PITTSBURGH —What precisely is the relationship between cognitive decline in patients with both diabetes and obesity? Researchers from the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System and the University of Pittsburgh sought to investigate the potential mechanisms leading to those...
VA Mental Healthcare Being Used by Depressed, Pregnant Vets
WORCESTER, MA—While depression screening is recommended for all pregnant veterans, it had remained unknown how often symptomatic women received care, how depression treatment presented in practice, and whether women veterans were utilizing treatment during the...
Tuscaloosa VAMC Physician Promotes Employment for Veterans With PTSD
TUSCALOOSA, AL—With the Veterans Coordinated Approach to Recovery and Employment project, Lori Davis, MD, knows she has her work cut out for her. Not only does she have to prove that individual placement and support employment services can help veterans with...
A VA-Like Pharmacy Benefits Program Could Be a National Model
Potential to Fix Two Huge Problems with the U.S. Healthcare System CAMBRIDGE, MA—Rising drug prices have frustrated patients nationwide, often leading individuals to forgo needed therapies because they simply could not afford them. In some instances, cost-control...
New Program Helps Transitioning Servicemembers with Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Delays in VA Appointments Pose Challenges SAN ANTONIO, TX — A new program at the Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston aims to give transitioning servicemembers with inflammatory bowel disease the information they need to manage their disease when they leave...
Palliative Care Extends Survival in Veterans with Lung Cancer
PORTLAND, OR — While the term “palliative care” is usually associated with ameliorating pain and discomfort at the end of life, it appeared to have other benefits for veterans, according to a new study. In this cohort study of 23 ,154 patients with advanced lung...
Agent Orange Linked to Overall Head/Neck Cancers
PORTLAND, OR — Agent Orange exposure might have had more effect than previously assumed on development of head and neck cancers, according to a recent study. A report in the Oral Oncology journal described how self-reported Agent Orange exposure was linked with...
What Is the Relationship Between Parkinson’s Psychosis, Treatment?
LONDON, UK – For years, common treatments -- levodopa and dopamine agonists (dopamine replacement therapy [DRT]) – have been implicated in Parkinson's disease psychosis. A report published in Movement Disorder Clinical Practice pointed out that the relationship...
Two Subtypes of Gulf War Illness Identified
WASHINGTON — Gulf War illness appears to be more complex than previously thought, according to a study using brain imaging of veterans with the condition. The report in Brain Communications discussed how varying abnormalities were detected after moderate exercise that...
Study Finding Could Detect Alzheimer’s Disease Earlier
SAN DIEGO — People who were diagnosed as having “objectively-defined subtle cognitive difficulties” appeared to accumulate amyloid more quickly than those deemed cognitively normal, according to a new study. That information could potentially improve early detection...
New Study Examines Role of Military Deployment in Global Disease Transmission
CHAPEL HILL, NC — The explosive emergence in December 2019 of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, prompted governments around the globe to restrict travel from the affected region in an attempt to limit international spread of the disease. While these efforts focused...
Aggressive Chemo-Immunotherapy Found Safe for Older Patients With CLL Treatments
MINNEAPOLIS — Even though chronic lymphocytic leukemia is a disease of older adults, with median age of 68 years at diagnosis, clinical trials on chemo-immunotherapy agents rarely included patients of advanced age, according to a new study. Noting the strong...
New Antibiotics Are an Increasingly Important Front in Fight Against Anthrax
WASHINGTON — When Project BioShield was first signed into law 15 years ago, the nation had few medical countermeasures to respond to bioterrorism. Since then, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency has supported 27 projects using Project BioShield...
Recent Veterans Are Different in Some Ways Than Those Who Came Before
High Rates of Deployment, Combat Affected Them Mentally, Physically WASHINGTON—This likely will come as little surprise to the VA and DoD medical personnel who care for them, but recent veterans really are very different from those who came before them. A recent...
Prostate Cancer Survival Unimproved with Androgen Blockade Addition
SAN DIEGO—While the addition of androgen deprivation therapy to radiation therapy improves survival in patients with intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer, it remained unknown whether combined androgen blockade with a gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist and a...
Study Looks at Trichomonas Vaginalis Infection, Cancer Link
LOUIS—The protist Trichomonas vaginalis causes a common, sexually transmitted infection, some research has raised the possibility that it might contribute to the development of chronic prostate conditions, including benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostate cancer. A...
Post-Surgical Prostate Cancer Surveillance Not Guideline-Concordant
ANN ARBOR, MI—Does guideline concordance with annual postoperative prostate-specific antigen surveillance increase when PSA values exceed 4 ng/mL, even though that represents a screening threshold that is not relevant after surgery? That was the question raised in an...
Researcher Uses VA EMR to Track Social Factors Linked to Veteran Suicide
PITTSBURGH—It’s long been understood that social stress factors such as violence, homelessness, unemployment, relationship problems and other factors can all contribute to veterans’ suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. For the first time, that link can be...
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