Latest Conference Articles

Paula Trahan Rieger, RN, MSN, CAE, FAAN, is the CEO of ONS and has received numerous awards throughout a storied career.

Following the lively opening ceremony, was an even livelier keynote lecture, which was given by Selinza Mitchell, CNE.

ONS kicked off with a lively parade, which included over 100 nurses representing 16 countries from all over the globe.

Risk evaluation Mitigation Strategies may be the latest program designed to alter the rate of abuse and misuse of prescription drugs.

Virtual reality is an effective tool not only for distracting children during acute procedures, but also for the management of recurrent or cronic pain.

The pros and cons of using the hemoglobin A1C test to diagnose prediabetes and diabetes was the subject of a lively debate at the AACE Meeting.

In a preliminary study, Attiva, increased the post-meal feeling of satiety and reduced hunger between meals.

A novel mitral valve clip was proven to be as safe and effective as open-chest surgery in selected patients with mitral valve regurgitation.

New treatments are desperately needed for neuroendocrine tumors, said Leonard Saltz, MD, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Gardasil, a vaccine that prevents cervical cancer, also reduces the likelihood of recurrence after surgery by 40%.

Recent court rulings have grown in prominence because the Obama administration has taken a more tolerant stance toward the use of medical marijuana.

To improve early detection of colorectal cancer and adenomas, when survival chances are greatest, researchers tried develop a reliable blood test for detection.

Updated results confirm that addition of bevacizumab to docetaxel as first-line breast cancer treatment improves survival and response rates.

Letrozole treatment over 5 years was still associated with significantly better overall survival than 5 years with tamoxifen.

During the 51st ASH Annual Meeting, several new data from the PROPEL trial were released, including updates on the ORR and safety of pralatrexate in patients with PTCL and data on the correlation between baseline methylmalonic acid status and mucositis severity in this population. While the data reinforce pralatrexate as a viable treatment in patients with relapsed or refractory PTCL, some question whether the drug confers enough of a benefit to warrant its $30,000 per month cost.

Several studies have been examining various 3- and even 4-drug regimens in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma. Paul G. Richardson, MD, and colleagues from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, conducted a phase I/II study investigated the novel combination of lenalidomide (Revlimid), bortezomib (Velcade), and dexamethasone (Decadron). In an interview with Oncology & Biotech News/Oncology NetGuide, Dr Richardson said response was “unprecedented.” In presenting data from the studies, Dr Richardson said, “Partial responses or better were seen in all of the 66 patients treated with the drug combination…with 74% having a VGPR rate in the phase II portion.” He added that the 54% rate of CR/near CR in patients enrolled in the phase II study “was also encouraging.”

Single-agent pixantrone, an investigational agent, showed encouraging third-line responses, duration of responses, and progression-free survival (PFS) compared with other single-agent chemotherapies in patients with relapsed aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in the phase III, randomized, open-label, multicenter EXTEND trial. In the study, patients with relapsed/refractory NHL treated with pixantrone achieved significant increases in complete response (CR) and overall response (ORR) and demonstrated a positive trend in overall survival (OS) compared with other chemotherapy agents, according to Ruth Pettengell, MD, of St. Georges Hospital in London, who presented these results at a poster session. “An anthracycline with reduced cardiotoxicity that can be used for salvage therapy of aggressive NHL meets a significant unmet medical need,” she said.

The results of a study that looked at the competing effects on left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) of hypokalemia and treatment with hydrochlorothiazides (HCTZ) in hypertensive patients were presented Monday, November 15 at the American Heart Association Scientitifc Sessions 2009.

Today’s discussion on EHR incentive payments and implementation included a lot of issues that regular MDNG readers are familiar with: HITECH, “meaningful use,” and annual incentives. Although it may seem like the same old song and dance, the reality is that all those dates you’ve been hearing about are fast approaching.

Decision-making in medical practices is often stalled by competing interests, conflicting goals and misunderstandings. In this session, you will learn from real-life examples why impasses occur and the problems they create for physicians, staff and patients. You will discover how to gain agreement through using a voting matrix and how to test alternatives and devise voting options. In addition, you will learn the role of confidentiality in protecting future working relationships in the medical practice.

Dr. Michelle Koury began her session by explaining the goals of her session: to help attendees learn to organize leadership to pursue and achieve accreditation, apply strategies and tools to assist in accreditation success, and understand the organizational, financial, regulatory, and political advantages of accreditation.

Today's MGMA session on Web 2.0 was a very interesting session to sit in on, not only because of the subject matter, but also because of the audience interaction.

HER2-positive breast cancer has long been recognized as an aggressive disease, but women with small node-negative tumors are considered low risk for recurrence and do not always receive adjuvant therapy. Data presented by Heather L. McArthur, MD, MPH, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and colleagues in a poster session at this week’s Breast Cancer Symposium in San Francisco suggests perhaps they should. In comparing outcomes between women who received adjuvant trastuzumab for low-risk HER2-positive tumors and those treated before trastuzumab was available, they concluded adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin) reduces recurrence rates and mortality.

Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) typically begins in a milk duct and is the most common type of noninvasive early stage breast cancer. It represents nearly one-quarter of new breast cancer diagnoses annually.

Approximately three quarters of funding for cancer research goes to biology research and drug development in Europe, and this concerns Professor Richard Sullivan, King’s Health Partners Integrated Cancer Centre in London and chairman of the European Cancer Research Managers Forum.