Surgeons Plan to Remove Section of TB Patient's Lung
Surgeons plan to remove a tennis-ball sized section of lung from the 31-year-old Atlanta lawyer with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB), the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.
The targeted lung tissue contains most of the bacteria responsible for Andrew Speaker's TB and its removal will eliminate a breeding ground for the bacteria and enhance the effectiveness of antibiotics, doctors say.
The surgery is scheduled for sometime in July at the University of Colorado Hospital's Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora. Speaker is currently in isolation at National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver and will return there after the lung surgery, the Times reported.
In related news, Speaker's case has prompted leading TB experts in the United States to call for more federal funding of TB research, tighter travel restrictions on TB-infected people, and better education for TB patients about their risk of infecting other people, The New York Times reported.
Speaker caused a panic when he went to Europe for his wedding in May, even though he'd been diagnosed with TB and advised by public health officials in Georgia not to travel. After his trip to Europe, he returned home by first flying to Canada and then crossing into the U.S. by car.
Since then, public health authorities have been searching for passengers who sat near Speaker on his flights to and from Europe in order to test them for TB.
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NYC Health Department Urges 4,500 People to Get Hepatitis C Test
About 4,500 patients treated by a Manhattan anesthesiologist are being contacted by New York City's health department after three patients were found to have hepatitis C, a virus that can harm or destroy the liver, The New York Times reported.
The anesthesiologist administered pain-deadening drugs by needle to the 4,500 patients at 10 Manhattan outpatient centers (including doctors' offices and clinics) between Dec. 1, 2003 and May 1, 2007. None of the procedures took place in a hospital.
"The common risk factor is the doctor, not the medical procedure," said Dr. Marcelle Layton, assistant commissioner of the bureau of communicable diseases, who noted that the three infected patients received the painkilling drugs at three different times.
The health department has sent letters to the 4,500 patients (who were identified using medical records from the 10 treatment sites) telling them to get tested for the virus, which can have an incubation period of six months or longer, The Times reported.
There are a number of effective treatments for hepatitis C.
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Company Warns of Malfunction in Brain Cancer Radiotherapy Units
A German company has issued a warning about a malfunction in one of its radiotherapy machine models used to treat brain cancer patients, but says it's a small targeting error that's unlikely to pose a threat to patients.
However, a notification sent by Munich-based BrainLAB to a U.S. clinic warned that the problem could cause "injury or death," the Associated Press reported.
Four hospitals in France, two in the United States and one in Spain have the affected models. BrainLAB would not release the name of the two U.S. hospitals but a company official did say they were located in Ohio and Washington state.
The Cleveland Clinic in Ohio confirmed that it does have a BrainLAB unit and stopped using it after it was alerted about the problems last week, the AP reported.
Radiotherapy expert Dr. Georges Noel, of the Paul Strauss cancer center in Strasbourg, France, said this kind of malfunction was potentially harmful.
"A mistargeted machine could irradiate healthy brain tissue ... It could kill healthy tissue," he told the AP. The impact on a patient would depend on the part of the brain affected, Noel said.
A BrainLAB official said a software update should correct the problem.
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Lyme Disease Cases Jump in U.S.
Reported cases of Lyme disease in the United States have more than doubled since 1991 and 93 percent of those cases have been reported in just 10 states, says this week's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 1991, there were fewer than 10,000 reported cases of Lyme disease, which is transmitted primarily by ticks. By contrast during 2003-2005, there were 64,382 cases of Lyme disease reported in 46 states and the District of Columbia.
States with the most cases were: Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.
During 2003-2005, two age groups had the most cases of Lyme disease -- children ages 5-14 (10 cases per 100,000), and adults ages 55-64 (9.9 cases per 100,000).
Fever, headache, fatigue, and a skin rash can be among the early symptoms of Lyme disease. Left untreated, the infection can spread to the heart, joints, and nervous system.
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EPA Studying Air Emissions From Livestock
The first nationwide study of air emissions from dairy, poultry and swine animal feeding operations (AFOs) was announced Thursday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
During the two-and-a-half-year, $14.6 million study, researchers from eight universities will measure levels of hydrogen sulfide, particulate matter, ammonia, nitrous oxide, volatile organic compounds, and other gases from livestock facilities.
The study will include 24 sites in nine states. The EPA says the findings will help it control emissions from AFOs.
"There has never been an agricultural air emissions study this comprehensive or long term," lead scientist Al Heber of Purdue University said in a prepared statement. "We don't know enough about what is being emitted into the atmosphere. This study will give the EPA the data it needs to make science-based decisions."
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U.S. Program Seeks to Improve Community Cancer Care
A three-year pilot phase of a new program to bring state-of-the-art cancer care to patients in community hospitals across the country was launched Thursday by the U.S. National Cancer Institute.
The goal of the National Cancer Institute Community Cancer Centers Program is to encourage collaboration between private-practice medical, surgical and radiation oncologists and a network of 63 NCI-designated Cancer Centers, principally based at large research universities.
The program will investigate new ways to assist, educate, and better treat underserved groups -- including elderly, rural, inner-city, and low-income cancer patients -- as well as racial/ethnic groups with unusually high rates of cancer.
The pilot phase of the program will begin at eight free-standing community hospitals and six additional hospitals operated by health care systems.
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