19 May 2020
TUESDAY, May 19, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Children with cancer don't have a higher risk of being affected by COVID-19 or of having severe symptoms, a new study finds.
"We are encouraged by these latest findings that kids with cancer are not more endangered by COVID-19 and their symptoms are mild like in healthy children," said study leader Dr. Andrew Kung, chair of the pediatric cancer program MSK Kids at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
"These findings allow us to continue lifesaving cancer-directed therapy with standard precautions and safeguards but without heightened concern about adverse effects from COVID-19 infection," Kung said in a Sloan Kettering news release.
His team tested 178 child cancer patients and their parents/caregivers for COVID-19. The...
18 May 2020
MONDAY, May 18, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- As the drive towards a vaccine against the new coronavirus accelerates, there's some good news: People with COVID-19 have robust immune responses against the virus, scientists say.
The researchers based their conclusions after testing immune T-cell counts in 20 patients who recovered from the infection.
"If we had seen only marginal immune responses, we would have been concerned," explained researcher Alessandro Sette. "But what we see is a very robust T-cell response against the spike protein [on the virus' outer shell], which is the target of most ongoing COVID-19 efforts, as well as other viral proteins. These findings are really good news for vaccine development."
Sette is a professor in the Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine...
18 May 2020
MONDAY, May 18, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Autism may be a risk factor for eating disorders, a new study suggests.
Previous research has shown that 20% to 30% of adults with eating disorders have autism, and the same is true for between 3% and 10% of children and teens. But it wasn't clear if autism developed before eating disorders or vice versa.
To find out, researchers assessed autism traits in nearly 5,400 children in the United Kingdom at ages 7, 11, 14 and 16, and signs of eating disorders (such as fasting, purging, prolonged dieting or binge-eating) at age 14.
The research team found that autism traits appeared first, suggesting that it may be a risk factor for eating disorders, according to the study published online recently in the Journal of Child Psychology and...
18 May 2020
MONDAY, May 18, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- COVID-19 is stealing all the pomp and circumstance from end-of-year celebrations for this year's high school and college graduates.
Take Lily McConnell, 17, a senior at Lakeland High School in Shrub Oak, N.Y. She was looking forward to a lot of things -- big and small -- that were supposed to happen during her final months in high school.
"There are the obvious things that have been canceled, like graduation and prom," McConnell said, also noting that she had been cast as one of the leads in her school play. That has also been canceled.
"Lakeland has a senior picnic, and a day where we go to our elementary schools and say goodbye. Honestly, these things are what I'm most upset about -- classroom celebrations, getting my yearbook signed, the...