Playing chess against cancer
Tumors are not intelligent, but, because they have escaped mutational control, they constantly probe for mutations that will allow them to escape chemotherapeutic suppress…
Successes in gene therapy for hemophilia B and A
Hemophilia A and B are X-linked genetic diseases which prevents the formation of functional coagulant factors VII and IX respectively and cause a prope…
Between the very common and the very rare – An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for October 2017
Another tool for prevention in cardiovascular disease
Taking aspirin daily has been standard of ca…
Successful use of CAR-T therapy in a solid tumor
Chimeric Antigen Reception T-cells (CAR-T) are immune cells molecularly engineered to seek out and destroy cancer cells; the push to develop them into …
“My name is T-Cell…, James T-Cell”
Immune T-cells are licensed to kill other cells through a quick molecular kiss of death, and as such are potentially powerful allies in controlling a tumor. For obvi…
I am not sure how many docs continue to do this, but I still read the actual hard copy of my NEJM, and that means I flip past ad pages with smiling grandfathers playing with grandchildren thanks to su…
Continued progress in multiple myeloma
About 25,000 patients are diagnosed with multiple myeloma yearly in the US. Despite being initially treatable, typically this disease is ultimately lethal. Follo…
There is such a thing as too much hygiene
The prevalence of asthma in children has increased dramatically over the last few decades. Observational studies have shown that children in “dirty” environme…
Adaptive clinical trials slowly coming of age
In an adaptive clinical trial, the protocol of the trial is allowed to change in a pre-specified manner during the study based on on-going study events. …
Could Uber happen to healthcare?
A Perspective article that points out that the success of Uber is rooted in the flaws of an industry where customer convenience and value for money took the backseat …
Defining success in health care
A perspective advertising yeoman’s work of the International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM) which has defined specific metrics for dozens of disease…
A new focus on the diagnostic reliability of clinicians
Two perspectives highlighting the recent report from the National Academy of Medicine (formerly IOM) entitled “Improving Diagnosis in Health Car…
What are annual physicals for?
Annual physicals are costly (~$10 billion annually) and have never been shown to improve outcomes, but people value them. In this dichotomy lies a lot of the inner tensi…
Promise for systemic amyloidosis (and beyond?)
Systemic amyloidosis is an uncommon disease in which abnormal cells (typically antibody-producing B cells) produce large amounts of protein that deposit …
The emergence of a new approach to drug development in cancer
Cancers are classified by the organ or tissue from which they arise, but as our molecular understanding increases, another level of categ…
Early results of the ACO experiment: directionally right, but impact is still small
In this study, the authors compare metrics for Medicare beneficiaries assigned to the 32 ACOs part of the Pioneer pr…
The rise, fall, and rebirth of the Chinese healthcare system
A fascinating account of the evolution of the Chinese healthcare system which almost seems to be an upside-down picture of the rest of the …
A promising agent for Crohn’s Disease, a miserable illness
Crohn’s is an inflammatory bowel disease that is notoriously unpredictable; flares can affect any part of the digestive tract and lead to gra…
Our selection from a month with relatively few exciting articles - perhaps this long Boston winter has us all down.
Precious metals and health plan buying:
The implementation of the ACA has placed …
A vaccine for dengue finally nears the market
Dengue is a mosquito transmitted viral infection that is often severe and occasionally fatal, and that has been identified as a growing public health thre…
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