Latest Conference Articles

At the end of the day, the focus should be on improving the efficiency of our healthcare system and bringing cost-effective care to patients, said Jane Barlow, MD, MPH, MBA, EVP and Chief Clinical Officer for Real Endpoints.

There are multiple ways in which people with diabetes can develop heart failure, which is why heightened awareness through the initiative Diabetes Can Break Your Heart is warranted, said Javed Butler, MD, MPH, MBA, professor of physiology and chairman for the Department of Medicine at the University of Mississippi.

Recent findings have shown that aerobic exercise improves microvascular function and coronary artery function in patients with kidney disease, but further research is needed on the relationship between exercise and kidney function, said Danielle Kirkman, PhD, assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.

The patient's voice is important in analyzing and evaluating the effectiveness of care, as well as in assessing the value of new treatments, said Stephen Edge, MD, FACS, FASCO, vice president of Healthcare Outcomes and Policy at Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

Through the risk-based, capitated model it has implemented, New Century Health promotes the ability to control drug costs without jeopardizing care for the patient, said Rani Khetarpal, MBA, vice president of Oncology Value-Based Partnerships at New Century Health.

The phase 2 ESCaPE-CMD study results exhibited a significant improvement in coronary flow reserve for patients with CMD, said C. Noel Bairey Merz, MD, FACC, FAHA, director of the Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center.

Future research should examine the effects of exercise on slowing the progression of kidney disease, among other important questions, according to Danielle Kirkman, PhD, assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.

An increasing emphasis on prevention is shifting the mindset around pediatric nephrology, and findings from ongoing studies will further expand the evidence base, said Tammy Brady, MD, PhD, medical director of the Pediatric Hypertension Program and associate professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University.

A major upcoming challenge in healthcare will be determining how to pay for specialty drugs and medical advancements like cellular therapies, said Bret Jackson, president of the Economic Alliance for Michigan.

Including an exercise physiologist or physical therapist on a multidisciplinary nephrology care team can make it easier to include exercise as part of routine care for chronic kidney disease (CKD), said Danielle Kirkman, PhD, assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Implementing screening for chronic kidney disease (CKD) in the primary care setting can help identify patients who may benefit from upstream interventions and medications to reduce their risk of kidney failure, said Joseph Vassalotti, MD, clinical professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and chief medical officer of the National Kidney Foundation.

Correctly diagnosing hypertension in children is crucial for identifying other underlying conditions and allowing for earlier treatment and better outcomes, explained Tammy Brady, MD, PhD, medical director of the Pediatric Hypertension Program and associate professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University.

There are new technologies that allow for genetic counseling services through which the provider does not even need to get that involved in the process, said Banu Arun, MD, medical oncologist, Department of Breast Medical Oncology, Division of Cancer Medicine, MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Listening to patient concerns and issues and communicating with them can really help providers keep patients with breast cancer adherent to their hormonal therapies, said Erica Mayer, MD, MPH, assistant professor, medicine, Harvard Medical School.

Two abstracts on liquid biopsy tests revealed the potential of analyzing circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) and circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in promoting heightened decision-making by clinicians for patients with early-stage and metastatic breast cancer.

In phase 3 trial results presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in San Antonio, Texas, oral paclitaxel with encequidar, the first orally administered paclitaxel, was shown to exhibit superior confirmed response and survival with less neuropathy for patients with metastatic breast cancer compared with intravenous (IV) paclitaxel.

Rita Nanda, MD, associate professor, medicine, The University of Chicago Medicine, outlines the design of the I-SPY2 clinical trial and what the results have been so far.

Ensuring that prognostic or predictive tests to help make decisions regarding radiation therapy are accurate and clinically validated remains a challenge, said Corey Speers, MD, PhD, assistant professor, radiation oncology, University of Michigan.

Data from the MINDACT trial revealed that among women with luminal breast cancers (hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative by local pathology) with a high clinical risk and low genomic risk, those aged 40 to 50 years had a greater, but insignificant, benefit from chemotherapy than patients older than 50.

The bar for who should get genetic testing for breast cancer keeps getting lowered, and oncologists have to keep informed about which results should trigger a referral for germline testing, said Nadine Tung, MD, director, Cancer Risk and Prevention Program, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and associate professor, medicine, Harvard Medical School.

Using biomarker tests can help personalize care for women with ductal carcinoma in situ and determine the risks of using or not using radiation, said Eileen Rakovitch, MD, MSc, FRCPC, professor, department of radiation oncology, University of Toronto.

In 3 abstracts presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in San Antonio, Texas, patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and quality of life were measured for different therapeutic interventions aiming to either heighten tumor detection or ease chemotherapy-induced effects.

Results from the phase 2 DESTINY-Breast01 clinical trial show the novel efficacy of trastuzumab deruxtecan in providing durable benefit to heavily pretreated patients having undergone other HER2-targeted treatments.

Overall survival was shown to be greater but insignificant in patients administered pertuzumab compared with placebo, while subgroups of lymph node–positive and hormone receptor–negative patients were distinguished as major beneficiaries, according to the results of the second interim analysis of APHINITY presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in San Antonio, Texas.

Population health screening involves risk stratification that allows interventions to be targeted to appropriate patients, as was demonstrated in a study of a chronic kidney disease (CKD) intervention published in the November issue of The American Journal of Managed Care®, said lead author Joseph Vassalotti, MD, clinical professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and chief medical officer of the National Kidney Foundation.

Patients with hematologic malignancies receive less appropriate end-of-life care than patients with solid tumors because of barriers with patients, physicians, and the healthcare system in general, said Adam Olszewski, MD, associate professor of medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

Evidence suggests that exercise reduces blood pressure, and some of the mechanisms by which this occurs can include a reduction in salt sensitivity and effects on vascular structure, according to Danielle Kirkman, PhD, assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.

New research shows that carfilzomib in newly diagnosed patients with multiple myeloma resulted in a higher rate of minimal residual disease negativity compared with usual rates, said C. Ola Landgren, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and chief of the Myeloma Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer.