Kelly Davio

This month, mental health professionals from across the country gathered in New York, New York, for a pair of conferences that addressed advances in treating mental health disorders. Below are 5 key takeaways from the meetings on new directions in the field.

Cancer is a leading cause of death among women of parenting age, and a new study demonstrates that women with metastatic cancer who are the parents of dependent children have higher rates of psychological distress and lower health-related quality of life.

ALKS 5461 has already demonstrated efficacy versus placebo as an adjunctive major depressive disorder treatment in short-term randomized clinical trials. In a poster, researchers reported on the long-term efficacy, safety, and tolerability of the proposed therapy.

At the American Psychiatric Association 2018 Annual Meeting, held in New York, New York, a panel addressed the role of digital innovation in delivering mental health care.

On Monday, May 7, during a poster session at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, researchers presented new data on the injectable antipsychotic treatment aripiprazole lauroxil (Aristada), which is indicated for the treatment of schizophrenia.

In a discussion during the American Psychiatric Association 2018 Annual Meeting, held in New York, New York, a panel of psychiatrists argued that private insurance is failing patients with mental health disorders, and that a single-payer system would provide better access and better care for the most seriously ill patients.

In a talk on integrative healthcare for transgender populations during the American Psychiatric Association’s 2018 Annual Meeting, held in New York, New York, Hansel Arroyo, MD, director of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at the Institute for Advanced Medicine at the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital, discussed the Institute’s approach to addressing mental health needs in the delivery of care.

During the American Psychiatric Association’s 2018 Annual Meeting, held in New York, New York, Patricia Newton, MD, MA, MPH, delivered the 2018 Solomon Carter Fuller Lecture, in which she discussed the challenges that face patients and psychiatrists of African descent.

New research published in JAMA reports that lonafarnib, a farnesyltransferase inhibitor (FTI), extended survival in patients with Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS), or progeria.

While cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death among women as well as men, and while both sex and gender differences in CVD and its treatments have been well documented, women continue to be less represented than men in clinical trials of drugs to treat CVD. Among proposed reasons for this phenomenon are the recruitment of younger patients, inclusion criteria that tend to select men, and exclusion criteria that are more common in women.

Huntington disease (HD) is an incurable, inherited neurological disorder caused by the mutant Huntingtin gene, which produces a mutant form of Huntingtin protein (mHTT). In addition to creating the profound neurological impacts of HD, the mHTT protein also impairs other organ systems, and new research, published in Cell Reports, suggests that the protein may play a role in cardiac-related mortality in patients with HD.

Rare disease can significantly reduce patients’ quality of life, and the use of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) can be key to helping researchers understand how diseases and treatments impact quality of life and symptoms, according to a review newly published in the Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases.

More patients are undergoing surgical procedures performed as day surgery with much of their recovery time at home without the direct supervision of a healthcare professional; therefore, these patients must possess functional health literacy (FHL) to understand instructions on how to manage their recovery at home. A new study, published in JAMA Surgery, described FHL among patients in Sweden who were undergoing day surgery and the association of FHL with postoperative recovery.

Drug company bluebird bio, Inc, has announced the publication of positive interim data for its gene therapy to eliminate or reduce chronic blood transfusions in patients with transfusion-dependent β-thalassemia.

The FDA’s Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee has unanimously recommended approval of the New Drug Application for GW Pharmaceuticals’ proposed cannabidiol oral solution for the adjunctive treatment of seizures associated with 2 rare disorders, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome, in patients 2 years and older.

Taking the rebates that it expects to negotiate into consideration, Ultragenyx said that burosumab will cost approximately $160,000 per patient per year for children and $200,000 per patient per year for adults, depending on body weight. The company said that it does not plan to increase costs in the early years of the drug’s availability.

The increased risk of cancer in patients with HIV has been well defined, and some studies have suggested that patients with HIV have not only a higher risk of lung cancer, but also an increased risk of mortality from their cancer than patients without HIV.

A new, large cohort study of transgender or gender nonconforming youth—the Study of Transition, Outcomes, and Gender—showed that people who first presented as transgender or gender nonconforming before their 18th birthday have a higher prevalence of mental health conditions, including anxiety, depression, and attention-deficit disorders compared with their cisgender counterparts.

Pfizer has dosed its first patient in a phase 1 clinical trial of an investigational gene therapy for the treatment of patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic disease that results in the absence of dystrophin, a protein that helps to keep muscle cells intact.

Being uninsured puts patients at risk of delayed or suboptimal care for serious diseases, including colon cancer. While colon cancer is potentially curable at its early stages, those who lack insurance (or who have public insurance only) are less likely to receive screening, and some studies have demonstrated that those with no insurance or public insurance are less likely to receive the chemotherapy that can reduce the risk of recurrence in phase III disease.

Sancilio Pharmaceuticals announced that it has received the European Medicines Agency’s Orphan Designation for its SC411 (which it plans to market as Altemia), a proposed treatment for sickle cell disease in pediatric patients, in the European Union. The FDA granted the proposed drug a similar designation—the Rare Pediatric Disease designation—in 2017.

New research suggests that the composition of bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract may help predict which patients with cancer may benefit most from adoptive T-cell immunotherapy, including chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy.

Results of a double-blind, randomized, phase 3 trial, published last week in The Lancet, show that siponimod—a selective sphingosine 1-phosphate receptor modulator—slowed the progression of disability in secondary progressive multiple sclerosis.

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN)’s 23rd Annual Conference, held March 22-24 in Orlando, Florida, brought together stakeholders from across the oncology landscape. Here are 5 key takeaways from the meeting.

As the companies that remain on the market have gained more experience with the individual and small group market risk pools, and have set higher premiums for exchange plans, their gross profit margins have increased. The Council of Economic Advisors said that the fact that premiums continue to rise “is a clear sign of a distorted market that involves larger transfers from taxpayers to insurers.”

On the closing day of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) 23rd Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida, Bijal Shah, MD, of Moffitt Cancer Center, presented on acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), and on the lessons learned from the application of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy in this indication.

The use of immune checkpoint inhibitors has revolutionized the treatment of cancer, said John A. Thompson, MD, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, but “With this good news has come some not so good news”: immune-related adverse events can cause serious harm to patients receiving these drugs.

At the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) 23rd Annual Conference, held March 22-24 in Orlando, Florida, Sharon H. Giordano, MD, MPH, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center; Anthony D. Elias, MD, University of Colorado Cancer Center; and William J. Gradishar, MD, Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, provided an update on the NCCN guidelines for the treatment of breast cancer and discussed new directions in breast cancer therapy.

During a Friday session of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network 23rd Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida, Cliff Goodman, PhD, of the Lewin Group, moderated a multi-stakeholder panel discussion on delivering and receiving cancer care in value-based care models.

The second day of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) 23rd Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida, opened with a dual keynote presentation on transforming cancer care in the United States.