Maggie L. Shaw

Almost 70% of the world’s population could be living in urban areas, being continuously exposed to air pollution, by 2050, while cases of dementia are expected to triple. Recent study results highlight the link between cardiovascular disease and dementia, as mediated by long-term exposure to air pollution.

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of the brain has been shown to reduce the effects of treatment-resistant depression, but study results show that intermittent theta-burst stimulation may be more efficient and effective.

The FDA has announced a relaxing of its restrictions on gay men being allowed to donate blood, in light of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Instead of 1 year, if a male has had sex with another male, he need only wait 3 months to donate blood.

What can be done to further delineate the risk factors associated with breast cancer to increase prevention efforts across the board? The key may lie in the white blood cells that circulate in the blood, particularly leukocytes and monocytes.

Mantle cell lymphoma is a type of B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma with a typically poor prognosis. Even with an allogeneic stem cell transplant, patients can become resistant to chemotherapy. Most do not survive 4 or 5 years after diagnosis, and the 10-year survival rate hovers between 5% and 10%.

The 2 main criteria that warrant genetic testing for breast cancer in women are age and having a family history of cancer. Postmenopausal women without any hereditary risk factors, however, often do not undergo genetic testing for the disease.

Evolocumab (Repatha), a human monoclonal antibody and proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 inhibitor, produced positive results in persons living with HIV in the BEIJERINCK study by reducing their levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C). These individuals have a risk of cardiovascular disease that is almost twice that of HIV-negative individuals.

Psychiatric disorders can affect both the mind and the body. Anorexia nervosa is the most deadly of this type of disorder, despite its low incidence among both young men and women.

Pregnancy complications that include preeclampsia, gestational hypertension, pre-term birth, and low birthweight serve as possible indicators for greater risk of heart failure in the long term, as indicated by change in global longitudinal strain on echocardiogram.

Ovarian cancer remains the most deadly of the gynecologic cancers. Researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute may have discovered biomarkers that could predict which patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer would benefit from combination poly-ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor/immune checkpoint inhibition treatment, as well as those who should pursue a different course of therapy.

Not all women with dense breast tissue have a high risk of breast cancer, but they all have an increased risk compared with women who have average tissue density. Can this patient population benefit from screening with abbreviated breast magnetic resonance imaging (AB MRI) over digital breast tomosynthesis?

“The brunt of COVID-19 will be borne by the poor, elderly, and sick, and it is up to us to ensure they are not left behind” – Former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy

Evidence is considered lacking on the association between mortality and patients who have both cardiac injury and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Is the rate of death higher among these patients compared with patients without cardiac disease who have COVID-19?

The environment surrounding the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic seems to change by the minute. The full extent to which HIV-positive individuals can be affected if they contract COVID-19, because they are immunocompromised, is not known. Recently, the CDC issued guidance for this patient population.

I am type O negative. There are only 7% of us in the United States. My blood is red gold, if you will. I am a universal donor, which means that my blood can go to anyone.

Are coding changes responsible for declines in the 30-day mortality rate for hospital admissions among veterans utilizing Veterans Health Administration medical centers? Which model is more accurate at predicting this measure: a claims-based model or a clinical factor–based model?

Between 2010 and 2017, there were 327,700 new HIV infections in the United States. Of these, HIV-2 infections accounted for less than 0.03% of the total. It is important to differentiate which HIV strain an individual is infected with because HIV-2 is intrinsically resistant to nonnucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitors, which are typically used to treat HIV-1 infections.

By 2030, heart failure—which tops the list of reasons for hospitalization among individuals older than 65 years—could tax the healthcare system $69.8 billion each year. Study results show the success of palliative care at reducing both healthcare costs and hospitalization.

Social determinants found within a person’s environment, mainly where they live and work, have been shown to influence outcomes related to health, functioning, and quality of life, especially where risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is concerned, according to study results that will be presented during ACC.20/WCC Virtual.

Metastatic disease is the leading cause of death in the over 600,000 individuals worldwide who die of breast cancer each year. A new blood-based assay to detect minimal residual disease (MRD) in patients with stage 0 to 3 breast cancer was shown to have 100-fold greater sensitivity compared with digital droplet polymerase chain reaction.

A primary analysis of data from the GeparOcto trial showed no difference in pathologic complete response among patients with early-stage breast cancer enrolled in 2 neoadjuvant treatment arms: sequential intense dose-dense epirubicin, paclitaxel, and cyclophosphamide and weekly paclitaxel and nonpegylated liposomal doxorubicin.

Patients who undergo neoadjuvant chemotherapy tend to be younger, with larger tumors and greater nodal involvement. But differences in their 30- and 90-day mortality rates compared with those of patients treated adjuvantly are clinically insignificant.

Patients with cardiovascular disease are especially vulnerable to respiratory infections, although uncertainty remains on just what damage COVID-19 can cause in these patients. The flu season is also in full swing, with an estimated 440,000 individuals hospitalized so far in the United States alone, according to the CDC.

A second individual may have been cured of HIV following an allogeneic stem-cell transplant for stage 4b refractory Hodgkin lymphoma with Δ32-mutated cells, which are resistant to the virus. These cells did not express the CCR5 chemokine receptor, 1 of 2 methods of entry for HIV into a host cell.

The theme of ACCC Immediate Past President Ali McBride, PharmD, MS, BPS, BCOP, for his 2019-2020 term was “Collaborate. Educate. Compensate: A Prescription for Sustainable Cancer Care Delivery.” Nowhere was that more evident than in the panel discussion he led on day 2 of this year’s annual conference.

Can we predict which patients are at high risk of hospitalization? How can we reduce this risk? Debra Patt, MD, MPH, MBA, executive vice president of policy and strategy at Texas Oncology, posed these questions during the ACCC 46th Annual Meeting and Cancer Center Business Summit.

Healthcare is not political, it’s personal, Senator Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan, told an audience at the ACCC 46th Annual Meeting and Cancer Center Business Summit, imploring them to come together in a nonpartisan way to improve care access and quality and to reduce costs.

Evolution. Disruption. Innovation. Telemedicine. A virtual exchange of information. Healthcare has lagged behind in these aspects, but it’s necessary to transcend time and distance, according to Susan Dentzer, senior policy fellow at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy.

Thirty-seven percent of women prefer to receive their lifetime risk of breast cancer through numbers and words, while 73% prefer a combination of lifetime and 10-year age-related risk.

Eighty percent of annual costs for heart failure come from hospitalization for the condition, which more than 23 million persons suffer from worldwide, 6.2 million (27%) in the United States alone. These costs are estimated to increase almost 58% between 2012 and 2030, from $30.7 billion to $53 billion.