Neoadjuvant immunotherapy could considerably improve long-term outcomes and quality of life for patients with desmoplastic melanoma, according to prospective study results.
Nearly three-quarters of patients who received the anti-PD-1 antibody pembrolizumab (Keytruda, Merck) before surgery achieved pathologic complete response (pCR), suggesting it may reduce the need for potentially disfiguring surgeries.
The approach, which provided durable disease control and exhibited a safety profile that researchers characterized as favorable, represents “a true shift” in treatment for this rare but

The messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccine is not tied to neurodevelopmental disorders in youth whose mothers who were vaccinated immediately before or during pregnancy, data show.
The study, presented at The Pregnancy Meeting and “conducted through a rigorous scientific process in an NIH clinical trials network, demonstrates reassuring findings regarding the long-term health of children whose mothers received COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy,” Brenna L. Hughes, MD, MSc, Edwin Crowell Hamblen Distinguished Professor of Reproductive Biology and Family Planning at Duke University, said in a press

The couples match helps partners stay together during residency, and it can make a real difference, according to physicians who completed the process.
Matching to a residency program can already be complicated, stressful and time consuming for an individual applicant, so it can be even more challenging when also considering the “hopes, dreams and rank list of your significant other to a life-altering equation,” according to the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Luckily, the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) offers a process in which two applicants can link their rank orders. Then,

The FDA has approved the first anti-PD-L1-based therapies for treatment of certain PD-L1-positive ovarian cancers.
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda, Merck) and pembrolizumab and berahyaluronidase alfa-pmph (Keytruda Qlex, Merck) plus paclitaxel, with or without bevacizumab (Avastin, Genentech) received approval for adult patients with PD-L1-positive, platinum-resistant epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube or primary peritoneal carcinoma who have received one or two prior systemic treatments.
The FDA based its decision on the randomized phase 3 KEYNOTE-B96 trial, which showed a 28% improvement in PFS with

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Thomas Kohnen, MD, PhD, FEBO, delivered “The Short-Sighted World” as the Binkhorst Medal Lecture at the 2025 European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons meeting.
“Be aware that in 2050, we will have 4 billion people myopic in the world. That’s maybe half of the population,” he said in his presentation. “Correction is not a treatment, and we need to do further research in this area.”
In many cases, myopia has a genetic component, but there are well-known modifiable risk factors, such as near work and less time spent outdoors, that can be addressed by lifestyle

Patients with cutaneous sarcoidosis — a rare disease with no FDA-approved treatments — saw clinical and quality-of-life benefits with the investigational drug brepocitinib, according to phase 2 study results.
Sarcoidosis is a granulomatous disease that almost always affects multiple organs in the body, according to Misha Rosenbach, MD, professor of dermatology and rheumatology and director of the Sarcoidosis Clinic at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. The most frequently affected organs are the lungs, followed by the skin and eyes. Some sarcoidosis cases can also involve the

SAN DIEGO — Issues including resolution, portability and deployment need to be addressed for low-field MRI to be effective in underserved areas or sparsely populated regions, , according to a speaker at ACTRIMS.
“Portable MRI has seen sort of a rebirth from the early ’50s to ’60s and now into the last 5 or 10 years as new companies from an academic standpoint have begun to put out new systems,” Sean Deoni, PhD, senior program officer at the Gates Foundation, told attendees . “A lot of these companies are driven by the technology and not asking the question

Evidence of environmental risk factors’ negative impact on heart health has greatly increased, leading to several cardiology societies to issue a joint statement encouraging regulations to reduce risk for noncommunicable diseases.
Environmental stressors on the heart can include climate change, chemical pollution, soil pollution, water pollution, noise and light pollution, and especially air pollution, researchers reported.
Addressing pollution sources as well as aging infrastructure may not only provide CV benefits by lowering risk for disease, but also decrease the economic burden by

Vegan and pesco-vegetarian diets were associated with better kidney function compared with nonvegetarian diets, according to study data published in the Journal of Renal Nutrition.
In addition, the protective effect that vegan and pesco-vegetarian diets may offer patients with chronic kidney disease could be driven by metabolic pathways, according to Fayth M. Butler, PhD, associate professor in the Center for Nutrition, Healthy Lifestyles and Disease Prevention at Loma Linda University School of Public Health in California, and colleagues.
Although plant-based diets have been associated with

A once-monthly injectable GLP-1 receptor agonist induced up to 12.3% weight loss at 28 weeks among adults with overweight or obesity, according to topline results from a phase 2b trial.
PF’3944 (Pfizer), previously known as MET-097i, is a fully biased, ultra-long-acting GLP-1 under investigation for the treatment of obesity and other cardiometabolic disorders. As Healio previously reported, the investigational therapy conferred significant weight reductions in four once-weekly dosing groups in the phase 2b VESPER-1 trial. In VESPER-3, investigators examined the safety and efficacy of the drug