Tag Archives: intervention

Quality of care improves for cancer patients who get palliative care consultation

Palliative care is the medical specialty that focuses on improving quality of life for patients and their families in the setting of a serious illness. Palliative care teams provide an added layer of support to patients, caregivers, and doctors by addressing unremitting symptoms, helping with decision making, and coordinating care. The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) selected a total of four high-impact abstracts, including this one, to feature in an official press briefing for its upcoming 2013 Quality Care Symposium. More than 270 abstracts will be presented at the conference, which will be held in San Diego on November 1-2…

Review of daily aspirin dosage highlights concerns about side effects

The possible benefits of a daily dose have been promoted as a primary prevention for people who are currently free of, but at risk of developing, cardiovascular disease or colorectal cancer. However, any such benefit needs to be balanced alongside a fuller understanding of the potentially harmful side effects such as bleeding and gastrointestinal problems. The paper, published by the National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment (NIHR HTA) Programme, reviews the wealth of available randomised controlled trials (RCTs), systematic reviews and meta-analyses, allowing the team from Warwick Evidence to quantify those relative benefits and risks. The reported benefits of taking aspirin each day ranged from 10% reduction in major cardiovascular events to a 15% drop in total coronary heart disease. …

Clinical trials will improve treatment, follow-up for COPD

"Randomised clinical trials are the best method of obtaining required documentation of the effect, safety and cost-efficacy of various methods or types of treatment employed by the health services," says Kåre Birger Haugen, chair of the programme board of the Research Council of Norway’s Programme on Clinical Research (KLINISKFORSKNING), which has provided funding to the studies. Will follow up COPD patients at home At the Norwegian Centre for Integrated Care and Telemedicine in Tromsø in Northern Norway, researchers will be studying the effect of telemedicine on people suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Telemedicine involves treatment and monitoring activities for patients independent of the location of the medical expertise. …

Fear of missing bowel cancer may be exposing patients to unnecessary risks

Professor Geir Hoff and colleagues in Norway, argue that we need more evidence about the malignant potential of benign lesions to be sure that the risks of removing them do not outweigh the benefits of screening. Bowel cancer screening has increased the detection of benign polyps (fleshy growths on the lining of the colon or rectum). The most common polyps found during screening are adenomas and guidelines recommend that they are removed. However, data show that less than 5% of adenomas develop into colorectal cancer, suggesting that 95% of procedures may be exposing patients to unnecessary risks…

Soy protein supplementation does not reduce risk of prostate cancer recurrence after radical prostatectomy, study finds

"Prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed malignancy and the second most frequent cause of male cancer death in the United States and other Western countries but is far less frequent in Asian countries. Prostate cancer risk has been inversely associated with intake of soy and soy foods in observational studies, which may explain this geographic variation because soy consumption is low in the United States and high in Asian countries," according to background information in the article. "Although it has been repeatedly proposed that soy may prevent prostate cancer development, this hypothesis has not been tested in randomized studies with cancer as the end point. A substantive fraction (48 percent — 55 percent) of men diagnosed as having prostate cancer use dietary supplements including soy products, although the exact proportion is not known…