Opera Music Improves Heart Transplant Survival

Sara Maines of The MaineStudio

Not kidding... This research was actually published in the Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery in 2012. I should add that the research was done in mice rather than humans and won the 2013 Ig Prize in Medicine.

To quote from the abstract:

"recipients of a B6 cardiac graft that were exposed to opera music and Mozart had significantly prolonged allograft [transplant] survival... whereas those exposed to a single sound frequency (100, 500, 1000, 5000, 10,000, or 20,000 Hz) or Enya did not... Our findings indicate that exposure to opera music, such as La traviata, could affect such aspects of the peripheral immune response as generation of regulatory CD4+CD25+ cells and up-regulation of anti-inflammatory cytokines, resulting in prolonged allograft [transplant] survival. "

Wonder if this research can apply to other surgical healing and survival...

Reference:
Auditory stimulation of opera music induced prolongation of murine cardiac allograft survival and maintained generation of regulatory CD4+CD25+ cells. Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery 2012, 7:26 doi:10.1186/1749-8090-7-26

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What do Earthquakes Have to do with Thyroid Masses?

I'm not sure what is going on within the Italian Court system, but in October 2012, the Italian Court convicted 7 scientists to jail terms for not accurately predicting the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake that ended up killing over 300 people.

Also in October 2012, the Italian Supreme Court ruled that cell phones caused one man's brain tumor.

Since when does the Court decide on matters of scientific validity?

And even more importantly, what does this have to do with ENT???

I'm sure people here and there will shake their heads and say how ridiculous. "Unbelievable" that the Italians Courts have made such a stupid decision.

I hate to break it to you all... but it happens ALL THE TIME, especially in the field of medicine. The Court and Lawyers have profoundly influenced how medicine (and now seismology) is practiced whether scientifically valid or not. No matter how ridiculous it may be seen in hindsight or not.

Let's go back to those poor convicted earthquake scientists...

At least in Italy, it's likely that these Court decisions will having a chilling influence over how scientists will behave in the future whether scientifically valid or not. For every single minor tremor, scientists will now have to weigh potential for jail-term if they are inaccurate with their predictions (even though everybody knows predicting major earthquakes accurately is impossible).

I can imagine them to report in the future every single minor tremor as a potential threat of a major earthquake and as such, citizens of Italy are warned to take precautions and evacuate the area for 1 month.

I wonder how Californians will react to such predictions.

In medicine, especially in the field of radiology and pathology, diagnostic dilemmas equivalent to what Italian seismologists go through are common. For fear of the Court and Lawyers, radiologists and pathologists commonly overcall grey areas leading to further testing and even surgery for ultimately reasons that were totally unnecessary.

For example, thyroid masses are one particularly thorny area for both radiologists and pathologists.

In radiology, they will report every single nodule and cyst no matter how small for fear of Court and Lawyers. In the huge majority of the time, such thyroid masses are benign and no intervention is needed. However, should one of those nodules/cysts actually end up being thyroid cancer, the radiologist may end up being sued if he did NOT report them. As such, they are all reported and the burden of lawsuit than falls upon the doctor who ordered the CT scan or ultrasound in the first place.

What does this mean for the patient? For fear of Court and Lawyers, patients will end up getting more tests done and even undergo surgical removal "just to make sure" that it is not cancerous.

Which leads to the next diagnostic dilemma...

In pathology, fine needle biopsies of such thyroid masses is common. However, making a pathological diagnosis is sometimes quite difficult, especially if cancer is on everybody's mind. So what is the pathologist to do if he is uncertain whether cancer is present or not? For fear of Court and Lawyers, he makes an ambiguous statement:

There are some atypic cells suggestive but not definitive of cancer. Clinical correlation recommended.

Now the legal burden is on the surgeon. The surgeon, for fear of Court and Lawyers, will now suggest to the patient that to be absolutely sure there is no cancer present, it is perhaps best to remove the thyroid gland.

Low and behold, many patients who undergo thyroid removal for such ambiguous findings on radiology and pathology reports end up with no cancer found in the thyroid gland. All that testing and surgery was, in the end, totally unnecessary.

The judgements of four physicians have been consecutively affected and compounded with each other for fear of Court and Lawyers:

• Primary Care Doctor who ordered the CT scan or Ultrasound of the thyroid gland
• Radiologist who reported the thyroid nodules/cysts
• Pathologist who interpreted the needle biopsies of those nodules/cysts
• Surgeon who ends up removing the thyroid gland based on the pathology and radiology results

Does this actually happen???

Absolutely. All the time.

In fact, it happened to the President of Argentina who had her entire thyroid gland removed for fear of cancer, but ended up that no cancer was found. Read more.

Read more about the surgery here or watch the video!

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Azithromycin Increases Risk of Death Slightly... Well, So Does Tylenol and Ibuprofen

The media has made much fuss about a NEJM study suggesting a slight increased risk of death from taking azithromycin or z-pack. The more unhealthy you are, the higher the risk... no duh... (I would think the sicker you are, the greater the risk of death PERIOD... a sick person by definition is closer to death than a healthy person).

How slight? Compared to amoxicillin, about 47 additional cardiovascular deaths per one million courses of therapy.

Never mind the blatant biases found in the study nicely espoused on by cardiologist Dr. Wes in his blog. I should also point out that there's another study that did NOT find an increased risk of death with azithromycin.

Thinking you should never take a z-pack again due to this slight increased risk of death?

Well, good luck finding an alternative medication (of any kind) because they ALL have a potential risk of death.

Similar to z-pack, these other antibiotics also have an increased risk of sudden cardiac death:

• Avelox
• Bactrim
• Biaxin
• Cipro
• Diflucan
• Erythromycin
• Factive
• Floxin
• Foscavir
• Ketek
• Levaquin
• Sporanox
• Sulfa
• Tequin

It's not just antibiotics. These other common medications (not all-inclusive) also have an increased risk of sudden cardiac death:

• Benadryl (allergy)
• Pepcid (reflux)
• Albuterol (asthma)
• Prozac (depression)
• Serevent (asthma)
• Sudafed (decongestant)

The complete list can be found here.

Let's consider other popular drugs that also has an increased risk of death, though not necessarily from a cardiac trigger.

• ALL antibiotics due to a severe anaphylactic allergic reaction - Take Penicillin for example... about 300 die annually from penicillin allergic reaction in the US
• Tylenol causes liver failure - About 400 deaths per year in the US
• Ibuprofen causes internal bleeding - About 15,000 - 20,000 die per year in the US
• Alcohol related deaths - 75,000 deaths per year in the US
• Smoking related deaths - 443,000 deaths per year (one in five deaths) in the US

Never mind deaths from driving a car, accidental gunfire, drowning in a swimming pool, etc.

Life in general in the United States has a risk of death.

Source:
Azithromycin may up chance of sudden cardiac death. Heartwire 5/16/12
Popular Antibiotic May Raise Risk of Sudden Death. NYT 5/16/12
Azithromycin and the Risk of Cardiovascular Death. New England Journal of Medicine 2012; 366:1881-1890May 17, 2012
Use of Azithromycin and Death from Cardiovascular Causes. N Engl J Med 2013; 368:1704-1712May 2, 2013DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1300799

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Mind Over Body Treatment

24 years old female presents with several week history of progressive stomach pains, substernal chest discomfort, heart palpitations, loss of appetite, headache, insomnia, and growing lump sensation in her throat. Physical exam was essentially normal.

Can this previously healthy female have suddenly developed reflux, globus, paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia, brain tumor, and throat cancer with possible overlying thyroid disorder? Or perhaps has she contracted some other horrific mystery disease?

Maybe...

But maybe none of the above...

What if I told you she will be giving a doctoral dissertation for her Master's next week for which she is ill-prepared for given a recent breakup with her boyfriend of 5 years and has a growing distaste of her school classmates who have been less than supportive.

In other words anxiety.

The point is that the mind has tremendous influence over the body and numerous physical maladies can be attributable to a patient's mental state. People can die of a broken heart or out of extreme fear. Stress can age the body dramatically (look at a picture of a presidential candidate and than another after having served 2 terms as President of the United States).

A mind under stress CAN affect the body. Reassurance helps. Elimination of the stressor is even better. If the stresses can't just go away, development of strong coping mechanisms will do much to help. After that, there are prescription drugs that help, but have addictive potential as the anxious patient will tend to take a pill rather than dealing with and learning coping skills.

But here's where the power of the mind can be "manipulated" into helping rather than hurting the body.

In my last blog, I did ridicule therapeutic hands to manipulate human body energy as total bunk (or rather a 9 year old girl did)... BUT... if a person truly believes that it does help, it probably can help some individuals just from the idea/belief/faith that it can.

Faith, trust, and sharing with another human being who lends a sympathetic ear is where questionable "medical" practices and homeopathy may provide benefit... not because such quackery directly helps the individual, but more because the individual BELIEVES it can help.

I can totally make up a quack treatment like placing an ice cube over the heart and stating that this practice can "calm" the heart palpitation down by "cooling" it to a more natural state... and if the patient believes it to be true... than the mind can potentially make it so in a significant number of people. In fact, I can state with some confidence that it will help in as many as 20-40% of patients.

How can I state such a statistic knowing my treatment is total hogwash?

It's because of the placebo affect.

Although I don't support (and perhaps even discourage) such quack medicine, as long as it doesn't harm the patient and there's no danger if a patient decides to forgo more traditional and evidence-based medical treatment, than I don't see any long-lasting harm in it.

Because as scientists and doctors know... the placebo effect is real and DOES lend improvement nearly 40% of the time! Who cares if the activation mechanism of the placebo effect is via "therapeutic hands" or "local honey" or some other "un-accepted" treatment.

After all... the patient is feeling better and that's what really counts in the end.

AND... if it doesn't work, than traditional medical treatments can be pursued.

What is evidence-based, scientifically proven medical treatment?

It's when the treatment helps people way more than the placebo (or in other words, way more than 40%).

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The Four Types of Patients Seen in a Surgeon's Clinic

Over the years, I have found that patients can be loosely grouped into 4 different types. Nothing particularly wrong with any type, but it does help me to approach patients appropriately if I can get a sense of what type they are.

The four types are:

Type A:  If a surgery can "fix" or "cure" me such that I won't have to take medications every day of my life, than let's do it.

Type B: I will never consider surgery unless it is a life-threatening situation. If a medicine can help, why do it???

Type C: I will consider surgery only as a last resort when all else fails.

Type D: They thought they were Type B or C, but over time, they realize they are Type A.

Why is this important?

Because if a patient is Type B and surgery is recommended, the patient often develops an automatic distrust of the surgeon. The patient may see the surgeon as a "gun-slinger" who likes to cut people.

If a patient is Type A and the surgeon approaches them like Type B or C, such patients may come out of a visit quite disappointed and at worst, upset that the surgeon will not do what they want.

Ultimately, for a happy clinic encounter, a mutual understanding needs to quickly happen otherwise a mutual discord may snowball ultimately leading to a second opinion with another surgeon.

Of course, there is a more complex dynamic going on, but it's a good over-simplification.

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