Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Could Health Workers’ Positive COVID Test Signal Forthcoming Surges?

Healthcare workers don’t reliably test for respiratory viruses when they have symptoms, despite their risk for exposure to viruses on the job. From September 2024 to February 2025, 893 healthcare workers in Ireland completed surveys about respiratory symptoms and testing. As reported in Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology, among 321 workers with symptoms, only 202 (63%) participants used self-administered antigen tests for COVID-19. Self-testing had a greater association with female sex, those with a preexisting …

Prostate Cancer Cases Show Recent Increases, While Mortality Has Improved

Prostate cancer rates have increased in recent years, especially in cases with advanced stages, according to the American Cancer Society as published in its CA flagship journal. Incidence grew at 3.0% annually from 2014 through 2021, just after a period of 6.4% annual decreases from 2007 through 2014. Over the past decade, late-stage disease has increased by 2.6% annually in men younger than 55 years, 6.0% annually in men aged 55–69 years, and 6.2% annually …

Oral Drug Targets Chronic Hives

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved oral remibrutinib, a new drug product, as a second-line treatment for chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU). Remibrutinib has a unique mechanism to block the activity of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK), stopping a key pathway of the immune response in CSU, according to a manufacturer press release. The condition is thought to be caused by immune dysregulation, and it is believed that once activated, BTK leads to the release …

Cardiovascular Risks Predict Heart Attack And Stroke Rather Well

A large study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that 99% of those who experience heart attacks and strokes have at least 1 of the 4 biggest risk factors. By tracking health records for more than a decade in more than 9.3 million adults in South Korea and nearly 7,000 adults in the United States, researchers found that virtually all subjects had at least 1 major cardiovascular risk factor beforehand, and …

Sexually Transmitted Infections Show Another Year of Declines

New provisional data shows 2024 was the third consecutive year of declines in the combined total number of cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The overall trend shows a 9% decline from the previous year’s case numbers. Even with that positive news, there were still more than 2.2 million reported sexually transmitted infections in 2024, and overall cases are 13% higher than a decade ago. Most …

Concerns Continue For West Nile Virus in Colorado

As of September 30, 2025, there have been a total of 1,324 human cases of West Nile virus reported in 42 states this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This compares with 1,791 cases for all of 2024, but it’s far below the 9,862 cases reported in 2003—the highest incidence across the past 25 years. Colorado has been particularly hard hit with 235 cases and 12 deaths this year, according …

Severe Flu Season Also Associated With Cases of Rare Pediatric Encephalopathy

The last influenza season (2024–2025) was categorized as high-severity with more cases and hospitalizations than the previous 14 years. New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is also showing 109 rare cases of pediatric influenza-associated encephalopathy (IAE) occurred last year as well. Overall, 74% of IAE patients were admitted to an intensive care unit, and 19% died. Only 16% of vaccine-eligible IAE patients had received the 2024–2025 flu vaccine. Of the …

Study Observes Changes in EDs After PE Acquisition

Whether private equity (PE) is friend or foe in the healthcare market is still a subject of intense debate. A new study of emergency department (ED) visits published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine found that patient mortality and outside transfers increased in PE-owned hospitals once the hospital was acquired. These EDs experienced 7 additional deaths per 10,000 visits after acquisition relative to control (13.4% increase from a raw baseline of 52.4 deaths per 10,000; …

New Gastroparesis Guidelines Focus on First-Line Treatments

A new clinical practice guideline from the American Gastroenterological Association helps support physicians who are treating patients with gastroparesis. The condition is difficult to diagnose and treat, so the new guidelines outline the current state of the evidence for clinical options, as published in Gastroenterology. Part of the motivation for publishing the insight comes from possible new risks for gastroparesis related to glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists that are increasingly being used by patients for …

Kids’ Hypertension Can Lead to Adult Cardiovascular Disease and Death

Children with elevated blood pressure in childhood can experience a greater risk of early death from cardiovascular disease (CVD) in adulthood, a new long-term study in JAMA finds. At baseline, 21% of the 37,081 children studied were classified as having hypertension, while about 19% were classified as having elevated blood pressure. Participants (born from 1959 to 1966) were followed to a median age of 54 years. At follow-up, a 1-SD higher systolic blood pressure measure …

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