About 8% of people have a rare disease, which is comparable to how many people have type 2 diabetes, but their needs are invisible to policymakers, and the introduction of new treatments needs to be dramatically accelerated, said Christopher Austin, director of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. "We at NCATS have decided that we have real problems with the word 'rare,'" Austin said.

Individuals with recent embolic stroke of an unknown source who received dabigatran had similar rates of recurrent strokes and ischemic strokes, compared with those who were given aspirin, researchers reported in The New England Journal of Medicine. The findings also showed similar odds of major bleeding in both groups, but clinically relevant minor bleeds were more prevalent among those in the dabigatran group.

Patients with type 1 diabetes who had an A1C level of 7.9% were 3.5 times more likely to have multiple fractures than those whose A1C levels were less than 7.2%, according to a study in the journal Bone. Italian researchers analyzed data from 600 diabetes patients, mean age of 42, and found that those who had diabetes for 26 years were 7.5 times more likely to experience multiple fractures, compared with patients who had diabetes for less than 14 years.

All children with tumors that have ALK, ROS1 or NTRK1/2/3 gene fusions or ALK mutations who received entrectinib, an investigational tyrosine kinase inhibitor, had "rapid and durable" treatment response, according to a study to be presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting. "Although the target fusions are rare and the chances of finding the fusion may be low, clinicians should be looking for these gene aberrations because the impact of therapy is very promising -- especially when alternative treatment options are limited," said researcher Giles Robinson.

Investigators compared tests and instruments for monitoring blood clots during surgery and other procedures and reported in the journal Lab Medicine that the Abbott iStat test performed best and was affected less by factors such as temperature, fibrinogen levels and dilution. Researchers had no vested interest in any of the tools, senior author Gurmukh Singh said.

Higher levels of the brain receptor mGluR5 on the surface of brain cells may be linked to suicidal thoughts in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to findings published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The brains of people with PTSD who indicated they'd had suicidal thoughts the day of their scans showed higher levels of mGluR5 than the brains of people in a control group, researchers say.

A survey released by America's Health Insurance Plans found most commercial, Medicare Advantage and managed Medicaid health insurance providers are already offering some type of virtual care, and they report benefits including improved health outcomes, increased patient satisfaction and better access to care. Most commercial and Medicaid managed care providers, however, said patient engagement remains a barrier to full adoption of virtual care.

Virtual reality may be a way to help hospice patients complete the experiences they've always hoped to have, and Laurie McKay, Continuum Care Hospice's chief nursing educator, helped a man with terminal cancer and his wife do just that. Illness stopped the couple from taking a cruise they planned, so McKay mapped out all the ports on the cruise, and gave them 360-degree views of the sights they would have seen in person.

Italian researchers found a lower quality of life, more diabetes distress, fear of hypoglycemia, and poorer general and psychological health among patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes who experienced a severe hypoglycemic event in the previous year, compared with those without such events. The findings in Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases, based on 2,229 adults, revealed that a score of more than 25 on the fear of hypoglycemia questionnaire was more likely among women, insulin users, those who had severe hypoglycemia and those who had at least a high school education.

Pfizer's Fragmin, or dalteparin sodium, was approved by the FDA to lessen the recurrence of symptomatic venous thromboembolism in pediatric patients at least 1 month old. The drug was first approved for adult patients with certain types of angina, deep vein thrombosis and symptomatic VTE.

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