DENVER — Patient encounters via portal messages have begun to outpace face-to-face visits, yet are often uncompensated, increasing the risk for physician burnout and a worse reported work-life balance, according to a speaker.
Dermatologists received an average of 49 patient portal messages per day even before the pandemic, a number that has increased by more than 50% since 2020, Lia E. Gracey Maniar, MD, PhD, FAAD, director of teledermatology and digital health strategy at Ascension Texas and assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School,

NEW ORLEANS — In patients with an atherosclerotic CVD event or at intermediate to high risk for one who were on statin therapy, a novel oral PCSK9 inhibitor lowered LDL by more than 60% at 56 days, researchers reported.
In the CORALreef AddOn trial, the oral PCSK9 inhibitor enlicitide decanoate (Merck) also conferred greater LDL lowering compared with ezetimibe, bempedoic acid (Nexletol, Esperion) or a combination of both (Nexlizet, Esperion) at 56 days. In a separate presentation, researchers reported that among patients who remained on-treatment in the CORALreef Lipids and CORALreef HeFH

LOS ANGELES — Virtual reality-guided meditation was effective at reducing pain and anxiety among inpatients with pain, according to data shown at Cedars-Sinai’s Virtual Medicine Conference.
In the study, almost all 11 patients exposed to the virtual reality, or VR, application — known as the eXtended-Reality Artificially Intelligent Ally (XAIA) — showed meaningful, modest to dramatic reductions in pain.
Beverly (Yixin) Yang, MPH, a clinical research data specialist and PhD candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles, Fielding School of Public Health and study

An at-home program with live movement- and meditation-based classes started in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has not only reduced symptom distress, but also significantly improved survival for patients with cancer.
A randomized study of more than 100 patients showed those who used Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s digital intervention Integrative Medicine at Home (IM@Home), which includes fitness, yoga and meditation-based classes, had an estimated 2-year OS nearly 17 percentage points higher than those who received usual care.
“This was really a pleasant surprise to show that if we

Short children born small for gestational age maintained increases in height velocity and height standard deviation scores at 208 weeks with a once-weekly injectable growth hormone therapy, according to data from the REAL5 extension trial.
In findings published in the European Journal of Endocrinology, children born small for gestational age that did not experience spontaneous catch-up growth who were receiving somapacitan-beco (Sogroya, Novo Nordisk) continued to have increases in height velocity and height standard deviation score over 4 years of treatment follow-up. Additionally, the safety

As eGFR decreased, risks for 30-day hospital readmission or death increased for patients with chronic kidney disease, according to study data published in Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
More than 50% of hospital readmissions are unplanned and 30% of those may be avoidable, according to Badal (Brandon) S.B. Pattar, MD/PhD candidate at University of Calgary Cumming School of Medicine in Alberta, Canada, and colleagues. Since patients with CKD are more likely to be hospitalized than those without, the researchers aimed to evaluate readmission trends among populations with

PHILADELPHIA — Going from a medium-dose inhaled corticosteroid to a biologic for asthma led to significant decreases in exacerbations, according to a poster presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology Annual Meeting.
“Currently, the GINA guideline recommends escalating medium-dose ICS to high-dose ICS, but we’re showing that sometimes skipping high-dose ICS and going straight to biologics could be beneficial for patients,” Joe Yang, PhD, director of health economics and outcomes research at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, told Healio. “If a patient has a high burden of

A quarter of adults and 20% of children/adolescents in the U.S. have a diagnosed seasonal allergy, according to 2024 reports by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
In these studies, the age range with the highest prevalence of seasonal allergies was 45 to 65 years at 27.7%, followed by 65 to 74 years (25.5%), 6 to 11 years (25%), 18 to 44 years (24.3%), 12 to 17 years (24%), 75 years and older (21.7%) and 0 to 5 years (11.6%).
Healio spoke with Saema Tahir, MD, adolescent and adult pulmonary disease specialist and adult and pediatric sleep specialist, to learn about the common

AI is not going to replace doctors, Brennan Spiegel, MD, MSHS, assured attendees during his keynote address at Cedars-Sinai’s Virtual Medical Conference.
“Computers are great with data and information and knowledge, but not necessarily wisdom,” Spiegel, director of health services research at Cedars-Sinai and a founder of the vMed conference, told Healio. “Wisdom is what distinguishes not just doctors but humans in general from computer systems.”
Spiegel coined the term “blended intelligence,” or BI, to reinforce the idea that clinicians can successfully integrate AI into practice without

My introduction to rheumatology began during my PhD training in the early 2000s at the University of Western Ontario with my supervisor, Frank Beier, PhD, who sadly passed away in 2025 after a courageous and inspiring battle with cancer.
Frank was a giant in osteoarthritis research, but to me he was first and foremost an extraordinary mentor and, later, a lifelong friend. He gave me my earliest opportunities in research and showed me the excitement that comes from pursuing discovery with the goal of improving patients’ lives. Through his guidance, I began to see arthritis not simply as a