Tube-tying doesn’t always prevent pregnancy

Hello Health Rounds readers! The world of science and medicine can be full of surprises and today we report on a study that may surprise many women. It seems the common procedure to tie off the fallopian tubes may not be as good at preventing future pregnancies as other forms of contraception.

We also have promising early data on a potential life-saving alternative to defibrillators and a new test for heart failure.  

In breaking news, see these stories from our Reuters journalists: Why mpox vaccines are only just arriving in Africa after two years; UN agencies concerned by mpox spread in Congo’s refugee camps; and Zuckerberg says Biden administration pressured Meta to censor COVID-19 content.

More about mpox: Germany to donate 100,000 mpox vaccine doses to combat outbreak in Africa; Philippines says two new mpox cases are milder variant; DR Congo no longer expects to receive mpox vaccines this week; Singapore approves Bavarian’s mpox vaccine Jynneos; and Spain to donate 500,000 mpox vaccine doses to Africa.

Tying off the fallopian tubes, known as tubal ligation, is not a sure-fire way to prevent pregnancy, according to a new study. 

The procedure, which involves severing and tying the tubes through which eggs travel from the ovaries to the womb, is thought to be a permanent form of birth control and is the most common method of contraception in the United States, researchers noted in a report published on Tuesday in NEJM Evidence. 

But a study of 4,184 women who reported having undergone tubal sterilization between 2002 and 2015 found that about 3% of those sterilized in 2013 to 2015 became pregnant within a year after the procedure.

Overall, 3% to 5% of the women later reported an unplanned pregnancy, researchers found.  

The chance of pregnancy was highest among those who were younger at the time of their tubal surgery.

“Tubal surgery cannot be considered the best way to prevent pregnancy,” study leader Dr. Eleanor Bimla Schwarz of UCSF and Zuckerberg San Francisco General said in a statement. 

“People using a contraceptive arm implant or an intrauterine device, or IUD, are less likely to become pregnant than those who have their tubes tied,” she said. 

A syringe loaded with a solution of nanoparticles may be able save the lives of people whose heart rhythm is dangerously out of whack when no defibrillator is available, early data suggests.

When the nanoparticle solution comes into contact with tissue, a gel forms around the heart. It contains a long chain of molecules, or a polymer, that conducts electricity and integrates with the body’s cells.

Due to the close contact of the gel and the heart, handheld devices like cell phones connected to a cable attached to the skin at the injection site can generate enough power to correct the arrhythmia, researchers reported in Nature Communications.

“If you connect a mobile phone to the injection site near the heart, you can temporarily stimulate the heart’s rhythm for up to five days,” study leader Umut Aydemir, a graduate student at Lund University in Sweden, said in a statement.

The heart stimulator gel spontaneously degrades and is excreted from the body after treatment, so does not need to be surgically removed.

The researchers have so far tested the treatment in small animals, fish, and chicken embryos and are planning tests in large animals. 

If safety and effectiveness are confirmed in larger studies, the injections could be particularly useful in war zones, during mountain hikes, or in other environments where a defibrillator is not available or surgery is not feasible, the researchers said.

At-home saliva tests might one day be available to screen for heart failure in patients without easy access to medical facilities, researchers say.

Their point-of-care electrochemical biosensor prototype, which resembles a saliva test for COVID-19, measures levels of two biomarkers for heart failure – Galectin-3 and S100A7 – in as little as 15 minutes, study leader Trey Pittman, a graduate student at Colorado State University, reported at an American Chemical Society meeting. 

The current gold standard for heart failure screening is a blood test that measures levels of B-type natriuretic peptide, a protein that indicates the heart is working too hard.

In lab experiments, the researchers spiked human saliva samples with levels of the two biomarkers that would indicate heart failure and found the device accurately detected the amounts. 

The researchers next plan to test the devices on saliva from healthy volunteers and those with heart failure.

Pittman noted that his native state of Mississippi has one of the highest mortality rates from heart failure in the United States.

“Our device would be ideal for people who are at high risk for heart failure but have limited access to a hospital or a centralized lab,” Pittman said in a statement.

It has the potential to help “a lot of people, especially the underserved, live longer, healthier lives,” he said.

This newsletter was edited by Bill Berkrot; additional reporting by Shawana Alleyne-Morris.

Sponsors are not involved in the creation of newsletters or other Reuters news content. Advertise in this newsletter or on Reuters.com

Reuters Health Rounds is sent twice a week. Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also sign up here.

Want to stop receiving this email? Unsubscribe here. To manage which newsletters you’re signed up for, click here.

Reuters Terms & Conditions and Privacy Statement