Drive to Increase NIH Funds Faces Stiff Battle in Congress
June 1st 1999WASHINGTON-After a $2 billion increase last year, the drive to double the NIH’s budget over 5 years faces a stiff battle in Congress this year. Under Senate rules, it takes 60 votes to increase spending, and an initial attempt to provide an extra $2 billion for biomedical research in FY 2000 has failed 52 to 48.
Institute of Medicine Report Criticizes Quality of Cancer Care
June 1st 1999There are serious shortcomings in the quality of care for manyAmericans with cancer, according to a report just released by the Institute of Medicine National Cancer Policy Board. Deficits in care identified in the report include underuse of screening
Cancer Survivors’ Employment and Insurance Rights: A Primer for Oncologists
June 1st 1999From the survivor’s viewpoint, Ms.Hoffman’s paper addresses a critical need, expressed in both its title and its conclusions: Medical professionals who treat cancer patients need to be aware of the anxieties faced by those diagnosed with cancer “so
Health Care ‘Lags Behind’ Other Industries in Fixing Y2K
June 1st 1999ALEXANDRIA, Va-Of all major American industries, health care appears to be among the least prepared for the complex, interrelated problems known as Y2K. As computers programmed with two-digit year dates move toward the year 2000, many will close down or function improperly because they will erroneously interpret dates beginning with zero as falling in the first year of the 20th, rather than the 21st, century.
HCFA Is Helping Health Care Providers Prepare for Y2K
June 1st 1999ALEXANDRIA, Va-The Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), the federal agency that pays Medicare claims, expects to be doing business as usual on January 1, 2000, and beyond despite Y2K, said Joseph Broseker, Jr., Y2K Coordinator at the HCFA headquarters, Baltimore.
Youthful Smokers Favor Three Cigarette Brands by Huge Margin
June 1st 1999WASHINGTON-Who says advertising doesn’t work? A new study finds that three heavily advertised brands of cigarettes-Marlboro, Newport, and Camel-are the most popular with American teen-agers. Indeed, 88% of high school seniors who smoke use one of the three. They are also the choice of 86% of 10th graders and 82% of 8th graders.
Lovastatin May Augment Prevention With NSAIDs
June 1st 1999PHILADELPHIA-The combination of a common cholesterol-lowering agent, lovastatin (Mevacor), with an NSAID may be more effective than NSAIDs alone in the chemoprevention of colon cancer, a new study shows. The data were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting.
Cancer Survivors’ Employment and Insurance Rights: A Primer for Oncologists
June 1st 1999Cancer survivors’ access to equal employment opportunities and adequate health insurance has changed significantly during the 1990s. New federal and state laws have expanded survivors’ rights to be treated fairly in
Cancer Survivors’ Employment and Insurance Rights: A Primer for Oncologists
June 1st 1999Currently, at least 8 million individuals are alive who have survived cancer for 5 or more years.[1] By the year 2000, 1 in 900 individuals between the ages of 16 and 44 years will be survivors of childhood cancer.[2] Given these statistics, the unique
Hepatic Infusion for Liver Mets: ‘Historic Results’
June 1st 1999ASCO-For colorectal cancer patients who have undergone surgery for liver metastases, adjuvant therapy that combines hepatic arterial chemotherapy and systemic chemotherapy effectively controls local disease and significantly increases 2-year survival, Nancy Kemeny, MD, of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, reported at ASCO.
Preop Chemo Recommended for Locally Advanced Disease
May 1st 1999ORLANDO-The most important aspects in treating locally advanced breast cancer are thorough preoperative chemotherapy and a treatment team that combines chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation, two experts said at a special session of the Society of Surgical Oncology’s Annual Cancer Symposium. The presenters were Frederick C. Ames, MD, of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and A. Marilyn Leitch, MD, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas.
High Degree of Variability in HIV Testing Throughout the US
May 1st 1999ATLANTA–Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the United States. Testing for HIV, in conjunction with counseling and other preventive services, can reduce the risk for HIV infection and appropriately link infected persons to treatment. To characterize HIV testing by region, state, and sex, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) analyzed data from the 1996 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). This report summarizes the results of that analysis, which indicate a high degree of variability in HIV testing throughout the United States.
NCI Funds Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium
May 1st 1999BETHESDA, Md-Nine children’s cancer centers have joined together under the auspices of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to form the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium. The NCI will provide the group $2 million a year for 5 years to fund collaborative efforts to develop and carry out pilot studies and early clinical trials of promising new therapies for children with brain malignancies.
Marketing Your Cancer Center to Today’s Savvy Consumers
May 1st 1999ALEXANDRIA, Va-As cancer care increasingly shifts from inpatient to outpatient services and consumers use the Internet to educate themselves about their disease and their options, cancer programs must concentrate more carefully on marketing themselves as the answer to potential patients’ needs, said Patti Jamieson, MSSW, MBA, service line administrator for oncology, University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center.
Dr. Bailes Urges Oncologists to Act Against APC Proposal
May 1st 1999FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla-Time is running out for lobbying against the Health Care Finance Administration’s (HCFA) proposed Medicare hospital outpatient fee schedules, based on ambulatory payment classifications (APCs). The deadline for comments is June 30, 1999.
Elective Lymph Node Dissection Supported in Some Melanomas
May 1st 1999ORLANDO-Ten-year survival results from a major intergroup study support the use of elective (immediate) regional lymph node dissection (ELND) rather than watchful waiting for patients with intermediate-thickness melanomas (1 to 4 mm).
Broad Coalition of Health Care Groups Opposes APCs
May 1st 1999ALEXANDRIA, Va-“Organized opposition to the Health Care Finance Administration’s (HCFA) proposal to reimburse outpatient Medicare cancer services according to ambulatory payment classifications (APCs) now includes many of the major players in the oncology community,” reported Lee E. Mortenson, DPA, executive director of the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC), Rockville, Maryland.
Tips on Distinguishing Good Metaanalyses From Poor Ones
May 1st 1999SAN FRANCISCO-Although there are many good metaanalyses, derived from combining the results of numerous solid clinical trials, there are also many “filled with garbage,” Deborah Grady, MD, said at the Seventh Symposium on Clinical Trials: Design, Methods and Controversies. It is incumbent on the physician to be able to distinguish the good from the bad, said Dr. Grady, associate professor of epidemiology, biostatistics and medicine, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
How Patients Hear a Cancer Diagnosis Can Affect Long-Term QOL
May 1st 1999COLUMBUS, Ohio-Hearing the words, “You have cancer,” is immediately upsetting. “That distress can echo through the years, negatively affecting a person’s quality of life [QOL] long after the initial diagnosis of cancer,” said Betty R. Ferrell, PhD, RN, research scientist, City of Hope National Medical Center. She spoke at a conference on cancer survi-vorship sponsored by the James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute at Ohio State University. Indeed, she said, in a survey of cancer survivors, distress over initial diagnosis was ranked as the single most negative influence on quality of life, worse than fear of recurrent cancer, fear of cancer spreading, or physical symptoms like fatigue.
Treating Patients on Protocol More Effective, No More Costly
May 1st 1999ALEXANDRIA, Va-Treating a patient in a clinical trial-nearly always a cancer patient’s best treatment option-is no more costly and far more effective than giving supposedly less expensive “established” care, reported William P.Peters, MD, PhD, president, director, and chief executive officer of the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, Detroit. Dr. Peters discussed a series of cost and outcome studies that reached this conclusion at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Community Cancer Centers.
Targeted Cancer Drugs, Cytostatic Agents-Wave of the Future
May 1st 1999MIAMI BEACH, Fla-The development of chemotherapy agents peaked between 1985 and 1990, Dr. Eric Rowinsky said at the annual meeting of the Network of Oncology Communication and Research (NOCR). “However, we saw the same types of drugs being developed (analogs of the platinums and anthracyclines) because we were using the same old screening system,” he said.