Clinical

Long-term follow-up of women who underwent mastectomy and breast reconstruction subsequent to a breast cancer diagnosis found that the success of the procedure and associated complications were not influenced by the woman’s age.

The quality of outpatient care for adults has not improved during the past decade, and in some important areas has worsened, according to a new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine by David M. Levine, MD, of Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, and colleagues.

At the Payer Exchange Summit V, sponsored by the Community Oncology Alliance (COA), 2 employer groups and a provider participated on a panel to provide practical insight into the extraordinary challenges and decisions faced by employers and employees with a cancer diagnosis.

What we’re reading, October 24, 2016: Cigna makes it easier for clinicians to prescribe drugs to treat opioid addiction; some hospitals move to eliminate sugary drinks from their campuses; and a researcher at the National Cancer Institute was months late to notify authorities of 2 deaths in the clinical trial he oversaw.

The hotspotting technique that Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers uses to care for complex patients shifts away from breaking people into segments based on disease, and looks at the whole make up of a person, considering every disease or social complexity that may be in effect, explained Renee Murray, associate clinical director of Care Management Initiatives at Camden Coalition.

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research in the healthcare and mainstream press.

Patients with a history of cancer were more likely to suffer from obesity than the general population, according to new research studying the incidence of obesity in cancer survivors.

For millions, the Affordable Care Act promised relief from the expenses of contraception. So why are many still not feeling it?

What we're reading, October 18, 2016: Pfizer's Remicade biosimilar set to launch in late November; HHS receives allegations that 7 insurers are discriminating against patients with HIV; and most staff changes in the Department of Veterans Affairs are just manager moves.

What we're reading, October 17, 2016: more than 1 million Americans will lose their current Obamacare plan; physicians grow increasingly frustrated over insurance trends; and how overactive bladder disorder could benefit from less drug treatments.

Precision medicine is an emerging approach to disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person.

Health-related quality-of-life data are often collected during routine clinical care. We present a method to create nationally representative benchmarks for clinical subspecialties.

What we’re reading, October 13, 2016: researchers, Alzheimer’s patients, and their families anxiously await the results of a clinical trial that could help slow the disease’s progress; many breast cancers detected by mammograms are overtreated even though they likely would not be fatal on their own; stock prices fall for Humana and Cigna as CMS says a minority of their patients are in plans rated 4 stars or higher.

Radiomic combines imaging and computational technologies and can identify patients with recurrent glioblastoma who may benefit from using angiogenesis inhibitors.

What we're reading, October 11, 2016: USPSTF recommendations maybe shouldn't be tied to insurance coverage; growing dispute over homeopathy research; and the harm of pharmaceutical companies' copay assistant programs.

Researchers at the University of Chicago have developed a clinically relevant patient-centered tool that can measure a patient’s risk for financial stress.

While nivolumab failed to surpass the outcomes of chemotherapy as first-line treatment in programmed death ligand-1—expressing patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), pembrolizumab bettered chemotherapy in improving survival in a similar cohort.

As part of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network's new clinical guidelines for myeloproliferative neoplasms, a group of rare blood cancers, Jakafi has been recommended for the treatment of myelofibrosis.

Specialty pharmacy pipelines, healthy behaviors, and regulation took the stage at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP)’s 2016 Nexus conference, which was held October 3-6 in National Harbor, Maryland.

A retrospective analysis has found that longer term adjuvant treatment with tamoxifen significantly decreases the risk of contralateral breast cancer.

This week, the top managed care stories included conference coverage from the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy's 2016 Nexus, Bill Clinton courted controversy when discussing the Affordable Care Act, and research finds fear of a job loss can increase the risk of diabetes.

Highlights of our peer-reviewed research in the healthcare and mainstream press.

What we're reading, October, 6, 2016: UnitedHealth is sued for allegedly overcharging on prescription drugs; the Obama administration could point consumers to remaining insurance options as insurers leave the Affordable Care Act exchanges; and human life spans may have it a ceiling.

Persistent low income in young adulthood and middle age may raise the risk for worse cognitive function by age 50, according to a study of more than 3300 adults who were followed for more than 2 decades. In addition, the study suggested that poverty and perceived hardship may be important contributors to premature aging among disadvantaged populations.

A study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found an increased rate of resection and a reduction in the probability of emergent resection for colorectal cancer (CRC) as a result of insurance expansion in Massachusetts.