Program notes: 0:44 Novel agent for acute pain 1:44 Post-abdominal surgery and placebo, low and high dose 2:46 Compared to placebo and opioids 3:19 Metabolic associated steatotic liver disease 4:19 Imaging with two techniques and plasma markers 5:19 Imaging and composite scores for staging 6:21 Identifying appropriate candidates for clinical trials 7:00 Alcohol consumption during pregnancy 8:00 Employed, tobacco use, and mental stress predicts 9:01 Never tested medicines for AUD in pregnant women 9:24 Early detection of Alzheimer&#x27;s disease with circular RNA 10:24 Can it identify those with the disease as well as those at risk 11:24 Almost 95% AUC 12:20 Use with tau, it was even better 13:05 End

TT HealthWatch - July 31, 2026

TT HealthWatch

Can circular RNA in blood help diagnose Alzheimer's disease? What do we know about the trends in alcohol consumption during pregnancy in the U.S.? How are we going to ultimately be able to diagnose nonalcoholic steatohepatitis known by a number of acronyms? And early studies of a new medicine that may be effective for acute pain. That's what we're talking about this week on TT HealthWatch, your weekly look at the medical headlines from Texas Tech University Health Sciences,

Center in El Paso. I'm Elizabeth Tracey, a Baltimore-based medical journalist. And I'm Rick Lange, president of Texas Tech Health El Paso. Rick, I think everybody is interested in pain and in pain relief. And so I would like to turn first to the New England Journal of Medicine and talk about this novel medicine that may be helpful with that. Typically, we reach for opioids to take care of acute pain.

And of course, they have side effects, nausea, vomiting, constipation, also the risk of abuse and addiction. When we compare them to the non-opioids analgesics, those non-opioids really have a marginal efficacy. It's clear that those pain receptors have sodium channels in them. And if you can inhibit those, you can potentially provide new analgesia. In 2025, there was a new agent approved by the FDA. There's a related compound.

It's called LTG-001. Oral is non-opioid. It's much more potent. And it selectively inhibits the sodium channels designed to deliver opioid-level analgesia without the side effects. How effective is it? And that's what this Phase 2B trial addressed.

343 individuals that had had abdominal surgery and randomized them to placebo, a low dose of this new agent, a high dose of this new agent, both given every 12 hours, or typical opioids, every 6 hours.

TT HealthWatch - July 31, 2026

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.

TT HealthWatch - July 31, 2026

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast, not the earnings call.

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.