DENVER — In patients with low to moderate myopia, smoking was found to be a risk factor for vision impairment, according to a poster presentation at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meeting.
Ian Flitcroft, D.Phil., coauthor of the study, told Healio that, because myopia accelerates with age, the aim of the research was to find a modifiable risk factor for older, established myopes.
“I was really expecting to find something on the vascular factors like hypertension and heart failure, but actually, the signal came through on smoking,” he said.
Flitcroft and colleagues

CHICAGO — Women with autoimmune hepatitis appear more likely to develop cervical dysplasia and HPV infection than those without the condition, according to research presented at Digestive Disease Week.
They also appeared more likely to have abnormal pap smear results and undergo colposcopy, data showed.
Autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) has previously been associated with an elevated risk for intrahepatic and extrahepatic malignancies and is four times more prevalent among women than men.
“A cornerstone of AIH treatment is immunosuppression, and HPV infection can play a large role in cervical cancer

CHICAGO — Wearable device-derived sleep metrics may help monitor inflammatory bowel disease activity and response to biologic therapy, according to research presented at Digestive Disease Week.
Results of a study using the Oura Ring (Oura) showed those who responded to biologic therapy had less time awake in bed and better sleep efficiency according to the wearable device and other collected data.
“These findings are promising, but still early,” Robert Hirten, MD, associate professor of medicine and AI and human health at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told Healio. “In this study, we

CHICAGO — When comparing inflammatory bowel disease mortality from before the pandemic with during, the gap between related deaths among Black and white patients continued to expand across Southern and Midwestern states, a study found.
The findings were presented at Digestive Disease Week.
“IBD mortality worsened for everyone during COVID — overall age-adjusted mortality rose from 0.93 to 1.17 per 100,000, and both white and Black patients saw their numbers go up. No group was spared,” Daniyal Raza, MD, assistant professor of medicine and hospitalist at LSU Health Shreveport, told Healio.
“What

DESTIN, Fla. — Patients with chronic conditions who are failing on conventional therapies may be suffering from undiagnosed major depression, according to a presenter at Congress of Clinical Rheumatology East.
Michael R. Clark, MD, MPH, MBA, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and executive vice president of medical affairs at MedPoint Health Partners, has conducted extensive research at the intersection of depression and chronic pain.
“Major depression is still, after decades, the most common reason

DENVER — Despite challenges for approval and access, regenerative therapies for retinal diseases may not be far away from becoming viable treatment options, according to a panel discussion at Eyecelerator@ARVO.
Allan C. Ho, MD, who co-moderated the panel, told Healio that there are still unmet needs from a patient perspective for those with retinal degenerations, even with approved therapies for age-related macular degeneration and geographic atrophy. However, several innovations in cell therapy and optogenetics, as well as technologies including the Prima subretinal implant, show promise in

DENVER — In this video from the American Academy of Dermatology Annual Meeting, Brian S. Kim, MD, MTR, discusses the expansion of topics focused on atopic dermatitis, chronic spontaneous urticaria and chronic pruritus of unknown origin.
In the past 10 years, the dermatological space has seen great expansion in meeting presentations and sessions focused on itch-related conditions, such as atopic dermatitis, and itch-related treatments that have been FDA approved.
“If you look at the drugs that are approved in dermatology, half of them, in my opinion, are itch-related drugs, which is quite