geoffrey modest medical blogs

  A recent Danish study found that elderly patients given the high-dose influenza vaccine had reduced incidence of cardiorespiratory hospitalizations when compared to those given the standard-dose vaccine (see influenza vaccine high-dose helps in elderly JAMACardiol2025  in dropbox, or doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2025.3460) Details: --332,438 participants at least 65-year-old were assessed through a prespecified secondary analysis of the DANFLU-2 study, a pragmatic, open-label, individually randomized clinical trial using nationwide administrative health registries in Denmark during the 2022/2023 to 2024/2025 Influenza seasons -- patients were randomized to receiving a high-dose inactivated influenza vaccine (HD-IIV) versus the standard-dose IIV (SD-IIV) -- severe cardiovascular outcomes were prespecified secondary and exploratory endpoints in the DANFLU-2 trial, when occurring at least 14 days after vaccination and through May 31 of the following year -- there were no formal exclu...

blog from 4/2/20   A recent study from Los Angeles found that 5% of people presenting with mild influenza-like illnesses actually had Covid-19 (see  covid presenting as mild flu jama2020  in dropbox, or doi:10.1001/jama.2020.4958   Details: -- 131 patients  with mild influenza-like illness   presenting to the Los Angeles County    + University of Southern California Medical Center between March 12-16 had nasopharyngeal swabs for influenza and RSV infection -- these swabs were automatically tested for SARS-CoV-2 -- patients were excluded if they had travel exposure or contact with a traveler, or if they were severely ill patients admitted for respiratory tract infections   Results: -- 7 of the swabs were positive for SARS-CoV-2 (5.3%) -- median age of the patients who were positive was 38 years, 3 were male, median duration of symptoms was 4 days -- 6 of 7 patients had fever, 5 myalgias, and only one had a cough. -- All patients had mild ...