Health Informatics News |
| GE launches eHealth, hopes for early adopters Posted: 30 Oct 2009 12:26 PM PDT The eHealth suite aims to connect clinicians and patients in a highly secure platform, but relies in part on early adopters paid by the federal government. |
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Medical News |
| LMWH alternative treatment for mechanical valve pregnancy prophylaxis Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Low molecular weight heprin is a feasible option for pregnant women with mechanical heart valves who wish to avoid oral anticoagulation therapy, Canadian researchers believe. |
| Recanalization is best predictor for outcomes after thrombectomy Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Recanalization status is the best predictor for clinical outcomes in patients with acute ischemic stroke undergoing thrombectomy, an analysis of clinical trial data indicates. |
| Vascular characteristics of prostate tumors predict lethal disease Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT The morphology and function of the vessels in prostate tumors can be used as a biomarker to identify lethal disease, show the results of a US study. |
| EBRT has better biochemical outcomes than RP in high-risk prostate cancer Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Patients treated with external beam radiotherapy for high-risk prostate cancer have significantly better outcomes than those treated with radical prostatectomy, according to Italian research. |
| Vascular characteristics of prostate tumors predict lethal disease Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT The morphology and function of the vessels in prostate tumors can be used as a biomarker to identify lethal disease, show the results of a US study. |
| EBRT has better biochemical outcomes than RP in high-risk prostate cancer Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Patients treated with external beam radiotherapy for high-risk prostate cancer have significantly better outcomes than those treated with radical prostatectomy, according to Italian research. |
| Endocrine therapy necessary for breast cancer patients with hormone receptor conversion Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Non-administration of adjuvant endocrine therapy to breast cancer patients with hormone receptor conversion is associated with a worse prognosis compared with those who receive endocrine therapy, Japanese researchers report. |
| Marine animal pigment can improve lipid levels in hypertriglyceridemia Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT A natural pigment produced by marine animals can improve the lipid and adiponectin levels of people with moderately elevated triglyceride levels, Japanese trial findings suggest. |
| Statins may reduce cholesterol content of erythrocyte membranes Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Statin treatment is associated with reductions in the cholesterol content of erythrocyte membranes, a study suggests. |
| Diabetic women, Blacks, at increased risk for cardiac death Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Diabetes may attenuate gender differences in the risk for fatal cardiac events, a new analysis of the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study suggests. |
| Moderate alcohol intake is protective against Type 2 diabetes Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Results from a meta-analysis published in the journal Diabetes Care show that moderate alcohol intake has a protective effect against Type 2 diabetes. |
| ACE inhibitors beneficial for ischemic heart disease with preserved LV Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Adding an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor to standard medical therapy improves clinical outcomes in patients with stable ischemic heart disease and preserved left ventricular function, results of a systematic review show. |
| Hybrid ablation therapy effective for persistent AF Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Treatment with combined pulmonary vein isolation and substrate modification is effective for treatment of persistent atrial fibrillation in patients with valvular heart disease, say Chinese researchers. |
| Endocrine therapy necessary for breast cancer patients with hormone receptor conversion Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Non-administration of adjuvant endocrine therapy to breast cancer patients with hormone receptor conversion is associated with a worse prognosis compared with those who receive endocrine therapy, Japanese researchers report. |
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Health Informatics News |
| Vocera Smartphone Now Available in Hospitals Posted: 30 Oct 2009 08:30 AM PDT San Jose, Calif.-based Vocera Inc. ’s smartphone, the newest addition to the Vocera system of wireless, instant communication products, is now available. According to the company, the new device supports all of the Vocera system’s voice-driven features, works as a wireless telephone, and offers application support. As an extension of the Vocera platform, the Vocera smartphone offers the same one-touch, voice user interface of the Vocera communications badge. Doctors and other clinical staff can access applications such as clinical alarm/alert systems, asset tracking and medical reference software. The system will also provide access to corporate e-mail, the company touts. |
| Survey: 38 Percent of Healthcare Orgs to Increase Hiring Posted: 30 Oct 2009 08:28 AM PDT Findings from a survey conducted by Chicago-based Grant Thornton LLP indicate that 38 percent of healthcare CFOs and senior comptrollers say their organization will increase hiring in the next six months. That figure, says the company, is 14 points higher than the national number. In addition, more than half (52 percent) plan to reduce bonuses and half (51 percent) believe the U.S. economy will improve in the next six months. In terms of pricing pressure, healthcare CFOs are overwhelmingly concerned about the cost of employee benefits (83 percent), such as health care and pension costs. Not surprisingly, 41 percent report that their company is reducing health care benefits and 21 percent are reducing 401K matches. Grant Thornton LLP conducted the biannual national survey from Sept. 21 through Oct. 2, 2009, with 846 CFOs and senior comptrollers from public and private companies, of which 72 were from healthcare. |
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iPhone Medical News |
| Posted: 29 Oct 2009 01:56 AM PDT
The conference opened with the second appearance of songwriter Jill Sobule. She's quite talented and today's song was a bit more upbeat than yesterday's, about the apocalypse, and was a great lead in to John Abele, co-founder of Boston Scientific. Everyone expected John to talk about catheters, stents, or something else from his world, but instead he threw a curve ball and discussed the concept of collaboration. It seems that research into how people best collaborate is a deep personal interest of John's, and he even bought a conference center called the King Bridge Center to better investigate his ideas on collaboration. He thinks medicine is lacking in the sort of productive collaboration that helps other fields quickly advance and be optimally productive. Through his talk he discussed a few ideas surrounding collaboration, but the kicker was his insight into the idea of surgical collaboration, where an audience of medical professionals sit in an auditorium with real time high definition operative data, and they all participate in a procedure by giving advice on what the surgeon should do next. This is actually already happening. He showed a video of a vascular surgery event of sorts in which at least one hundred leading vascular surgeons were all participating in the surgery. The doctor actually performing the procedure was collecting advice on what to do next and getting real time consensus data via real time polls. This, no doubt, made the procedure last longer, but most of the doctors in attendance said they thought they learned from it and that it produced a better result for the patient. A poll even indicated that they trusted their established consensus more than something they would read in a peer reviewed journal. Soon after John, David Agus, professor of medicine at the University of Southern California and founder of Oncology.com and Navigenics spoke of his views on cancer. He would like to see a paradigm shift in the thinking of cancer as a tissue defined disease to a molecular marker defined disease. Rather than calling a disease breast cancer, for instance, we should eventually know the molecular gene mutations that caused the disease and be able to identify the cancer as HER2 cancer, etc. This hyper specific focus on the molecular basis of medicine should help refocus our thinking of the disease into a more curative direction. He also requested that researchers examine other ways to attack cancer besides targeting the diseased cells themselves. Citing a highly successful trial with zoledronic acid (a drug that improves bone growth), he noted that sometimes when you "change the soil" (make the bone more healthy), "the seed can't grow" (the cancer cannot thrive). After a quick break in the coffee room, which, by the way had a 103" flat screen TV broadcasting the talks as they went along, we heard from Alexander Tsiaras, artist, scientist, and founder of The Visual MD. The idea behind VisualMD is to be the Google Earth for medical imagery. News organizations, for instance, might use the images from VisualMD to explain health concepts to their audiences just as how now they use Google Earth to convey geographic information. His goal is to make all of the data free and available and to serve as a resource for individuals, as well as doctors explaining health matters to their patients. Their images are beautiful 3D reconstructions of organs that the user can spin around, interact with, annotate, and even create their own slide shows for easy email to others. Also before lunch was the science of aging pair up with Aubrey de Grey, CSO of the SENS Foundation, and David Sinclair, professor at Harvard Medical School. If you've not heard of these gentlemen before, both view aging as a disease but both are approaching aging in very different ways. Aubrey spoke first and has a more futuristic view of aging. His mantra is that aging is metabolism caused cellular damage that leads to organism pathology, and the human body, just like cars, can be made to run longer with adequate maintenance and repair. He views age related problems as belonging to seven types and in order to tackle aging, all seven cellular and molecular problems need to be cured. Aubrey also coined the idea of a Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV), which is the point of life span where progress in aging science is occurring faster than the degradation of the body itself. He believes that if someone is able to live to 150 years old, then by that point the progress in the ability to keep them alive will be faster than their rate of death, thus they will live into their 1000s. Still focused on the same target, but shooting from a different angle was David Sinclair, who focuses his research on a set of proteins called sirtuins. Multiple studies have shown that when an animal (it has been done in many specifies, including primates) undergoes caloric restriction (fed about 75% of what would be considered normal for that animal), they live about 30% longer. David has some great data to show that this is due to a cellular starvation response that is healthy for the cells and is activated by sirtuins proteins. He founded a company off this idea called Sirtris™ Pharmaceuticals which was quickly snapped up by Glaxo Smith Kline for $720 million dollars. Yes, you read that correctly, a $720 million dollar buy out for a company that so far has no proven drugs. Clearly GKS is betting big on this technology. The early uses of Sirtuins would be for diabetes, but might carry the side effects of less cancer, stronger bones and muscles, a longer life, and a few other wonderful things. Eric Dishman, the director of Intel's Digital Health group spoke next about the power of in-home care. His central insight is that medicine needs to leave what he calls the mainframe model and move to a personal computer model, where care is delivered in the home if at all possible. He noted several ideas that might have clinical significance in gerontology. The first was simply engineering a smarter monitoring phone, that over time would track the responsiveness of the elderly person answering calls to determine how quickly they recognized the person calling in an attempt to detect any early signs of dementia. They would also be able to monitor the person's tremors to check for trends in motor deficiencies. Along these lines of elderly monitoring, Eric showed a prototype system that can be installed in a patient's home that might delay the necessity for them to move to a nursing home. Through a network of sensors and an high quality pedometer, an elderly person can be monitored to make sure they are able to take care of themselves in their house, are physically stable while walking, and are not injured or in need of help. These sorts of innovations let those who might be at risk of going to a nursing home live in their own home longer and safer. After a lunch on the lawn of the Hotel Del Coronado, we heard from Greg Lucier, CEO of Life Technologies, the company that makes a slew of biological technologies, but of more recent relevance, DNA sequencers. He talked about how quickly DNA sequencing technology has grown and scaled, with the first genome being sequenced in 2000 for a cost of $3 billion. Now full human genome sequencing can be done for $10,000 in 10 days. This technology has advanced even quicker than Moore's Law (seen in cpu speed increases), and has far outpaced how the data is used clinically. With all of the genetic information that will soon flood the field of medicine, Greg advised the creation of a specialty of medicine akin to a genetic doctor, or someone who would help interpret genetic test results for clinical action. The technological advance of DNA sequencing, to Greg, parallels the introduction of more advanced radiological techniques which spawned the creation of a dedicated branch of medicine. Keeping with the DNA sequencing trend, we then heard from Anne Wojcicki, founder of 23andMe. She spoke of her frustration with patients not being able to take an active stance in their medical care as the impetus for founding the company. We've covered 23andMe many times before so we'll hold off on most of the smaller details, but the two big announcements she made at TEDMED were that 23andMe now has 30,000 genomes in their library (likely one of the larger collections in the world) and that the company is introducing a relative finder that looks for people who might be your cousins (from 2nd to more distant) based on your genetic profile. But by and large our favorite thing about 23andMe being at the conference was that we got to spit in tubes and get our DNA sequenced for free. It took us imaging a quality cut of steak to work up the requisite saliva, but we did so, sealed it off, and it will be sent for processing. In the last session of the conference, Philip Low, the founder and CEO of Neurovigil told us about his mathematical techniques for processing EEG readings. EEGs pick up electrical activity in the brain and Philip figured out a miraculous way of processing them that not only showed a brand new stage of sleep (a subset of REM) but also might, in combination with a large database of EEGs, be able to clinically diagnose neurological pathologies such as schizophrenia or depression. It's still in the early stage, but his preliminary data looks remarkably promising. The last of talk of the day was David Pogue, from the New York Times, who gave an entertaining review of all of his favorite medical iPhone apps on the topic of "will your iPhone save your life?". We've covered many of the ones he's talked about, but for all of you medical students out there, take a look at Anatomy Lab, which lets you virtually dissect a cadaver on your iPhone. It looks like a slick application. That's it for day two. We're looking forward to be fascinated by today's sessions. The report is coming up tomorrow...
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Medical News |
| Combined budesonide/formoterol therapy improves asthma control Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT A combination of budesonide/formoterol maintenance and reliever therapy in the same inhaler is more effective for improving key aspects of asthma control than physicians' choice of conventional best practice, study findings show. |
| Dichloroacetate improves exercise performance, reduces oxidative stress in COPD Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Treatment with dichloroacetate improves physical performance while reducing exercise-induced systemic oxidative stress and inflammatory response in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, results of a Dutch study suggest. |
| Diet not significantly linked to adult asthma Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Results of a UK study suggest that there is no clear association between dietary patterns and adult asthma. |
| Raised ACC activity found in schizophrenia at-risk individuals Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Fronto-temporal connectivity appears to be intact in individuals at risk for developing schizophrenia, but this may be due to increased activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, conclude UK scientists. |
| <i>DTNBP1</i> gene mutations linked to bipolar disorder Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Mutations in the dystrobrevin binding protein 1 gene are associated with bipolar disorder, say European researchers in findings that reinforce the genetic overlap between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. |
| High rates of childhood IBD reported in Canada Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Ontario has a very high rate of childhood-onset inflammatory bowel disease, say researchers who have developed an algorithm to accurately identify children with the condition from administrative data. |
| Guidelines on triple therapy use in ACS need expansion Posted: 28 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT US researchers call for improved guidance on use of anticoagulation and dual antiplatelet agent regimens in patients with acute coronary syndromes. |
| Migraine with aura ‘doubles risk for ischemic stroke’ Posted: 28 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Migraine with aura is associated with a two-fold increased risk for ischemic stroke, shows US research published in the British Medical Journal. |
| Epstein criteria predict organ-confined but not insignificant prostate cancer Posted: 28 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Radical prostatectomy patients have a high likelihood of organ-confined disease and 5-year freedom from disease recurrence if their initial biopsy results fit the Epstein criteria, study findings show. |
| Epstein criteria predict organ-confined but not insignificant prostate cancer Posted: 28 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Radical prostatectomy patients have a high likelihood of organ-confined disease and 5-year freedom from disease recurrence if their initial biopsy results fit the Epstein criteria, study findings show. |
| Clinical stage III and IV breast cancers require imaging Posted: 28 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Only patients with clinical stage III or IV breast cancer require baseline investigation for metastases, a review of radiological staging practice in asymptomatic breast cancer patients reveals. |
| Atorvastatin improves response to treatment for erectile dysfunction Posted: 28 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Atorvastatin therapy improves the response to sildenafil of men with erectile dysfunction and hypercholesterolemia, report researchers. |
| Social deprivation tied to greater atherosclerosis burden Posted: 28 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT People living in socioeconomically deprived areas have an increased burden of carotid atherosclerosis that is not fully explained by either classic or emerging cardiovascular risk factors, show UK researchers. |
| ALT level predicts prediabetes in German adults Posted: 28 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Alanine-aminotransferase is an independent predictor for impaired glucose tolerance, a precursor to Type 2 diabetes, show results from a German worksite population. |
| Lifestyle changes, metformin use can delay Type 2 diabetes for 10 years Posted: 28 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Results from the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study reported in The Lancet show that the beneficial effects of lifestyle intervention or treatment with metformin for preventing or delaying the onset of Type 2 diabetes can persist for at least 10 years. |
| Posted: 28 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT The occurrence of breathing disturbances during sleep can directly trigger cardiac arrhythmias in some individuals, study findings published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology suggest. |
| Team-based care improves BP control in hypertension Posted: 28 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT A strategy of team-based care for patients with hypertension achieves greater reductions in blood pressure than standard intervention, results of a meta-analysis demonstrate. |
| Social deprivation tied to greater atherosclerosis burden Posted: 28 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT People living in socioeconomically deprived areas have an increased burden of carotid atherosclerosis that is not fully explained by either classic or emerging cardiovascular risk factors, show UK researchers. |
| Migraine with aura ‘doubles risk for ischemic stroke’ Posted: 28 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Migraine with aura is associated with a two-fold increased risk for ischemic stroke, shows US research published in the British Medical Journal. |
| Clinical stage III and IV breast cancers require imaging Posted: 28 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Only patients with clinical stage III or IV breast cancer require baseline investigation for metastases, a review of radiological staging practice in asymptomatic breast cancer patients reveals. |
| PSAV and comorbidity predict mortality in relapsed prostate cancer patients Posted: 27 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Men with biochemically recurrent prostate cancer are at increased risk for all cause mortality if they have a rapid prostate-specific antigen velocity and few comorbidities, according to US researchers. |
| Sextant biopsy unreliable for identifying prostate cancer suitable for focal-therapy Posted: 27 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT The sextant biopsy method regularly used to assess men with rising prostate-specific antigen levels may not be able to accurately detect unilateral prostate cancer, study findings show. |
| High-activity myeloperoxidase genotypes may enhance adjuvant chemotherapy outcome Posted: 27 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT High-activity myeloperoxidase genotypes are associated with better survival among women with breast cancer receiving cyclophosphamide-containing therapy, particularly when followed by tamoxifen therapy, US researchers report. |
| No benefit in adjusting PSA thresholds according to BMI Posted: 26 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Adjusting a man's prostate specific antigen threshold according to body mass index is not warranted, say US researchers investigating the link between obesity and low PSA levels. |
| Risk for cerebral metastases elevated in triple-negative,HER2-positive breast cancers Posted: 26 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Patients with triple-negative or human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-positive breast cancer have a higher risk for cerebral metastases than patients bearing steroid receptor-positive/HER2-negative phenotype, research shows. |
| Solitary positive apical prostate cancer margin ‘may affect outcomes’ Posted: 25 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT A solitary positive apical margin in prostate cancer is associated with worse biochemical recurrence, although it is not an independent predictor, conclude US scientists who say margin sites should form part of an assessment. |
| Dyskerin gene linked to extensive prostate cancer tumor growth Posted: 25 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT The DKC1 gene, encoding the nucleolar protein dyskerin, is upregulated in prostate cancer and appears to play a role in extensive tumor growth, potentially via protein biosythesis, German study findings indicate. |
| Tumor size does not reliably predict basal-like breast cancer outcome Posted: 25 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT Tumor size is not consistently associated with distant disease recurrence or mortality in women with basal-like cancers, Canadian research shows. |
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We had a long and eventful second day at TEDMED, filled with plenty of laughs, thought provoking technology, spitting into vials for