Transcription

• Elizabeth McMahon

  Coming up, there's a lot going on at the CAP before the Thanksgiving turkey is served. Get November's highlights. Plus, a new study takes a long-term look at weakening immunity and the cells that play a key role. Welcome to the Path News Network Daily Edition from the College of American Pathologists. I'm Elizabeth McMahon. It's Monday, November 3rd, and here are the headlines. The clocks have turned back, the temperatures are dropping, and the CAP's busy November calendar is filling up. Now is the perfect time to head over to the CAP's events page to mark your calendars. Coming up, Membership Appreciation Day and the Interactive Lung Pathology webinar on November 12th. If you're a medical student, don't miss the November 13th webinar on pathology and patient care. And, just before turkey time, grab a seat at the CAP's two-day Engaged Leadership Academy starting on the 15th. Links to these events and more are in the show notes. Getting a flu vaccine at age 35 may feel like no big deal, but 20 years later, that same shot may have you down for the count the next day. So why does our immune response weaken with age? For the first time, a new study in the journal Nature examines how cells mount immune responses from early adulthood into old age. Allen Institute researchers studied 300 healthy adults ranging from 25 to 90 years old and found differences in gene activity between cells from 25 to 35 year olds and 55 to 65 year olds. In particular, memory T cells, which bolster the immune system to fight pathogens it has seen before, weaken with age to support effective flu vaccine responses. The study paints a comprehensive picture of how our immune systems age. and suggests new avenues for making it easier to roll up our sleeves later in life. An eGFR score indicates how well your kidneys function. The higher the score, the healthier the kidneys. For years, these scores were adjusted for race to account for some studies that showed increased average plasma creatinine concentrations in African Americans. The adjustments which produced artificially higher scores in a population with greater prevalence of end-stage kidney disease, has come under increased scrutiny. In 2022, New York City's public hospital system adopted a race-neutral scoring algorithm across more than 70 hospitals. A new perspective in the New England Journal of Medicine reports on the initiative's progress and how it's increasing access for patients who qualify for kidney transplants. You can get background on the CAP's recommendations on race-neutral eGFR algorithms in the show notes. For many cancer patients, pathology reports and test results can be confusing and overwhelming amid a stressful diagnosis. But for Michelle Mitchell, seeing slides, reviewing lab reports, and meeting pathologists and lab technicians transformed her experience as a breast cancer patient. In a commentary for the Pathologist magazine marking the end of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Mitchell salutes those behind-the-scenes professionals who helped her understand her diagnosis and set the course for her treatment. Mitchell, who survived her decade-long battle with grade 2 invasive carcinoma, is a patient advisor and co-chair of the University of Michigan's Department of Pathology's Patient and Family Advisory Council. That's it for today's Daily Edition. You can find more details on all these stories in our show notes. Don't miss our advocacy newsletter on Tuesdays. and our weekly edition newsletter on Thursdays. We'll be back tomorrow at 5 a.m. Eastern. You can subscribe to this show on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. I'm Elizabeth McMahon. Have a great day.