A large, multisite randomized trial has delivered the first rigorous test of the VA’s Whole Health approach to chronic pain, finding that an interdisciplinary whole-health team modestly outperformed both cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and usual care in reducing how much pain interferes with veterans’ daily lives.
Beyond the political fight over the DoD’s new testosterone screening mandate remains a clinical question: Does population-level screening of a mostly asymptomatic, young military population offer significant benefit or simply raise risk?
Referrals for vascular surgery through the VA Community Care program nearly tripled over five years, driven overwhelmingly by endovascular interventions for peripheral artery disease, according to a comprehensive cost analysis presented at the Vascular Annual Meeting (VAM26) in Boston, June 10–13.
Studies address DPYD pharmacogenomics, lung cancer eligibility criteria, advance care planning, prostate cancer genomics, fatigue treatment, and more.
VA researchers also find TBI doubles dementia risk in type 2 diabetes; stress tied to diabetes onset; and metformin linked to slower biological aging
Because of an older population of veteran patients, many with numerous co-morbidities, the VA recognizes respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) as a serious threat. Three RSV vaccines are currently approved for adults in the United States; the latest is an mRNA-based vaccine. While all three have demonstrated meaningful protection against RSV-associated lower respiratory tract disease (LRTD), concerns have been raised about the durability of some of them and whether repeat shots might be required.
Including survival statistics for the nonmalignant precursor of multiple myeloma (MM), smoldering multiple myeloma, has led to a significant overestimation of 5-year survival patients with MM. But the news is not all bad. Recent approval of powerful new later line options are offering hope for patients who have tried multiple therapies are offering hope for more durable survival.
Immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) resistance can be caused by tumor evasion mechanisms that prevent T cells from recognizing or killing cancer cells. Cancer vaccines are designed to address those challenges by stimulating the immune system to recognize tumor-specific antigens. Unlike preventive vaccines, these therapeutic approaches can “induce de novo or amplify pre-existing tumor-specific immune responses, thereby enhancing long-term immunological memory while maintaining a favorable safety profile,” according to a new study.
Veterans with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and small lymphocytic leukemia tend to be very different than typical clinical trial populations, presenting with diagnoses of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, chronic kidney disease, obstructive sleep apnea, and post-traumatic stress disorder, among other conditions. That is why VA’s oncology clinical pathways now prefer a first-line therapy that has demonstrated efficacy across high-risk genomic subgroups, has a lower rate of adverse effects and is compatible with the complex comorbidity profile common among older veterans.
The PACT Act marked the largest single expansion of veterans’ benefits for toxic exposure in the history of the VA. Among its most consequential provisions for hematology-oncology care, the legislation established lymphomas of any type as presumptive service-connected conditions for veterans who served in qualifying locations during the Gulf War era or in the post-September 11, 2001, conflicts.
VA research is helping to change the massive underdiagnosis and undertreatment of familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), using the unparalleled scale of the Million Veteran Program to identify affected veterans and return actionable results. As the treatment landscape expands, including multiple PCSK9 inhibitor option, clinicians now have the tools to bring even severely elevated LDL-C under control.
Women veterans face a constellation of cardiovascular risks that diverge sharply from their civilian counterparts, and older male veterans carry their own burdens of frailty, social isolation, and service-connected exposures that complicate cardiac care.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States, and early detection through screening is one of the most effective ways to reduce mortality. Yet despite expanded eligibility criteria, racial and ethnic disparities in lung cancer screening persist.
Since their introduction in the late 1980s, therapeutic monoclonal antibodies have transformed cancer care at the VA and elsewhere, offering clinicians highly specific tools to target malignant cells while sparing normal tissue. The introduction of bispecific antibodies a decade ago offered more targeted therapies.
Bispecific antibodies (BsAbs) are expanding treatment options across hematologic malignancies and a growing number of solid cancers, but putting them into practice—especially in a large, geographically dispersed system like the VA—requires deliberate planning, training, and safety infrastructure.
As the veteran population continues to age, bispecific antibodies (BsAbs) and bispecific T-cell engagers (BiTEs) are emerging as an important therapeutic class for blood cancers that disproportionately affect older adults and especially older veterans.
Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is a particularly lethal form of lung cancer that progresses quickly and metastasizes early. SCLC represents about 14% of all lung cancers, but its aggressive biology and rapid development of resistance mechanisms that render treatments futile make it particularly challenging to treat—making new therapeutic approaches such as bispecific antibodies and bispecific T-cell engagers especially keenly sought.
As U.S. researchers Victor Ambros, PhD, and Gary Ruvkun, PhD, receive the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation, the recognition serves as a timely reminder of the VA’s remarkable Nobel Prize legacy.
Mental health assessments should not only focus on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but also depression in military personnel, veterans and others exposed to war or terrorist related traumas, according to a new study.
When the Department of Defense (DoD) Reconstructive Transplant Research Program (RTRP) asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to examine face and hand transplantation, it was more than just a request for a report.