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ALEXANDRIA, Va-Whether a cancer practice is designated as provider-based or free-standing can significantly affect the amounts it receives in Medicare reimbursements. Provider-based entities, such as departments in hospitals, are often entitled to higher payments for a given service than are free-standing entities such as physicians’ offices.

Citing the unprecedented opportunity granted by last year’s 15% increase in biomedical research funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Joseph S. Bailes, MD, then president-elect of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO),

BETHESDA, Md-In 1955, concerned that pharmaceutical companies were mounting inadequate efforts to develop anticancer drugs, Congress mandated that the National Cancer Institute (NCI) create a program to screen agents for potential therapeutic activity. Today, NCI’s Developmental Therapeutics Program (DTP) promotes all aspects of drug discovery and development prior to human testing.

WASHINGTON-Two days after the release of new cancer incidence and mortality data showing that new cases of lymphoma and lymphoma deaths have continued to rise, the Lymphoma Research Foundation of America (LRFA) took its plea for an increase in research funds for the disease to Capitol Hill.

WASHINGTON-In at least one-third of the states, legislators have proposed spending less than 2% of the funds the state will receive from last year’s tobacco settlement on antitobacco prevention programs, according to a new report by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and the American Heart Association (AHA). The AHA says many state legislators are ignoring evidence that tobacco prevention programs work, especially those aimed at young people.

WASHINGTON-“No Bull,” no more. Decades of tobacco advertising on outdoor billboards have come to an end. On April 22, under the agreement reached last year between the tobacco industry and 46 states, four large tobacco companies removed tobacco advertising from more than 3,000 billboards nationwide.

NEW YORK-“Nuclear medicine is one of the best kept secrets of medicine today,” said Stanley J. Goldsmith, MD, director, Division of Nuclear Medicine, New York Presbyterian Hospital. In a talk at a nuclear oncology conference sponsored by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Dr. Goldsmith specifically referred to the use of radionuclides to treat metastatic bone pain.

WASHINGTON-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.

MIAMI BEACH-With nearly 228 million people accessing the Internet worldwide, it has become impossible not to give at least some thought as to how it may be affecting physicians’ practices and whether you should jump onto the webpage bandwagon.

There 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

From 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

ALEXANDRIA, 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.

ALEXANDRIA, 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.

WASHINGTON-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.

PHILADELPHIA-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’ 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

Currently, 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

ASCO-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.

BETHESDA, Md-The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has chartered its Cancer Advisory Panel for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, limiting the group’s lifetime to 2 years unless it is formally renewed.

ORLANDO-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.

ATLANTA–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.

BETHESDA, 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.

ALEXANDRIA, 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.

FORT 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.

The Intercultural Cancer Council (ICC) is urging a 100%, or at least a $300 million, increase in federal funding for the

The article by Champlin and colleagues summarizes exciting recent clinical results in allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) for leukemia and lymphoma achieved by “reengineering” the process to take maximum advantage of the powerful

ORLANDO-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).

ALEXANDRIA, 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.

In the largest human study of its kind, researchers Renate D. Kimbrough, MD, and Martha L. Doemland,PhD, have found

Arsenic may be on the verge of overcoming its bad reputation. Two years ago, Chinese researchers reported that low doses