Many children have uncontrolled asthma symptoms when treated with low-dose inhaled corticosteroids (ICS). In this three-way crossover trial, the investigators asked whether doubling the dose of ICS, adding a leukotriene-receptor antagonist to the ICS, or adding a long-acting beta-agonist to the ICS would result in better asthma control. Most children had a best response to the long-acting beta-agonist, but some children had a best response to an increased dose of ICS or a leukotriene-receptor antagonist.

The principal tool used to estimate a woman's risk of breast cancer is the Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Tool, or the Gail model, which includes the number of first-degree relatives with breast cancer, age at menarche, age at first live birth, and number of previous breast biopsies. In this study, the addition of data on genetic variants associated with breast cancer yielded only a minor improvement in the performance of the model.

Increasingly widespread public access to automatic external defibrillators in Japan was associated with earlier administration of shocks by laypersons and an increase in the frequency of survival with minimal neurologic impairment after an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

The mechanism of benefit of corticosteroid therapy in infantile hemangioma is unknown. In this study, hemangioma-derived stem cells showed vasculogenic activity in vivo when implanted into nude mice. Systemic treatment with dexamethasone or pretreatment of the stem cells with dexamethasone inhibited vasculogenesis. Dexamethasone suppressed the production of vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A). Silencing of VEGF-A with short hairpin RNA also inhibited vasculogenesis.