WASHINGTON — When navigating the FDA approval process, ophthalmologists must be ready to “fight” on behalf of their findings, according to a speaker at SightLine.
John P. Berdahl, MD, of Vance Thompson Vision told Healio that finding success with the FDA as a physician-entrepreneur requires a “clear, consistent and crystallized agreement on what the study is, and what the endpoints are.”
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Berdahl also highlighted that it is the ophthalmologist’s responsibility to bring high quality data to the table. However, they must also be ready to advocate for the significance of their findings.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A shared decision-making aid can be beneficial during the treatment process for patients with lung cancer, according to a presenter at European Lung Cancer Congress.
“Shared decision-making is essential in patient-provider communication, especially when decisions are complex and preference-sensitive,” Wouter Jacobs, MD, a pulmonologist at Martini Hospital in the Netherlands, told Healio. “Patient decision aids can support the process of shared decision-making, and incorporating outcome information can be beneficial as well. However, the implementation of shared

WASHINGTON— Financial success for every branch of ophthalmology requires all three pillars of the specialty to work collaboratively to find practical solutions, according to a speaker at SightLine.
American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery executive director Steve Speares identified the three major stakeholders in ophthalmology as surgeons, administrators and industry partners. He presented the results of a survey conducted to help tie together the unique needs of all three pillars.
“They're going to have different interests,” Speares said. “We have to be comfortable with having that

Infants born extremely preterm could benefit from respiratory syncytial virus immunization during their second RSV season, according to findings published in JAMA Pediatrics.
“The findings are not unexpected, but they contrast with prior recommendations in Canada and the United States, which until recently, did not support the use of RSV monoclonal antibodies for a second season in children born prematurely,” Pascal M. Lavoie, MDCM, PhD, a neonatologist at British Columbia Women’s Hospital, told Healio.
If the maternal RSV vaccine (Abrysvo, Pfizer) was not given at least 14 days before

The American Academy of Dermatology issued its first-ever guidance for the medical management of pediatric eczema, a skin condition that affects up to 25% of children worldwide.
The guidelines of care, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, include 27 evidence-based recommendations for medical management and 14 evidence-based recommendations for the primary prevention of AD, as well as 29 statements on the association between pediatric AD and comorbid conditions. Separate guidance for management of adult AD was updated most recently in 2024, according to the authors.

A multifaceted initiative applied at the clinic, physician and patient levels improved blood pressure among low-income patients with uncontrolled hypertension, researchers reported.
The intervention used in the IMPACTS-BP study, which was published in The New England Journal of Medicine, incorporated team-based care, protocol-based BP management, health coaching and home BP monitoring and was designed to address health disparities among patients with low income and uncontrolled hypertension receiving care at federally qualified health centers.
“Hypertension is a major preventable risk

The recent surge in new treatments for kidney diseases has made it more challenging for nephrologists to maintain state-of-the art expertise in all domains of patient care related to the kidneys.
Despite exciting innovations, the perception of nephrology by medical students and internal medicine residents remains negative. Trainees cite the inordinate focus on dialysis (read: failed therapies) and stagnation of the science. Trainees also cite lack of exposure to nephrology during medical school and residency, which represents the unfortunate shift in nephrology teaching from clinicians to

For decades, the scientific theory of depression focused on chemicals — serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine. Nearly every antidepressant drug developed since the 1980s has targeted these neurotransmitters.
Yet clinical reality has always been more complex. Up to one-third of patients with major depressive disorder develop treatment-resistant depression (TRD), meaning they fail to improve after multiple antidepressant trials.
James Murrough, MD, director of the Depression and Anxiety Center for Discovery and Treatment at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said during a recent

A 4-week vancomycin pulse and taper regimen may be a safe and effective strategy to delay or prevent Clostridioides difficile infection recurrence.
Data from the Initial Vancomycin Taper for the Prevention of Recurrent Clostridium difficile Infection (TAPER-V) trial showed that patients assigned to a pulse and taper regimen were less likely to experience recurrence at days 38 and 56 compared with standard 2-week vancomycin pulse therapy.
“If using vancomycin for a first infection or first recurrence, I am convinced by the data that a taper is superior to a shorter course of 10 to 14 days,”

LOS ANGELES — Patients with traumatic brain injury who used a pair of virtual reality programs experienced improvements in prospective memory and eye focus, according to a poster presented at the vMed26 virtual medicine conference.
Between 77% and 88% of patients do not get rehabilitation for their traumatic brain injury, (TBI), Kristen Linton, MSW, PhD, associate professor, department of health sciences, California State University Channel Islands, and colleagues wrote.
“I was sick of writing about the lack of rehab among people with brain injury,” Linton told Healio.
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