Heme/Onc

Is Personalized Medicine Really the Cure? Looking Through the Lens of Breast Cancer

May 3, 2013

By Jessica Billig

Faculty Peer Reviewed

Although millions of dollars are spent towards cancer research every year, progress toward a cure is less than ideal. Last year the New York Times posted a piece about the burgeoning improvements on the genomic front that could lead to a new approach to cancer treatment. “The promise is that low-cost gene sequencing will lead to a new era of personalized medicine, yielding new approaches for treating cancers and other serious diseases” . Through genomic technology, physicians will be able…

Avastin and the Meaning of Evidence

September 9, 2011

By Antonella Surbone MD PhD and Jerome Lowenstein MD

The recent hearings at the Food and Drug Administration regarding the revocation of approval for the use of Avastin in the treatment of breast cancer bring into sharp focus several very important issues in medicine today.

The pharmaceutical industry, armed with powerful new tools for deciphering the signaling mechanisms and mutations responsible for the development and progression of malignancies, has developed new therapies for treating cancer and other malignancies. The cost of development of each new…

From The Archives: Myths and Realities: Do Power Lines Cause Cancer?

April 14, 2011

Please enjoy this post from the Clinical Correlations archives first posted May 20, 2009

By Aditya Mattoo, MD

Faculty Peer Reviewed

Prompted by personal experience, I thought I would explore the alleged causative role of power lines in hematologic malignancies for the next installment of Myths and Realities. In recent years, two close family friends living at separate locations but in homes adjacent to lots with electrical transformers were diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.…

From The Archives: The Skinny on Cachexia…Can it be Treated?

March 24, 2011

Please enjoy this post from the Clinical Correlations archives first posted April 22, 2009

Michael T. Tees, MD, MPH

On the wards and in the clinic, the physician is frequently presented with a patient with a decreased appetite and alarming weight loss. The patient is likely frustrated with their own fraility, the family is upset at the poor nutritional state of their loved one, but the healthcare provider should be the most concerned. This clinical presentation without a…

Medicine by the Numbers: Blood Count

March 4, 2011

By Michael Ford, MD

Faculty Peer Reviewed

2.65 x 10 # of erythrocytes in circulation, assuming Hematocrit 45% 120 Lifespan in days of an erythrocyte 2.5 million # of new erythrocytes produced each second to replace dying cells† 5.3 million # of erythrocytes per microliter of blood†,* 4,000 – 11,000 # leukocytes per microliter of blood 150,000 – 400,000 # platelets

…

Breaking News: Lung Cancer Screening Shows Mortality Benefit

November 5, 2010

By David Hormozdi, MD

The weather outside may be cooling off but the debate surrounding lung cancer screening is heating up once again as preliminary results released from The National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) showed 20% fewer lung cancer deaths in individuals that underwent screening with low-dose helical CT scans compared to chest X-ray. This is the first study to show a mortality benefit from lung cancer screening and could impact millions of people considered high-risk for lung cancer. The study’s…

Polycythemia Vera Presenting as a Hypercoagulable State: What is the Pathophysiologic Role of JAK2 in the Mechanism, Manifestations, and Treatment of the Disease?

August 11, 2010

By Emily Slater

Faculty Peer Reviewed

Mr. R is a 46-year-old man with a past medical history of polycythemia vera on hydroxyurea and chronic hepatitis B and C who presented with acutely worsening left upper-quadrant abdominal pain. This occurred in the context of 3 months of worsening abdominal pain and 1.5 years of increasing abdominal distension. His physical exam was remarkable for massive splenomegaly (18cm span) and a non-palpable liver.

Laboratory findings are significant for microcytic anemia with an elevated…

Myths & Realities: Is Shiftwork Tumorgenic?

June 23, 2010

By David Ecker, MD

Faculty Peer Reviewed

Over the last several decades, Westernized countries have become 24-hour societies. Approximately 21 million workers in the US are on non-standard work shifts, including almost 4 million on regular overnight shifts. In 1972, Taylor and Pocock published a mortality study, in which they reported a significantly increased incidence of neoplasms in shift workers compared to the general population. After several published cancer incidence studies, Kerenyi explicitly proposed that changes in light exposure could be…

Revisiting the USPSTF Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines: Ethics, and Patient Responsibilities

May 6, 2010

David Shabtai

Faculty Peer Reviewed

In a bold move, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recently changed their breast cancer screening guidelines – recommending beginning screening at age 50 and even then only every other year until age 75. Bold, because the Task Force members are certainly aware of the media circus that ensued when in 1997, an NIH group issued similar guidelines, prompting comparisons to Alice in Wonderland. The new guidelines, recommend “against routine screening mammography in women…

Chief of Service Rounds: Should You Always Stop Anticoagulating a Bleeding Patient?

January 20, 2010

Chief-of-service rounds is a new feature of Clinical Correlations. Here we summarize Bellevue Hospital’s Chief of Service Rounds moderated by the Chief of Medicine, Nate Link, MD. This multidisciplinary bimonthly conference focuses on a case that presents a diagnostic or treatment challenge. A clinical question is posed at the end of the case and then answered using the principles of evidence based medicine.

Daria Crittenden , MD

Moderator: Nate Link, MD Associate Professor of Medicine, . GI consultant: Gerry Villanueva, MD Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine…

Prostate Cancer Screening: Where Do We Stand Now?

December 9, 2009

Annery Garcia

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in western men and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in men in the U.S.1 In 2007 approximately 218,890 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer, and it is expected that one out of six men will receive the diagnosis in their lifetime.2 Although considered to be a slow-growing tumor, the American Cancer Society estimated that in 2008 186,330 new cases of prostate cancer would be diagnosed, and 26,000 men will…

Breaking News: Begin Cervical Cancer Screening at 21 Says ACOG

November 20, 2009

Joshua Strauss, MD

In the second decision of its kind and magnitude in a matter of days, a major medical group has again recommended cutting back on cancer screening for women. On the heels of Monday’s USPSTF release on reducing mammography, newly revised evidence-based guidelines regarding cervical cancer screening were issued today by The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and published in the December issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

The new guidelines, “based on good and…

Page 1 of 412 3 4 »

Clinical Correlations

Heme/Onc

Is Personalized Medicine Really the Cure? Looking Through the Lens of Breast Cancer

Avastin and the Meaning of Evidence

From The Archives: Myths and Realities: Do Power Lines Cause Cancer?

From The Archives: The Skinny on Cachexia…Can it be Treated?

Medicine by the Numbers: Blood Count

Breaking News: Lung Cancer Screening Shows Mortality Benefit

Polycythemia Vera Presenting as a Hypercoagulable State: What is the Pathophysiologic Role of JAK2 in the Mechanism, Manifestations, and Treatment of the Disease?

Myths & Realities: Is Shiftwork Tumorgenic?

Revisiting the USPSTF Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines: Ethics, and Patient Responsibilities

Chief of Service Rounds: Should You Always Stop Anticoagulating a Bleeding Patient?

Prostate Cancer Screening: Where Do We Stand Now?

Breaking News: Begin Cervical Cancer Screening at 21 Says ACOG

Categories

Blogroll

Trip Database

Meta

Subscribe to receive new blogposts