More dental issues lead to the E.R.
Thousands of people who visit the emergency room each year are admitted with dental problems. In September, the Journal of Endodontics reported that hospitalization for patients who were admitted with periapical abscesses – infections of the tooth root – increased by more than 40 percent from 2000 to 2008. In addition, some 66 patients died after they were hospitalized. A root canal or extraction can fix a tooth abscess, but many Americans go to emergency rooms for dental care due to a lack of dental insurance coverage and trouble paying out of pocket.
Implant treats central sleep apnea
A pacemaker-like device is showing promise in treating central sleep apnea, according to results from an Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center study presented at the Heart Failure Society of America’s Annual Scientific Meeting.
Unlike more common obstructive sleep apnea, which has a root physical cause, central sleep apnea is caused when the brain’s signals to the body telling it to breathe are interrupted. The implant delivers a regular signal stimulating the diaphragm to breathe during sleep.
In the study, patients with the implant showed a 56 percent reduction in overall sleep apnea incidents per hour and an 80 percent reduction in central sleep apnea incidents.
The university medical center is now participating in a new study comparing the device’s effectiveness to that of current medical therapies for central sleep apnea.
New drug improves walking in muscular dystrophy patients
A recent study at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital shows the drug eteplirsen helps patients with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy walk father.
Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, which affects one in 5,000 American males at birth, disables the body’s capacity to create the protein dystrophin, which absorbs the shock when a muscle contracts. Without dystrophin, the shock damages the muscle fibers, causing the muscle to deteriorate and slowly be replaced by fat.
Participants in a placebo group and two groups that took the drug were given a walking test for six minutes at 12, 24 and 48 weeks and had their muscle fibers measured by biopsy.
There were no results evident at the 12-week mark, but by the 24th week, study participants who took the drug showed a 23 percent increase in positive dystrophin-muscle fibers. By the 48th week, positive- dystrophin muscle fibers had increased by 52 percent and patients were walking 67.3 meters farther than the placebo group in the walk test.
