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The reason targeted treatment for non-small cell lung cancer fails to work for some patients, particularly those who have never smoked, has been discovered by researchers from UCL, the Francis Crick Institute and AstraZeneca. The study, published in Nature Communications, shows that lung cancer cells with two particular genetic mutations are more likely to double their genome, which helps them to withstand treatment and develop resistance to it. (6/13)

A study of pediatric sepsis patients suggests long delays in initiation of antibiotic therapy increase the risk of mortality, researchers reported yesterday in JAMA Network Open. The study, which used data from 51 US children's hospitals, found that children with sepsis who received antibiotics more than 5.5 hours after emergency department (ED) arrival had a more than three-fold increase in the odds of sepsis-attributable 3- and 30-day mortality. (Dall, 6/6)

Pediatric patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19 or the related multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) experience new neurologic problems and/or impaired function at rates of 18.0% and 24.8%, respectively, an international group of researchers suggests in JAMA Network Open. (Van Beusekom, 6/11)

Some news stories on a recent study finding a strong chronic wasting disease (CWD) species barrier between cervids such as deer and humans have concluded that there is no risk of a zoonotic spillover of the fatal prion disease. But the study authors and other leading CWD and prion experts don't share that conviction. "We think there's a low risk," senior study author Cathryn Haigh, PhD, Chief of the Prion Cell Biology Unit at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)'s Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, told CIDRAP News. "We can't say no risk." (Van Beusekom, 6/6)