HELSINKI — A study showed that the functional response of corneal allogenic intrastromal ring segments is influenced by keratoconus morphology.
It also demonstrated that the segments provide meaningful structural and functional improvements.
At the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons winter meeting, Burcu Yakut, MD, said that the findings offer “guidance for patient selection and surgical planning.”
The study, conducted by Aylin Klç, MD, and colleagues, compared visual, refractive and tomographic outcomes of corneal allogenic intrastromal ring segments (CAIRS) in patients with

WASHINGTON — Pneumococcal vaccination rates in high-risk women are low during pregnancy, data presented at the ACOG Annual Clinical & Scientific Meeting show.
“As an infectious disease fellow, I rotated through different clinics caring for people living with HIV. A big part of those visits was vaccine counseling and administration, including pneumococcal vaccination,” study co-author Karley Dutra, MD, FACOG, assistant professor of reproductive infectious diseases at Thomas Jefferson University, told Healio. “When I returned to Jefferson and was caring for pregnant women living with HIV, I

Women with a reproductive lifespan of 41 to 46 years performed better on cognitive tests than those with a reproductive lifespan of 33 years or fewer, according to data published in Menopause.
In an analysis of data from the Nurses’ Health Study, researchers assessed changes in cognitive outcomes among 14,217 older women. Associations were found between reproductive lifespan and performance on cognitive tests, but use of menopausal hormone therapy was not tied to better cognition later in life.
“The absence of an association between menopausal HT use and favorable cognitive outcomes is

Editor’s Note: In Healio Allergy/Asthma’s column, “Food Allergy: Fact vs. Fiction,” Douglas H. Jones, MD, breaks down what’s true and what’s myth for a variety of topics related to food allergies. If you have a question that you would like answered in this column, email Jones at rmaaimd@gmail.com or Richard Gawel at rgawel@healio.com.
For many families with food allergies, flying is not just inconvenient. It is psychologically exhausting.
Patients often spend weeks preparing for a trip, only to discover that airline policies are inconsistent, poorly communicated and sometimes medically

CLEVELAND — Dermatologists are best positioned to use a combination of interventions to treat hidradenitis suppurativa, including medications and surgery, according to a speaker at Cleveland Clinic’s Medical Dermatology Therapy Update IV.
“Combination therapy is the rule for hidradenitis suppurativa,” Steven Daveluy, MD, a dermatologist at Wayne State University, told Healio. “We do not have highly effective therapies like we do in psoriasis, where you can put a patient on a biologic and they clear up. For our HS patients, they often get a partial response, so you must stack therapies.”

CHICAGO — Fasting before and after chemotherapy may improve treatment response among women with high-grade serous ovarian cancer, according to findings presented at ASCO Annual Meeting.
Study participants who adhered to the approach had lower insulin levels, more often achieved pathologic response and had longer PFS than women who followed more traditional eating patterns.
“Short-term fasting also is feasible and well tolerated, and we also saw a preliminary signal of immune response,” Claudia Marchetti, MD, PhD, gynecologic oncologist and associate professor at Fondazione Policlinico

Several nonantibiotic drugs appear associated with increased risk for Clostridioides difficile infection, according to results of a population-based, case-control study published in Gut.
An analysis of data from the Swedish National Patient registry showed antidiarrheals, analgesics and corticosteroids were among nonantibiotic drugs associated with increased risk for C. difficile infection. They accompanied antibiotics known for microbiome-modulating activity such as lincosamides and penicillins.
“If incorporated into clinical decision-making, our findings could support more nuanced and

Adding prednisolone to standard therapy for Kawasaki disease failed to prevent coronary artery lesions 1 month following disease onset, according to data published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“The current standard primary treatment for Kawasaki disease is high-dose intravenous immune globulin (IVIG) with aspirin,” Siyuan Lin, MD, of the Children’s Hospital of Fudan University and National Children’s Medical Center, in Shanghai, and colleagues wrote. “However, coronary-artery lesions develop in approximately 10% to 20% of treated patients, and 8% to 25%