SAN DIEGO — Statin therapy decreased the risk for developing acute cholangitis among patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis, according to research presented at Digestive Disease Week 2022.
“Primary sclerosing cholangitis [PSC] is a cholestatic biliary disease whose analysis and underlying biology remains fairly poorly understood,” Chiraag Kulkarni, MD, internal medicine specialist at Stanford University, said. “The complications of PSC are the development of acute cholecystitis, significantly elevated risk for GI malignancy and the development of cirrhosis, and

SAN DIEGO — Corticosteroid use should be minimized in patients with inflammatory bowel disease to reduce the risk for invasive fungal infections, according to research presented at Digestive Disease Week 2022.
“We know that the immunosuppressants used to treat IBD increase the risk for infection and multiple studies have shown that corticosteroids are by far the worst agents,” Martin H. Gregory, MD, of the division of gastroenterology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, said. “There hasn't been a large scale, systematic study to see what risk

SAN DIEGO — Baseline magnetic resonance index of activity score independently predicted the longer-term need for surgery, rescue corticosteroids or hospitalizations among patients with Crohn’s disease.
“Multiple methods have been developed to predict outcomes in Crohn's disease. ... The magnetic resonance index of activity, or MaRIA score, is used to quantify disease severity, it has been validated against the Crohn's disease endoscopic index of severity,” Alvin George, MD, internal medicine resident at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, said at

SAN DIEGO — Minimal long-term cardiac safety findings were reported with ozanimod treatment in patients with ulcerative colitis and relapsing multiple sclerosis, according to research presented at Digestive Disease Week 2022.
“Ozanimod is a newly approved, oral sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) receptor modulator that specifically targets S1P1 and S1P5 and prevents lymphocyte migration to the intestines. It's approved in the U.S. and in Europe for the treatment of moderately to severely active UC as well as relapsing multiple sclerosis,” Millie Dascomb Long, MD, MPH, of the

DENVER — Patients with infectious keratitis who underwent penetrating keratoplasty earlier in the course of their infection had better postoperative outcomes compared with those who waited longer before having surgery, according to a study. At the ARVO meeting, Troy Teeples, MD, an ophthalmology resident at the University of Colorado, said that neither the infectious etiology itself nor age, sex or race played a role in outcomes.

Waning population immunity against smallpox — a result of discontinued vaccination campaigns for the now-eradicated disease — “has established the landscape for the resurgence of monkeypox,” researchers said.
They came to that conclusion after systematically reviewing dozens of studies and other documents for data on the evolution of monkeypox epidemiology over the past 50 years, which revealed that cases have been increasing since routine smallpox vaccination ceased.
Their findings were published in February in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, months before a growing

SAN FRANCISCO — Results presented here showed women were more likely to experience arthrofibrosis after ACL reconstruction with quadriceps tendon autograft compared with men, and larger graft size increased the risk of arthrofibrosis.
Rebecca Haley, BA, and colleagues reviewed all patients who underwent ACL reconstruction with a soft-tissue quadriceps tendon autograft to identify factors that may lead to arthrofibrosis.
“We had arthrofibrosis as requiring a secondary procedure for lysis of adhesions within 6 months of the primary surgery due to the inability to regain terminal extension,”

SAN FRANCISCO — Results presented here showed anatomic-based medial collateral ligament repair and MCL reconstruction may be equivalent based on objective knee laxity, but MCL reconstruction had better subjective outcomes.
Nicholas N. DePhillipo, PhD, ATC, and colleagues randomly assigned 54 patients with grade 3 MCL tears with or without concomitant ACL injuries to undergo either an anatomic-based MCL repair technique with a hamstring tendon autograft or complete MCL reconstruction. Researchers considered valgus stress radiographs as the primary outcome variable, which were collected at

BOULDER, Colo. - In this video from the International Extreme Sports Medicine Congress, Sherrie L. Ballantine-Talmadge, DO, discussed sport-specific return to play protocols for extreme sports athletes.
“What we have found throughout the years is that – even with diagnosis as well as treatment – we had to make it sport-specific. These athletes developed early brain mapping so that they could spin, twist and turn in a different way than a football player or a soccer player,” she said. “The goal of today was to have people think and take the next step and understand

BOULDER, Colo. - In this video from the International Extreme Sports Medicine Congress, Laura Vogel, MD, discussed incidence and prevention of common CrossFit injuries.
“The injury rates are shown to be lowest when athletes are engaging with their trainers, and gyms that have an on-ramp beginner class to introduce athletes to those foundational movements have the lowest injury rates within their athletes,” she said. “CrossFit can be done without injury when you adhere to some basic principles – engaging with your coaches, scaling your movements intelligently and really