Trending News: Response to Antibiotics Has Potential as Measure for Tuberculosis in Patients with HIV

There is a link between antipsychotic use and the risk of head injuries in community dwellers with Alzheimer disease, according to MD Magazine. A nationwide register-based cohort study included Finnish community dwellers who received a clinically verified Alzheimer disease diagnosis between 2005 and 2011. The findings imply that in addition to previously reported adverse events, antipsychotic use may increase head and traumatic brain injuries in patients with Alzheimer disease.

Response to antibiotics may be an important measure for diagnosing tuberculosis (TB) in patients with HIV, according to Contagion Live. The study showing these findings included 207 patients with HIV at a community health care clinic in Johannesburg with symptoms including cough, fever, night sweats or weight loss, between June 2018 and February 2019. Using a trial of antibiotics to discover whether a patient with HIV and cough has pneumonia or TB was helpful in the study, according to the authors.

Antifibrotic drugs pirfenidone and nintedanib have the potential to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a chronic, fibrosing idiopathic interstitial lung disease, according to The American Journal of Managed Care. In a post-hoc analysis, researchers found that the combination nintedanib with pirfenidone had a feasible safety and tolerability profile for patients with IPF. The study authors noted that the activation of multiple pathways leading to fibroblast migration, proliferation, and myofibroblast differentiation has identified numerous potential molecular targets of novel therapeutic agents.