Latest Conference Articles

A study being presented at the upcoming meeting of the American College of Cardiology found a dose–response relationship between walking and reduced heart failure risk.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) really makes a difference when studying men who’ve had a negative prostate biopsy, but their prostate-specific antigen goes up overtime or something changes and there’s a continuing concern for prostate cancer, said Christopher Kane, MD, professor of urology, University of California, San Diego.

Patient-reported outcomes can be critically important, said Justin Bachmann, MD, MPH, FACC, instructor of Medicine and Health Policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

As we think about the healthcare spending situation that we’re in now, it’s kind of like Groundhog Day the movie where Bill Murray woke up each morning and relived the same day until he made changes in his life and was able to move forward, said Robert Dubois, MD, PhD, chief science officer and executive vice president, National Pharmaceutical Council.

Anne L. Schwartz, PhD, executive director of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, explains the core messages of new data on average spending for new Medicaid enrollees.

How can prescribers and other clinicians collaborate in order to help improve adherence to treatment to manage attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? And what keeps patients and their families from adhering to medication?

Although Gail Wilensky PhD, senior fellow at Project HOPE, is doubtful that imposing work requirements in Medicaid will have much effect, either positive or negative on enrollment, but she thinks it will help bring to the table states that were not otherwise willing to expand Medicaid.

Brenton Fargnoli, MD, medical director of value-based care and director of product marketing and strategy at Flatiron Health, addresses the issues electronic health records (EHRs) cause and what Flatiron Health can do to make things more efficient.

Shortly after Kentucky announced its new work requirements for the Medicaid program, a lawsuit was brought by residents against the government. Sara Rosenbaum, JD, the Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor of Health Law and Policy and founding chair of the Department of Health Policy at the Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, explains what other states looking to implement work requirements might face.

There is a greater overall survival benefit for patients with recurrent urothelial cancer being treated with pembrolizumab versus chemotherapy, according to long-term results of the KEYNOTE-045 trial.

The destination is to get to a point where we can spend our healthcare resources more wisely so that patients get the care they need and we all get the type of innovation that we really want, said Robert Dubois, MD, PhD, chief science officer and executive vice president, National Pharmaceutical Council.

The prevalence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) identified in an outpatient sample of 492 adults seeking mental health treatment was nearly 10 times higher than the prevalence identified in epidemiological studies, according to a poster presented at the recent 2018 Annual Meeting of The American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders.

Via Oncology is taking several steps to implement value into clinical pathways programs, explained President and CEO Kathleen Lokay.

We want to know all sides of the 2-risk model, like with any challenge or strategy, said Roger Brito, DO, national director for oncology, Aetna.

In prostate cancer, we're using combinations by looking to see how 1 drug may trigger an immune infiltrate or proteins that allow the tumor to resist the monotherapy, said Sumit Subudhi, MD, PhD, genitourinary medical oncology, MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Jason Harris, associate director of policy and programs at National Health Council, notes the importance of using real-world evidence to support value in payment models.

The addition of docetaxel to first-line long-term hormone therapy in patients with prostate cancer is associated with improved quality of life (QoL) benefits and cost effectiveness, according to study results presented at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

There was a reduced rate of uninsured patients at the time of diagnosis and a shift to earlier stage at time of diagnosis for patients with testicular cancer in states that adopted Medicaid expansion in 2014, according to findings presented at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

Daily image-guided radiotherapy, when compared to weekly control, decreases the risk of recurrence and rectal toxicity, but is associated with an increased risk of second cancer, according to study results presented at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

Robotic procedures have really exploded in prostate cancer, said Christopher Kane, MD, professor of urology, University of California, San Diego. Robotic radical prostatectomy is now the most common way a radical prostatectomy is done in the United States.

During a session at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, Peter Black, MD, professor, department of urologic sciences, University of British Columbia, discussed using molecular subtypes, the Coxen model, and gene mutations to select patients and therapies for neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

During a session at the 2018 Genitourinay Cancers Symposium, Abhishek Solanki, MD, MS, assistant professor, radiation oncology, Loyola University of Chicago discussed the role of immunotherapy in patients undergoing radiation therapy for bladder cancer.

With new guidelines on how to treat and manage muscle-invasive bladder cancer, Jeffrey Holzbeierlein, MD, FACS, professor of urology, director of urologic oncology, interim chair of the department of urology, University of Kansas Health System, provided insight into how the guidelines have changed the management of the disease at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

Brenton Fargnoli, MD, medical director of value-based care and director of product marketing and strategy at Flatiron Health, recognizes the importance of benchmarking to further improvement.

During a session at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, 2 doctors debate whether there is existing evidence for local treatment for patients newly diagnosed with metastatic disease.

For the first time, molecular therapies, such as radium-223, provide a survival-prolonging agent for men with advanced prostate cancer affecting the bone, explained Joe O'Sullivan, MD, FRCR, clinical professor, School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences, Queen's University Belfast.

Osteomimicry may contribute to the uptake of radium-223 within bone metastases and may subsequently enhance the therapeutic benefit of radium-223, according to an abstract presented by Andrew Armstrong, MD, associate professor of medicine, Duke University School of Medicine, at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

Apalutamide significantly improved median metastasis-free survival by 2 years in men with nonmetastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (nmCRPC), according to study results presented by Eric Jay Small, MD, MD, FASCO, chief of the division of hematology and oncology in the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), deputy director of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, and professor in residence in the Department of Medicine and Department of Urology, at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

Only 20% of patients who have a heart attack undergo recommended cardiac rehabilitation, so cardiologists are looking at ways to encourage patients to go to rehab, explained Justin Bachmann, MD, MPH, FACC, instructor of Medicine and Health Policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams, MD, MPH, made a surprise visit to AcademyHealth’s National Health Policy Conference Tuesday morning and took to the podium to declare that he wants to be the first surgeon general to issue a report showing the links between health and a healthy economy.