Dr. Elaine Schattner's notes on becoming educated as a patient
Dr. Elaine Schattner's notes on becoming educated as a patient
© Elaine Schattner, 2009, 2022 By : Template Sell.
On the hematology front – Last weekend at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), researchers presented data on a new kind of blood thinner. Rivaroxaban (Xarelto) is a pill that works by blocking the activated form of human clotting factor X (Xa). The NEJM published the EINSTEIN* findings on-line ahead of […]
Over the long weekend I caught up on some reading. One article stands out. It’s on informed consent, and the stunning disconnect between physicians’ and patients’ understanding of a procedure’s value.
The study used survey methods to evaluate 153 cardiology patients’ understanding of the potential benefit of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI, or angioplasty)…
I’ve been wondering, lately, why so many of the medical blogs cover the same topics, like last week’s lung cancer detection trial, which are often the exact same studies as are reported by conventional news outlets. I’ve been trying, here, to sometimes consider new published articles that seem important to me but, for whatever reasons, don’t get so much attention.
Here’s one:
Yesterday’s NEJM includes an article Romiplostim or Standard of Care in Patients with Immune Thrombocytopenia.* It’s about a drug, manufactured and sold by Amgen as NPlate, that received FDA approval for treatment of chronic immune thrombocytopenia purpura (ITP) in August, 2008. Some consider ITP a rare disease, and
Today’s Annals of Internal Medicine includes new results for the CLOTS (Clots in Legs Or sTockings after Stroke) Trial. Not-quite acronyms aside, it’s an interesting study with implications for many patients at risk for deep venous thrombosis (DVT). This U.K.-based study, involving 3114 patients in 112 hospitals in 9 countries, used ultrasound to evaluate possible […]
Why am I blogging about this drug, a pill, that works imperfectly in perhaps most of 5% of non-small-cell lung cancer patients and, maybe, in some other rare tumors? Because this is the future of oncology and, ultimately I think, will provide cost-effective medicine that’s based in evidence and science. The key is that the investigators tried the experimental drug in lung cancer patients with a specific genetic profile, one that predicts a response to this agent…
How drugs like crizotinib could save money: 1. This drug is a pill; slash the costs of IVs, pumps, bags of saline, nurses to administer…2. Don’t give it to patients without a relevant genetic mutation; 3. Monitor patients for resistance and stop giving drugs when they no longer help the individuals for whom their prescribed.
Over 400 Nigerian children have died from lead poisoning this year…lead poisoning is sometimes called plumbism, stemming from plumbum, the Latin term for lead (Pb, atomic number 82), a metal used by plumber. A rarer term is Saturnism, based on the metal’s association with that planet and ancient Roman god.
In some ways this seems like a pro-active, well-intentioned policy that could save lives. On the other hand, as discussed in the NEJM piece, the new screening policy raises a host of challenging issues:
* how will colleges inform minor players’ parents about results?
* how will the schools handle players’ privacy?…
Harlem Hospital Center stands just three miles or so north of my home. I know the place from the outside glancing in, as you might upon exiting from the subway station just paces from its open doors. The structure seems like one chamber of its neighborhood’s heart; within a few long blocks’ radii you’ll find rhythms generated in the Abyssinian Baptist Church; readings at the Schomburg Center and artery-clogging cuisine at the West 135th Street IHOP.
So I was saddened to hear about the missed heart studies. Or should I say unmissed? No one noticed when nearly 4,000 cardiac tests went unchecked at the Harlem center,
What the authors tried to do was analyze trends in breast cancer mortality in relation to mammography’s availability in distinct regions of Denmark over several decades. Using Poisson regression, a form of statistical analysis, they looked for a correlation and found none. They concluded that they couldn’t detect a benefit of screening mammograms among Danish women who might benefit (see below).
Here’s what I think are the two most serious flaws in this observational study:
Last week the journal Cancer published a small but noteworthy report on women’s experiences with a relatively new breast cancer decision tool called Oncotype DX. This lab-based technology, which has not received FDA approval, takes a piece of a woman’s tumor and, by measuring expression of 21 genes within, estimates the likelihood, or risk, that her tumor will recur.
As things stand, women who receive a breast cancer diagnosis face difficult decisions…
