Data Simplification: Hitting the Complexity Barrier
Conclusions have no value until they are independently validated. Anyone who attempts to stay current in the sciences soon learns that much of the published literature is irreproducible (8); and that almost anything published today might be retracted tomorrow. This appalling truth applies to some of the most respected and trusted laboratories in the world (9), (10), (11), (12), (13), (14), (15), (16). Those of us who have been involved in assessing the rate of progress in disease research are painfully aware of the numerous reports indicating a general slowdown in medical progress (17), (18), (19), (20), (21), (22), (23...
Source: Specified Life - March 5, 2016 Category: Information Technology Tags: complexity computer science data analysis data repurposing data simplification data wrangling information science simplifying data taming data Source Type: blogs
It’s Time to Talk about Cancer Surgery Volume
By JENNIFER MALIN, MD
Twenty years ago as a newly trained oncologist, I faced the same challenge that many cancer patients and their families do as they try to figure out where to turn when my mother was diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ– or pre breast cancer. Her surgeon, who had come highly recommended by her family doctor,told her she needed to have a lymph node dissection, which can result in lifelong disability due to lymphedema or swelling of the arm. As an oncologist, I knew it was not recommended for ductal carcinoma in situ, but she resisted my suggestion to get a second opinion. Despite the fact that...
Source: The Health Care Blog - February 10, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Simon Nath Tags: THCB Jennifer Malin Source Type: blogs
A Year in Review: FDA 2015 New Drug Approvals
The approval of first-of-a-kind drugs rose last year to forty-one, resulting in the highest level of newly approved U.S. drugs in nineteen years. The total number of new drugs approved last year was even higher at sixty-nine. The rising figures reflect an industry-wide desire to research and develop drugs for rare and hard-to-treat diseases.
The newly approved drugs serve to advance medical care and the health of patients suffering from many ailments, including various forms of cancer, heart failure, and cystic fibrosis. Additionally, more than 40% of the new therapies were approved for treatment of rare or "orphan" dise...
Source: Policy and Medicine - January 13, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
The human cost of breast cancer screening
This article originally appeared in Forbes.
Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage your online reputation: A social media guide. Find out how. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - September 18, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Peter Ubel, MD Tags: Conditions Cancer Source Type: blogs
Infant Dies Following 5 Vaccine Doses
Life after losing a loved one to vaccines is very painful. With a heavy heart, we share Sebastian Ryan Morley’s story. He was a healthy boy whose life ended after routine vaccinations. Sebastian’s mother and grandmother have worked many years in both the veterinary and human healthcare fields. What they were taught in school led them to believe vaccines were safe, but now they will never vaccinate again. We thank his family for coming forward and sharing very important information the public isn’t usually made aware of.
Sebastian’s grandmother, Valerie Murfin, shared:
“On December 11, 2002, when my grandson Sebas...
Source: vactruth.com - September 5, 2015 Category: Allergy & Immunology Authors: Augustina Ursino Tags: Top Stories Augustina Ursino Human Hepatitis B vaccine VAERS vaccine injury dtap Vaccine Death adverse reactions truth about vaccines Sebastian Ryan Morley Valerie Murfin Source Type: blogs
An avoidable catastrophe?
This is an observational study only, and it doesn't completely answer the question, but this analysis in JAMA Oncology certainly poses one. Understanding this is a bit complicated, and remember, I'm not a real doctor, I'm a doctor of philosophy, but let me tell you what it means to me.Narod et al used a registry called the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database to see what happened over 10 and 20 years to women who were diagnosed with so-called Ductal Carcinoma in Situ (DCIS). These are clusters of abnormal cells inside the milk duct. Until the widespread use of screening mammography, they were essentia...
Source: Stayin' Alive - August 21, 2015 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
How should we treat stage 0 breast cancer?
I’ve written more times than I can remember about the phenomenon of overdiagnosis and the phenomenon that is linked at the hip with it, overtreatment. Overdiagnosis is a problem that arises when large populations of asymptomatic, apparently healthy people are screened for a disease or a condition, the idea being that catching the disease at… (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - August 21, 2015 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Cancer Clinical trials Science breast cancer ductal carcinoma in situ overdiagnosis overtreatment Source Type: blogs
You can never be prepared for a diagnosis of breast cancer
November of last year found me living as best I could with several health issues, the most debilitating of which stems from never having recovered from a serious viral infection in 2001. I’ve been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, a little understood and much-misunderstood illness. It keeps me virtually housebound. For the most part, I’ve made peace with feeling sick all the time. In fact, recently I’d been thinking that I could be OK with the prospect of spending the rest of my life with flu-like symptoms as my constant companions.
Then, totally unexpectedly, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was discov...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - July 6, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Toni Bernhard, JD Tags: Patient Cancer Source Type: blogs
Why code status should be modified
“Good morning baby,” she said to me each morning I when I came into her room.
Ms. K was an educated woman in her early 50s with three children. She loved drinking tea in the morning. She also had a very advanced case of lobular carcinoma of the breast that had extended into her abdomen. A cluster of cancer cells was obstructing her small intestine, causing her to have nausea, vomiting, and relentless pain. Yet, she managed to smile through much of it.
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Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage your online reputation: A social media guide. Find out how. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 27, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Natalie Wilcox Tags: Conditions Palliative care Source Type: blogs
Health Affairs’ April Issue: The Cost And Quality Of Cancer Care
This study is part of Health Affairs’ DataWatch series.
Under the new pay-for-performance models, how do low performers fare?
Jessica Greene of George Washington University’s School of Nursing and coauthors studied the impact of a primary care provider compensation model—that of Fairview Health Service, a Pioneer accountable care organization in Minnesota—in which 40 percent of providers’ compensation was based on their clinic-level quality outcomes. The researchers examined providers’ performance data before the model and two years after implementation,
The best predictor of improvement was the primary care pr...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - April 6, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Chris Fleming Tags: Access All Categories Chronic Care Comparative Effectiveness Consumers Europe Health Care Costs Health Care Delivery Pharma Policy Quality Research Source Type: blogs
Ignorance, Knowledge, and Bliss; Not Always Obvious
I’ve just finished sitting through a wonderfully aptly named lecture: Probability and Sadistics, in which, among other things, we learned (again) that the utility of various clinical tests depends at least as much and generally more on the patient and condition involved than on the specific test itself. From stress tests to mammograms to PSAs, the relationships of true and false positive and negatives, positive and negative predictive values all hinge on the prevalence of disease; or how likely is it that a given condition is present before you even do the test. Lots of times when you crunch those numbers, the best a...
Source: Musings of a Dinosaur - March 22, 2015 Category: Primary Care Authors: notdeaddinosaur Tags: Medical Source Type: blogs
Stop with the curbside consultations. They don’t help anyone.
Recently a friend of my husband’s in San Diego had a mammogram that showed some suspicious microcalcifications in her right breast. She underwent a stereotactic biopsy which revealed ductal carcinoma in situ, the earliest form of breast cancer also known as stage 0 breast cancer. This type of cancer is non-invasive and does not metastasize, however, if untreated it can progress or recur as a more serious type of breast cancer, so at the very least excision of the abnormal area is indicated, and in some cases radiation and/or mastectomy are necessary. My husband asked if I would speak to her regarding her breast can...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - January 29, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Miranda Fielding, MD Tags: Conditions Cancer Source Type: blogs
Rare Diseases Hiding Among Common Diseases
In June, 2014, my book, entitled Rare Diseases and Orphan Drugs: Keys to Understanding and Treating the Common Diseases was published by Elsevier. The book builds the argument that our best chance of curing the common diseases will come from studying and curing the rare diseases. Here is an excerpt from Chapter 12:It is easy to find cases wherein a rare disease accounts for a somewhat uncommon clinical presentation of a common disease. 12.1.2 Rule—Uncommon presentations of common diseases are sometimes rare diseases, camouflaged by a common clinical phenotype. Brief Rationale—Common diseases tend to occur with a char...
Source: Specified Life - July 18, 2014 Category: Pathologists Tags: common disease cryptic disease disease genetics genetics of common diseases genetics of complex disease orphan disease orphan drugs rare disease subsets of disease Source Type: blogs
Relationship between Hamartoma and Cancer
In June, 2014, my book, entitled Rare Diseases and Orphan Drugs: Keys to Understanding and Treating the Common Diseases was published by Elsevier. The book builds the argument that our best chance of curing the common diseases will come from studying and curing the rare diseases. The book has an extensive glossary, that explains the meaning and relevance of medical terms appearing throughout the chapters. The glossary can be read as a stand-along document. Here is an example of one term, "hamartoma", excerpted from the glossary.Hamartoma - Hamartomas are benign tumors that occupy a peculiar zone lying between neoplasi...
Source: Specified Life - July 15, 2014 Category: Pathologists Tags: cancer types carcinogenesis common cancers disease genes genetic disease hyperplasia orphan disease orphan drugs rare cancers rare disease tissue overgrowth tumor biology tumor types Source Type: blogs
