplant recipient, began four-drug anti-TB therapy, and an investigation was initiated for transplant-associated TB. Adherence to strict laboratory techniques and recognizing the possibility of false-positive MTB cultures, especially when inconsistent with clinical data, are essential in preventing erroneous TB diagnoses.
-
Comorbidities can affect disease progression and/or response to treatment in various conditions. Comorbid conditions are prevalent in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH); however, their effect on patient outcomes remains unknown. ⋯ Compared with other analyzed comorbidities in patients with PAH, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and COPD were associated with significantly worse 6MWD; obesity and COPD were associated with worse FC; and diabetes and COPD were associated with increased risk for death. Further investigation of the effects of treating these comorbidities in patients with PAH is warranted.
-
Extensive public-private partnerships, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the rare diseases community, which is seeing a renewed industry interest in smaller niche markets, have resulted in an increase of interventions for rare diseases. Significant collaborative efforts are required among the pharmaceutical industry, foundations, patient-advocacy groups, academic and government investigators and funding programs, regulatory scientists, and reimbursement agencies to meet the unmet diagnostic and treatment needs for approximately 25 million people in the United States with 7,000 rare diseases. The expanding role and outreach activities of patient-advocacy groups have increased public awareness. ⋯ Several research institutes and centers of the NIH, including the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, have initiated varied translational research efforts to address the absence of preclinical and clinical data required for regulatory review purposes. Clinicians can expect to see significant increases in requests from patients and their families to participate in patient registries and natural history or observational studies to gather specific information from a larger pool of patients on the progression of the disease or response to treatments. An expanding emphasis on rare diseases provides hope for the millions of patients with rare diseases.