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Three years after researchers first injected deaf children with a treatment designed to give them hearing, an early scientific consensus is emerging: This gene therapy works. (Broderick, 4/22)

An observational study of more than half a million adults suggests amoxicillin may be the preferred first-line treatment for uncomplicated sinusitis in adults, researchers reported late last week in JAMA. (Dall, 4/21)

Eating too much salt has long been linked to high blood pressure, but new research suggests it could trick the immune system into prematurely aging the blood vessels. A preclinical study recently published in the Journal of the American Heart Association has identified a biological chain reaction that links a salty diet to cardiovascular decay. (Quill, 4/21)

Giving influenza and pertussis (whooping cough) vaccines on the same day during pregnancy was not associated with higher rates of adverse pregnancy, birth, or newborn outcomes, according to a new population-based cohort study published late last week in JAMA Network Open. (Bergeson, 4/22)

A case report today in Pediatrics describes a previously healthy 17-year-old girl with significant encephalopathy later diagnosed as having primary adrenal insufficiency (PAI; Addison disease) as a complication of influenza infection. PAI, which can be caused by an autoimmune process, is suspected in pediatric patients displaying poor growth, poor weight gain, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and skin hyperpigmentation. Ill or stressed patients with untreated or undertreated adrenal insufficiency are at risk for adrenal crisis, which can lead to hypotensive shock, lethargy, confusion, coma, and death. (Van Beusekom, 4/22)