Quotes on Oncology, Via Forbes, and a Spiraling Helix

Forbes kept a close eye on the annual ASCO meeting in Chicago. On THE MEDICINE SHOW, Forbes’ Matthew Herper provides a précis of a speech by outgoing ASCO President Dr. George Sledge.

Here are my two favorite parts:

“So what happens when, a few years from now, a patient walks into a doctor’s office and hands a physician a memory stick loaded with gigabytes of personal genomic data?” Sledge asks. His answer: the flood of data will help doctors and patients, but things will get “very, very complicated.”

and

…Doctors will need real-time access to clinical data from all practice settings. This in turn will require interoperable databases using common terminology. Health information technology should offer on-the-spot decision support to oncologists and patients facing the increasingly complex tapestry revealed by modern genomics. It should provide individualized, ready access to a clinical trials systems. It should support appropriate coverage and reimbursement for services. And it should aggregate data so that we can learn from every patient’s experience.

DNA orbit animated smallWhat he’s saying, in a nutshell, is that oncologists will need to know science and have access to effective HIT to interpret and act upon the ever-growing pile of info on cancer genetics as it applies to people in general and individual patients. I recommend the full read.

An added perk in the MEDICINE SHOW piece is a terrific, gyrating DNA model courtesy of Wikipedia (@Forbes!).

For an additional twist (PM, 6/7), turns out Wikipedia offers a mutable Medicine Show of its own.

What goes around…?

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