Twice daily sirolimus gel 0.2% was effective and safe for the treatment of acanthosis nigricans, a common dermatologic condition that predominantly affects people with skin of color, according to a study.
Participants saw a significant reduction in the pigmentation of the plaques within 12 weeks, with the earliest signs of improvements appearing at week 4, according to findings published in the Journal of Drugs in Dermatology.
“The most striking finding was the magnitude and consistency of improvement,” Lucie Joerg, a medical student at Albany Medical College, told Healio. “These results are

A commercial assay that measures eMTBR-tau may be an alternative to tau PET imaging in diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease, according to data presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference.
Definitive diagnoses require evidence of amyloid plaques and tau neurofibrillary tangles, Alamar Biosciences said in a press release. Blood tests can measure p-tau217, which indicates amyloid pathology.
But many patients with accumulated amyloids do not have tau tangles, the company said, adding that the tau PET imaging that historically has been used to measure tau tangle burden is expensive

The weekend warrior-style exercise pattern may effectively lower risk for development of cardiometabolic disease among people with hypertension, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Achieving the majority of guideline-recommended physical activity over the weekend reduced risk for first cardiometabolic disease to a similar level vs. those who reach their goal throughout the week, researchers reported.
“The World Health Organization and American Heart Association guidelines recommend 150 minutes or more of moderate to vigorous-intensity physical

The advent of an immunotherapy to delay type 1 diabetes and more potential treatments in the pipeline have shifted the way health care professionals are approaching the disease.
In 2022, the FDA approved teplizumab-mzwv (Tzield, Sanofi) as the first therapy to delay the onset of stage 3 type 1 diabetes. The FDA expanded the indication for teplizumab-mzwv to children aged 1 to 7 years in April. Teplizumab-mzwv’s utility grew in June as the FDA approved a new indication for children and adolescents aged 8 to 17 years recently diagnosed with stage 3 type 1 diabetes. Laura Jacobsen, MD, associate

Published results showed patients who underwent minor hand surgeries under wide-awake local anesthesia with no tourniquet experienced low infection rates and high satisfaction when performed in a hospital procedure room.
“Wide-awake local anesthesia with no tourniquet has changed my practice. Also known as wide-awake surgery, it has allowed surgeons to move cases out of the main OR into the procedure room. But there has been some surgeon reluctance to do surgery in a procedure room instead of the main hospital OR,” Robert E. Van Demark Jr., MD, an orthopedic surgeon at University of South

Older adults who were cognitively healthy but had very high levels of p-tau217 were 78% more likely to develop cognitive impairment within a decade, according to data presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference.
Risks also increased by 45% over 10 years for older adults with slightly elevated levels of p-tau217, Rachel F. Buckley, PhD, associate professor of neurology, Harvard Medical School, and colleagues wrote.
“This study was motivated by the question: what does plasma p-tau217 tell us about a cognitively unimpaired older adult’s future risk of developing cognitive

NEW ORLEANS — A novel plasmid-based immunotherapy was safe and well tolerated among adults with type 1 diabetes autoantibodies, according to phase 1 trial data presented at the American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions.
NNCO361-0041 (Novo Nordisk) is an immunotherapy in which a plasmid acts as a carrier of preproinsulin and three cytokines. It is designed to prevent the immune system from stopping the autoimmune response destroying insulin-secreting cells in the pancreas, according to Robin Goland, MD, the J. Merrill Eastman Professor of Clinical Diabetes at Columbia University. Goland

PHILADELPHIA — With combination therapies and multiple treatment options available for patients, nephrology is in a “therapeutic revolution,” according to a speaker at the Heart in Diabetes CME Conference.
Katherine R. Tuttle, MD, FASN, FACP, FNKF, executive director for research at Providence Inland Northwest Health, said in her presentation that the treatment paradigm for chronic kidney disease is evolving with treatment options that can benefit patients across the kidney disease spectrum.
“Most forms of CKD, caused by both common and rare conditions, are now eminently treatable with kidney

Patients with cancer frequently receive broad-spectrum antibiotics, even if they are at low risk for antimicrobial-resistant infections.
A computer prompt that notifies clinicians that a patient would not benefit from these extended-spectrum drugs could significantly curtail their use.
A subgroup analysis of the four randomized Intelligent Stewardship Prompts to Improve Real-Time Empiric Antibiotic Selection (INSPIRE) trials showed that most patients with cancer have low risk for multidrug-resistant organisms, and prompts alerting prescribers to those patients decreased extended-spectrum

ORLANDO — In one phase 3 trial, former smokers with COPD receiving itepekimab had a significantly lower annualized moderate/severe exacerbation rate than those receiving placebo, according to data presented here.
Researchers did not find a significant result in the second phase 3 trial, according to the presentation at the American Thoracic Society International Conference.
“In former smokers ... with itepekimab vs. placebo, there was a significant reduction of moderate and severe exacerbation rates, and that was true for AERIFY-1, but it was not true for AERIFY-2,” Klaus F. Rabe, MD, PhD,