Clinical

A patient advocate underscores the need for awareness and self-advocacy among cancer patients by highlighting her own experience as a survivor, who experienced delayed cardiotoxic effects of chemotherapy.

With the prognosis for many cancers improving, we are seeing an appropriate sharpening of focus on the cardiovascular risks of patients who have survived cancer or are being treated for cancer, as well as a growing recognition of the impact this competing morbidity has on both short- and long-term health outcomes.

With the explosion of new therapies in cancer care, the risk of each new therapy must be clearly understood prior to making treatment decisions with patients. Data from clinical trials alone are insufficient to educate these treatment choices, and real-world evidence from higher-risk populations should be generated to inform these treatment decisions.

Taking the time to educate patients before their medical device implantation has positive implications for patients, healthcare providers, and medical device manufacturers, according to a new poll.

Published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the study found that the scale can help predict readmission or death within 30 days after hospital discharge among geriatric patients.

The results of an ongoing study, presented at the annual meeting of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology in Seville, Spain, identified a 5-fold increased risk of death in heart failure patients who were depressed.

Coverage from the 64th Scientific Sessions of the American College of Cardiology.

Coverage from the 64th Scientific Sessions of the American College of Cardiology.

Encouraging results with a shorter course of hepatitis C treatment were presented at the Digestive Disease Week meeting. Patients receiving an 8-week course of sofosbuvir and daclatasvir, previously naïve to direct-acting antiviral treatment, achieved a sustained response at 12 weeks.

Authors led by Harvard's Frank Hu, MD, write that combating diabetes worldwide requires policy solutions that recognize the societal and environmental forces that work against those who might try to pursue healthier lifestyles. Hu recently spoke at Patient-Centered Diabetes Care 2015, presented by The American Journal of Managed Care and Joslin Diabetes Center.

Coverage from the 64th Scientific Sessions of the American College of Cardiology.

A study published in Nature Medicine highlights how genetic data can be translated in disease prevention and evidence-based clinical management.

Evidence-Based Diabetes Management invited the YMCA's Jonathan Lever, vice president for health strategy and innovation, to comment on his organization's involvement with the National Diabetes Prevention Program.

Researchers at Cancer Research UK have challenged the current standard of care in advanced ovarian cancer patients. Results of their study, published in Lancet, found that administering chemotherapy prior to surgery can have huge benefits on health outcomes and the patient's quality of life.

A secondary analysis on results of the CAPTION trial pointed to a role for pharmacists in helping tailor the treatment regimen for patients with hypertension, although it did not improve blood pressure control.

Until this study, no one had reported on how the discrepancies between adult and pediatric guidelines might affect treatment for young adults.

A Science study found that recurrent mutations in the promoter of the telomerase gene, TERT, could be responsible for overexpression of telomerase in a majority of cancers, thereby sustaining the replicative potential of cancer cells.