Drug Combo Kills Pancreatic Cancer Cells from Medical News Today

Combining gemcitabine with MRK003, an experimental drug, triggers a chain of events leading to pancreatic cancer cell death, researchers from Cambridge reported in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. The researchers explained that when the two drugs are combined, the effect of each one is multiplied, thus intensifying the destruction of pancreatic cancer cells.

Professor David Tuveson, from the Cambridge Research Institute, UK, and team demonstrated in animal studies that MRK003, an experimental medication, when combined with chemotherapy medication gemcitabine, set off a domino effect which ultimately destroyed the malignant cells.

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Boldly Going Where No Capsule Has Gone Before from H and HN

OK, so many of my get-rich-quick schemes haven't been what you would call blockbusters. My closest friends, family and even financial adviser scoffed several years ago when I came up with the idea for a new delicacy: Tuna on a Stick. Go ahead, laugh, but have you ever been to the Taste of Chicago? They sell everything on a stick at that exhibition of gluttony, so why not tuna? I had a grand vision of franchising all over Chicago, eventually expanding the menu to mackerel, red snapper, even Mahi Mahi (wouldn't you know it, a few years later when the Minnesota Twins' new ballpark Target Field opened, the concession stands boasted "Walleye Skewer" and "Pork Chop on a Stick").

More recently, I had the idea of creating a giant wiper blade that could descend from the top of a skyscraper to swoosh away the rain. Attach a hose or some sort of spraying mechanism and it also negates the need to have workers dangle hundreds of feet above the sidewalk with sponges and squeegees.

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Cancer Treatment With Minor Side Effects from Science Daily

ScienceDaily (Jan. 6, 2012) — Side effects are currently the biggest problem with any cancer treatment. A Norwegian biotech company is drawing closer to the goal of creating a treatment which kills only cancer cells, leaving other cells unaffected.

It is not difficult to find a drug that destroys cancer cells. The problem lies in the fact that a drug's active substances kill not only diseased cells but also other cells in the body. This is why the side effects accompanying traditional cancer treatment are often so severe.

Trying to eliminate side effects

The dream of any cancer researcher is to come up with a medication that works solely against a cancerous tumour -- without adversely affecting the rest of the body.

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Coffee Drinkers At Reduced Risk Of Type 2 Diabetes from Medical News Today

Why do heavy coffee drinkers have a lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, a disease on the increase around the world that can lead to serious health problems? Scientists are offering a new solution to that long-standing mystery in a report in ACS' Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry.

Ling Zheng, Kun Huang and colleagues explain that previous studies show that coffee drinkers are at a lower risk for developing Type 2 diabetes, which accounts for 90-95 percent of diabetes cases in the world. Those studies show that people who drink four or more cups of coffee daily have a 50 percent lower risk of Type 2 diabetes. And every additional cup of coffee brings another decrease in risk of almost 7 percent. Scientists have implicated the misfolding of a substance called human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP) in causing Type 2 diabetes, and some are seeking ways to block that process. Zheng and Huang decided to see if coffee's beneficial effects might be due to substances that block hIAPP.

For the full article please go here.

Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs Expected in 2012 via Yahoo News

Bionic limbs, a smart mouthguard to monitor athletes for concussions, and genetically modified mosquitoes designed to reduce disease are among the Top 10 Medical Innovations for 2012 selected by a panel of Cleveland Clinic doctors and scientists during its annual Medical Innovation Summit.

Here’s a look at the amazing therapies and game-changing technologies expected to dramatically reshape healthcare—and save lives—this year:

For the full article please go here.

Small Business: Doctors going broke via Yahoo News

Doctors in America are harboring an embarrassing secret: Many of them are going broke.

This quiet reality, which is spreading nationwide, is claiming a wide range of casualties, including family physicians, cardiologists and oncologists.

Industry watchers say the trend is worrisome. Half of all doctors in the nation operate a private practice. So if a cash crunch forces the death of an independent practice, it robs a community of a vital health care resource.

"A lot of independent practices are starting to see serious financial issues," said Marc Lion, CEO of Lion & Company CPAs, LLC, which advises independent doctor practices about their finances.

Doctors list shrinking insurance reimbursements, changing regulations, rising business and drug costs among the factors preventing them from keeping their practices afloat. But some experts counter that doctors' lack of business acumen is also to blame.

For the full article please go here.

6 Things Patients Can Do to Improve Health Care from Huffington Post

It seems that the majority of people agree that the health care delivery system in this country is badly broken and in need of revamping. I must admit I am extremely dismayed at the huge numbers of people who point a quick finger at "money hungry" doctors as the main reason that the system is failing. Until you have run a medical practice and have paid the expenses necessary to run it, that opinion is baseless and dangerous.

While we can all agree that there are "bad apples" in every line of work, the "bad apples" in medicine simply are not the reason that we are in the crisis we find ourselves in. This is a gross oversimplification of a complex issue and one that is extraordinarily unfair to the dedicated physicians that serve the public. However, I will also say that physicians have every right to earn a great living and, just like everybody else in a capitalist system, deserve to be paid commensurate with their expertise, commitment and drive to succeed in their field.

For the full article please go here.

Should Doctors Be ‘Parsimonious’ About Health Care? From Kaiser Health Care News

A major medical group issued ethical guidelines on Monday that take the provocative position of urging doctors to consider cost-effectiveness when deciding how to treat their patients.

The American College of Physicians, the second-largest U.S. doctors’ group after the American Medical Association, included the recommendation in the latest version of its ethics manual, which provides guidance for some 132,000 internists nationwide.

“The cost of health care in the United States is twice that of any other industrialized countries and we are not providing care to as many people as they do in other places, and we don’t even have as good outcomes,” said Dr. Virginia Hood, president of the group. “So given that, we really have to look at ways of doing things better.”

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Tests for biomarker may diagnose heart attack within hours from CNN

One of the most common reasons people go to the emergency room is for serious chest pains. Time is crucial when someone is having a heart attack. If doctors don't make a diagnosis quickly, it can mean the difference between life and death.

Now, there may be a new tool to help ER doctors make a quicker diagnosis. A new highly sensitive test can detect troponin, a protein in the muscle tissue, according to new research in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). According to cardiologists, the higher the levels of troponin, the more likely it is a person will have a heart attack. If tropin isn't present, the likelihood of a heart attack is much smaller.

Researchers say this new test could also help physicians monitor patients who present with chest pains but no heart attack symptoms in the hours after being admitted to the hospital.

"Early identification of individuals at high and intermediate risk for myocardial ischemia (insufficient blood flow to the heart muscle) is crucial because they benefit the most from early and aggressive treatment," said the study's authors.

For the full article please go here.

Berwick: How Health Care Can Trim a Trillion in Costs from H and HN

During recently departed Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Don Berwick's return to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's National Forum in Orlando earlier this month, I saw him speak twice — once during a keynote address for all Forum attendees, and during a small press briefing.

During both appearances, Berwick hammered home the pressure the health care industry faces to curb health care spending — and how those ends can be accomplished in tandem with improvements to quality. To be sure, Berwick isn't the first health care expert to link reduced costs with quality improvements, but he believes the system, using principles of the Lean and quality improvement movements, could stand to trim a staggering $1 trillion — or what he estimates as roughly a third of overall U.S. health costs.

For the full article please go here.

What Will 2012 Bring? from H and HN

As we head into the holiday break, the editors and staff at H&HN Daily would like to say "Thanks." We launched Daily back in February and since then our subscriber base as continued to grow and the feedback from you, the readers, has been tremendous. Daily has become an integral part of the H&HN brand. We are excited about the opportunities that lie ahead and we have some exciting things planned for 2012:

On Jan. 4, we'll introduce a new monthly column, "ICD-10 In Real Time." In partnership with the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, three leading CIOs will share their experiences of getting their institutions ready for the mammoth transition to ICD-10. The column will appear on the first Wednesday of every month.
Our series on cost containment strategies — Fiscal Fitness — will continue to build. Podcasts and blogs will provide in-depth analysis on how hospitals are taking inefficiencies out of the system.
There will be even more integration between H&HNDaily and the print magazine. For instance, web-extra podcasts with people profiled in the magazine's Interview and Extra Mile departments.

For the full article please go here.

Bombast, Negativity … and Yet … from H and HN

If I had to sum up 2011 in one word, that word would be "peeved." You can probably think of more colorful words but, for this space, that'll do.

From all those folks on the other side of the globe who got so fed up with the bullying and the oppression and generally being treated like crap that they finally chased the despots out of their gilded fortresses to the Tea Partyers and Occupy Wall Streeters here at home who want to throw our own bums out but can't agree on which of those bums ought to be first down the gangplank, 2011 has been a banner year for aggravation, exasperation and just plain bad moods.

I don't know about you, but it hasn't been 365 days of unadulterated bliss for me either. My buying power isn't all that powerful and my life savings ought to be put on life support. Not only that, but my Chicago Cubs — well, let's not even go there, OK?

For the full article please go here.

Ohio first state to use Direct messaging across state lines from HealthIT.com

COLUMBUS, OH – Ohio is the first state in the nation to successfully send and receive health information across state lines, using Direct secure messaging, through its statewide health information exchange, CliniSync, according to the Ohio Health Information Partnership (OHIP). The OHIP, a Medicity client, is the state-designated HIE for Ohio.

Medicity announced Friday that it has helped OHIP to conduct live messages between one physician's office in Lima, Ohio and another in Biloxi, Miss. Mississippi's state-designated HIE, the Mississippi Health Information Network (MS-HIN), is also a Medicity client. The partnership also performed live instances of Direct messaging within the state of Ohio.

For the full article please go here.

Cancer Vaccine Significantly Reduces Tumor Size from Medical News Today

An experimental cancer vaccine has been found to reduce tumor size by an average of 80%, researchers from the Mayo Clinic and the University of Georgia reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In their animal experiment, mouse models that mimic most human pancreatic and breast cancer cases had dramatic reductions in tumor size - even among those that had not responded to standard treatments.

Tumors that share the same distinct carbohydrate signature may be especially treatable with this new vaccine, say the authors. This includes various cancers such as colorectal, ovarian, breast, pancreatic and some others.

Co-senior author Geert-Jan Boons, wrote:

For the full article please go here.

Big providers compare notes on product usage from HealthIT.com

ST. LOUIS, MO – The Healthcare Transformation Group (HTG), a collaborative of Geisinger Health System, Intermountain Healthcare, Kaiser Permanente, Mayo Clinic and Mercy, is seeking to spur efficiency and safety by performing data analysis to determine specific product lines the group has in common.

Earlier this year, the HTG hosted a summit with its top 20 suppliers to discuss how to move the healthcare industry forward with GS1 Standards adoption. Each supplier shared their plans and timeline toward adoption, and asked what product lines or manufacturing divisions they should focus on first in the adoption of standards in healthcare. 


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How 10 million dollars can spark Health Care innovations from CNN

Dr. Peter Diamandis wants you to be the CEO of your own health care.

You should be able to make decisions based on technology that analyzes your body and gives you personalized feedback and treatment recommendations, he says. And Diamandis wants to speed the development of that technology along by offering prizes for the people who can make it happen.

Diamandis is the founder and CEO of the X Prize Foundation, which offers $10 million prizes for various technological feats.

In October, he announced the $10 million Archon Genomics X PRIZE presented by Medco, which is a challenge to sequence 100 genomes of centenarians quickly, cheaply and accurately.

Such sequencing is getting more accurate and inexpensive all the time. And data collected from sequencing specific groups of people – those who have had specific diseases, for instance – will help scientists gain a better understanding of those conditions and how to treat them.

For the full article please go here.