Oct 3rd, 2022 - Why Private Practice Will Always Survive Employed physicians are often torn. Many relish the steady salary and ability to focus on being a physician rather than handle administrative duties but bemoan their employers' rules and their lack of input into key decisions. Seven physicians talked to Medscape Medical News about why they chose private practice. Greater control: Some physicians chose pr...

Oct 3rd, 2022 - The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted an accelerated approval for a new drug, futibatinib (Lytgobi), to be used for patients with a certain type of biliary tract cancer. Futibatinib was granted priority review and breakthrough designation, the agency said in its announcement. Futibatinib is indicated for use in adult patients with previously treated, unresectable, locally advanc...

Oct 3rd, 2022 - Prenatal exposure to high-dose folic acid is associated with a greater than twofold increased risk for cancer in children of mothers with epilepsy, new data from a Scandinavian registry of more than 3 million pregnancies suggests. The increased risk for cancer did not change after considering other factors that could explain the risk, such as use of antiseizure medication (ASM). There was no in...

Sep 30th, 2022 - PARIS — "I thought I was as exhausted, and isolated, and neglected as I could get, and then he came home." Those were the words of Kate Washington, PhD, from Sacramento, California, as she gave a moving account of the immense burden she felt as caregiver to her husband with cancer. She was taking part in the session, "I am FINE: Frustrated * Isolated * Neglected * Emotional," at the European So...

Sep 30th, 2022 - A home-based palliative care program involving primary care physicians, cardiologists, and palliative care specialists is associated with a lower likelihood of dying in the hospital for patients with chronic heart failure, data indicate. The program is also associated with fewer visits to the emergency department, more clinician home visits, shorter hospital stays, and more days spent at home. ...

Sep 29th, 2022 - This transcript has been edited for clarity. I'm David Kerr, professor of cancer medicine at Oxford. As I'm gearing up to have my autumnal COVID-19 booster vaccine, there's a small controversy raging in the United Kingdom about access to a medicine called Evusheld. This was developed by AstraZeneca. It's a combination of two relatively long-acting antibodies (tixagevimab and cilgavimab) that bi...

Sep 29th, 2022 - While efficacy and quality-of-life outcomes are similar across commonly used treatments for endocrine-refractory or triple-negative metastatic breast cancer, the costs of these agents vary widely, a recent analysis reveals. Notably, the authors found that using standard chemotherapy agents in specific sequences can help reduce overall costs and improve the value of care. Given "razor thin" diff...

Sep 29th, 2022 - Several new studies in noncolorectal GI cancers have launched in recent months. Could one of your patients benefit from participating? Advanced hepatocellular cancer after at least two previous systemic therapies. Adult patients meeting this clinical scenario for whom there are no curative treatment options can join a randomized, blinded, phase 2 study testing the effectiveness of a radio wave ...

Sep 28th, 2022 - New guidelines highlight the role that integrative pain management techniques, such as massage, acupuncture, and music therapy, can play in relieving certain types of cancer pain in adults. The recommendations, published earlier this month in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, represent a joint effort between the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the Society of Integrative Oncolog...

Sep 28th, 2022 - Housing insecurity is linked to an increased risk for death from any cause among patients with cancer, even after accounting for other social risks and determinants of health, according to a recent research letter published in JAMA Network Open. "Despite national efforts to integrate social risk screening and referral programs within the oncology setting to advance cancer health equity, many co...

Sep 27th, 2022 - Trophoblastic tissue is responsible for formation of the placenta during pregnancy. Gestational trophoblastic disease (GTD), a group comprising benign (hydatidiform moles) and malignant tumors, occurs when gestational trophoblastic tissue behaves in an abnormal manner.

Sep 27th, 2022 - Nicholas Vogelzang, MD, a world-renowned medical oncologist who dedicated his life to advancing genitourinary (GU) oncology and mesothelioma through clinical trials, died on Sept. 20, 2022. He was 72. Dr Nicholas Vogelzang Vogelzang's cause of death has not been announced. However, on Aug. 12, Charles D. Blanke, MD, wrote a column on the SWOG (Southwest Oncology Group) Cancer Research Network's...

Sep 27th, 2022 - In an effort to bolster access to colorectal cancer screening among underserved and uninsured Texans, the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) recently awarded a $1 million prevention grant to Rakhshanda Rahman, M.D., Rebeccah Baucom, M.D., and John Kidwell, M.D., from the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine. The grant, “Fecal Immunochemical Testin...

Sep 26th, 2022 - The study covered in this summary was published on researchsquare.com as a preprint and has not yet been peer reviewed. Key Takeaway Use of an extract of the ancient perfume frankincense — the hardened resin from trees of the Boswellia genus — decreased breast cancer cell proliferation in a small clinical trial. Why This Matters Boswellic acids, the active component in frankincense, have demons...

Sep 26th, 2022 - Cancer cachexia is a syndrome of weight loss that frequently occurs during cancer treatment. Consequences can include skeletal muscle loss, fatigue, functional impairment, worse quality of life, and worse survival. On the other hand, weight gain during cancer treatment has been tied to better survival. A new study shows that, among patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), weight gain o...

Sep 26th, 2022 - Early-onset cancer — often defined as cancers diagnosed in adults younger than age 50 years — is an emerging global epidemic, according to a recent review. While the rising incidence of early-onset colorectal cancer (CRC) is a well-documented problem, the trend appears to extend far beyond CRC. The authors traced patterns of early-onset cancer diagnoses across 14 different cancer types, includi...

Sep 26th, 2022 - This transcript has been edited for clarity. Hello. I'm Dr David Johnson, professor of medicine and chief of gastroenterology at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia. The use of sugary additives has been an insidious, "sickeningly sweet" component of the Western diet over the past several decades. As an alternative, we often turn to artificial, noncaloric sweeteners. But does th...

Sep 26th, 2022 - A dental school dean with a history of publishing cancer research papers is up to five retractions. Russell Taichman, the dean of the University of Alabama at Birmingham's school of dentistry, lost two papers in Cancer Research earlier this month, after losing three others since 2020. Most of the retractions came after PubPeer comments about duplicated images in some of the papers. In April of ...

Sep 26th, 2022 - PARIS—What do doctors know about their patients' sexual health? Not a lot. What about oncologists who treat women with breast cancer? Not much more. Yet sexual dysfunction has a significant impact on the quality of life of patients during and after cancer. To determine the extent of sexual dysfunction among women with breast cancer, Maria Alice Franzoi, MD,an oncologist at Gustave Roussy Hospit...

Sep 23rd, 2022 - I recently presented a clinical scenario about a patient of mine named Brenda, in Constipation and Cramping: A Slam-Dunk Diagnosis? This 35-year-old woman came to me with symptoms that had been going on for a year already. I asked for readers comments about my management of Brenda. I appreciate the comments I received regarding this case. The most common suggestion was to encourage Brenda to ex...