Dr. Kevin Most of Northwestern Medicine joins the Steve Cochran Show for his weekly roundup of health news. This week, Dr. Most discusses the early signs of all types of cancers, the increased prevalence of autism, and a recent outbreak of candida auris in the U.S.
Read Dr. Most’s notes below and hear him every Tuesday morning on the Steve Cochran Show.
Autism prevalence is Up, but early evaluations fell as pandemic set in, study shows.
- Findings from the ADDM network study of 11 communities from 10 states
- 2.8% of children at the age of 8 were identified to be on some spectrum of the Autism disorder in 2020
- The rate in boys is 4% and girls 1%
- This is up from 2.3% in 2018
- There continues to be an increase since 2020, it is unclear if this is the result of more focused evaluations or something else
- When Covid hit, the evaluations for Autism at ages 4 and 8 decreased, missing the opportunity to identify some individuals at an earlier age
- For this network in the 6 months before the pandemic 1,593 more evaluations than there had been four years prior, showing increased acceptance for early identification, in the 6 months after the start of the pandemic this pattern reversed and there were 217 less evaluations.
- Need to get back to increasing the evaluations, as we have shown that early treatment leads to better outcomes.
Bacteria in eye drops linked to concerns
- As of last week, some individuals using eye drops tainted with a drug resistant bacteria had severe consequences
- Close to 70 individuals ended up with severe infections, 8 were blinded and 3 died
- The outbreak had been identified in 16 states, including Illinois
- The cause is a strain of a highly drug resistant bacteria, Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, never seen in the US before
- The outbreak was noted in individual who used artificial tears from over 10 different brands
- Some of the eyedrops were recalled in February from 2 companies EzriCare and Delsam Pharma,
- The drops for these companies were made in India, where this bacteria is commonly linked to outbreaks
- CDC is testing unopened bottles to look for contamination
- Symptoms to look for discharge from the eye, eye pain, redness of the eye, sensitivity to light, blurred vision. These symptoms can be caused by other concerns but should be checked by physician
Candida Auris outbreak in US
- CDC has raised concerns for a spreading fungus in the US
- Fungus do cause infections but in numbers so much lower than viruses and bacteria, worldwide fungal infections cause about 1.5 million deaths. Too put it in perspective pneumonia causes close to 3 million deaths a year, and that is just infections in the lung
- Fungus are different than Bacteria and viruses and in most cases cause little health problems, they can be found on our skin and thru out the body, not causing any problems in healthy individuals, however they can be deadly in immunocompromised individuals
- The specific fungus of concern is a drug resistant Candida Auris strain that was first noted in Japan in 2013
