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Flu admissions jump 27% in a week to the highest late-October rate since 2010
Flu admissions jump 27% in a week to the highest late-October rate since 2010
The voices on this episode are generated, and so is the script, from the day's post at Physician in the Loop. Every fact in the post links to its source.
Hospitals admitted 6,100 patients with lab-confirmed influenza in the week ending Oct. 24, up 27% from the week before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday.
The agency's surveillance network put the hospitalization rate at its highest for that week of the season since 2010-11, with nearly every subtyped influenza A virus an H1N1 strain. The CDC said an early rise does not necessarily mean a higher peak or a more severe season.
In cardiology, a 1,105-patient trial presented at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics meeting found that coronary CT angiography planned stenting as well as intravascular ultrasound with shorter procedures. Epic said it will keep supplying AI model documentation that a new federal rule no longer requires, and the FDA authorized a robotic system whose needle-sized arms work through a rigid endoscope.
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Voice 1: This is Physician in the Loop, the daily briefing on AI in medicine. It's Monday, November 2nd, 2026.
Voice 1: Hospitals admitted 6,100 patients with lab-confirmed flu in the week ending October 24th. That's up 27% from the week before, and it's the highest late-October hospitalization rate the CDC has tracked since the 2010-11 season.
Voice 2: 27% in one week is a steep climb. What's actually circulating?
Voice 1: Nearly 99% of the 371 subtyped influenza A viruses were H1N1. The hospitalization rate was nearly 2 per 100,000 overall, nearly 6 per 100,000 in people 65 and older. Test positivity rose to about 8%, and flu accounted for about 1% of emergency department visits.
Voice 2: Any sense yet of how well this season's vaccine matches what's spreading?
Voice 1: About 94% of 103 tested H1N1 viruses were well recognized by vaccine reference antisera. But the CDC says it's too early to know which viruses will dominate, or what that means for how well the vaccine actually performs this season.
Voice 2: So does an early surge like this usually mean a worse season overall?
Voice 1: The CDC was specific that an early rise doesn't necessarily mean a higher peak or a more severe season. But the first pediatric flu death of the season was reported, and the agency now estimates at least 1 million illnesses, 16,000 hospitalizations and 900 deaths so far.
Voice 2: A different kind of result came out of cardiology this week. A trial of 1,105 patients, presented at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics meeting, found that planning a stent from a coronary CT scan worked just as well as using intravascular ultrasound during the procedure.
Voice 1: Just as well how? What did they actually measure?
Voice 2: Target-vessel failure at 12 months, a composite of cardiac death, heart attack at the stented vessel and repeat procedures for ischemia. It came in about 4% with CT guidance and about 5% with ultrasound, within the trial's prespecified noninferiority margin. CT guidance also meant shorter procedures, 46 minutes against 63, and less contrast dye, 150 milliliters against 170.
Voice 1: Shorter procedures and less dye sound like a win across the board. Any caveats?
Voice 2: A few. About 98% of patients had stable ischemic heart disease, not complex cases. The discussant, Dr. Emmanouil Brilakis, called it a landmark trial but said the population, quote, was not that complex. GE HealthCare and HeartFlow funded it, and the lead investigator works for the foundation that publishes the outlet reporting on it.
Voice 1: So promising, in a population that was already fairly straightforward to treat.
Voice 2: The FDA had news of its own this week.
Voice 1: It authorized the Virtuoso Endoscopy System, a robot with two needle-sized arms that work through a rigid endoscope. The company says the arms are made of concentric nitinol tubes that replicate a surgeon's hand movements.
Voice 2: What's it actually cleared to do?
Voice 1: The FDA's listing doesn't say. It names the General and Plastic Surgery panel as the reviewing committee but gives no indications. Virtuoso reported first-in-human bladder cancer removal cases in Hong Kong back in May of 2025, and the technology was first developed at Johns Hopkins and Vanderbilt. The company hasn't announced this authorization or published any outcome data from U.S. patients.
Voice 2: So a notable clearance with no indication, no announcement, and no outcomes yet.
Voice 1: Before we go, something to watch. Federal health officials are trying to ease a growing dispute with states over AI doing clinical work, like writing prescriptions.
Voice 2: Where's the actual conflict?
Voice 1: States license clinicians to do that work. AI acting without human supervision would likely fall under FDA device rules instead. Utah's regulatory sandbox already lets Nolla Health's software issue first-time topical acne prescriptions under physician review, and August AI's software recommend chronic-disease renewals. The state is also discussing a 12-month extension of Doctronic's refill agreement.
Voice 2: One state is quietly running the experiment everyone else is still arguing about jurisdiction over.
Voice 1: Sources and corrections are at physicianintheloop.org, where you can sign up for the free email briefing. This briefing was read by AI voices.