The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Guidelines continue to recommend conducting a skeletal survey or whole-body radiography as the first step in identifying osteolytic bone lesions and distinguishing between smoldering multiple myeloma (SMM) and multiple myeloma (MM).
Prognostic Models Fail to Reflect Racial Differences in Prostate Cancer
Every physician knows each patient is different. Prognostic models, however, tend to assume everyone’s the same. That can skew decisions in cancer care.
Veteran Survival Varies Widely with Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors
Across the VA system, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are being prescribed for a growing number of cancer types including renal cell carcinoma, lung cancer, head and neck cancers, and melanoma.
One VAMC’s Story: You’re at Risk All of the Time
DC Staff Battles to Save Lives of Veterans With COVID-19 WASHINGTON—The first time Michael Heimall heard about the novel coronavirus COVID-19 was in late January 2020 during a presentation at the auditorium of the DC VAMC. The members of the hospital’s infectious...
Healthcare-Associated C. Difficile Infections Show Substantial Decline
ATLANTA—While the war against COVID-19 continues, partial victory in another medical battle might have been overlooked. A report in the New England Journal of Medicine described substantial progress in the fight to prevent Clostridioides difficile infection in...
Hydroxychloroquine Didn’t Reduce Death, Ventilation in Veterans With COVID-19
COLUMBIA, SC—A VA study has put to rest, at least temporarily, claims that hydroxychloroquine, alone or in combination with azithromycin, is highly effective in treating COVID-19 infection. In fact, a study appearing on the medRxiv preprint server identified increased...
Microneedling Skin to Protect Against Non-Melanoma Cancer
DAYTON, OH —Geriatric patients are the primary victims of nonmelanoma skin cancer, according to a new study pointing out that only 20% of them are diagnosed in patients younger than 60. Part of the reason, according to an article in Archives of Dermatological...
VA Primary Care Not Following SSTI Guidelines Enough
SALT LAKE CITY — Guidelines aren’t followed enough when skin and soft tissue infections are managed in the outpatient setting outside of emergency departments, a new study pointed out. The article in Clinical Infectious Diseases noted the lack of data on treatment...
Teledermoscopy Enhances Remote Dermatology Consults
PORTSMOUTH, VA—Use of teledermatology has increased at military treatment facilities in response to greater demand for dermatologic care throughout military medicine and persistent, dermatologic provider shortages, according to a new study. The article in Military...
Survival Differences Small With PC Surgery Vs. Observation
MINNEAPOLIS —Because very long-term mortality in men with early prostate cancer treated with surgery over observation is uncertain, a VA study sought to determine long-term effects of surgery vs. observation on all-cause mortality for men with early prostate cancer....
Older Men With Prostate Cancer Likely to Die of Other Causes
LOS ANGELES —Men with biochemical recurrence after radical prostatectomy don’t always receive enough information on competing risks of mortality to inform prognosis and guide treatment, according to a new study. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center-led researchers sought to...
VA Care Erases Prostate Cancer Racial Differences
LA JOLLA, CA —Unlike in the general U.S. population, African American men diagnosed with prostate cancer in the VA health system do not appear to present with more advanced disease or experience worse outcomes compared with non-Hispanic white men. That’s according to...
VA’s EHR Rollout Indefinitely Delayed by COVID-19 Pandemic
DoD Bidirectional Information Sharing Was Launched, However WASHINGTON—The rollout of VA’s new electronic health record system has been delayed again, this time due to the coronavirus. Just prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States, VA had announced it...
VA Faces Critical PPE Shortages After Orders Diverted by FEMA
Masks, Other Protective Equipment Went Into Federal Stockpile WASHINGTON—While early in the pandemic VA leaders repeatedly said that their facilities had enough personal protective equipment for its staff to weather the crisis, reports began circulating last month of...
Radiologist Fights Physician Burnout Intensified by the Pandemic
MILWAUKEE—As physicians in hospitals across the country find themselves faced with the overwhelming task of treating—and frequently losing—COVID-19 patients, they are describing the experience as akin to battlefield conditions. Even the language used to describe the...
Open for Business: How VA Is Coping With COVID-19 Pandemic
WASHINGTON—On March 4, VA announced its first coronavirus patient—a veteran at the Palo Alto VAMC. Seven weeks later, the system had 6,363 reported cases and 400 inpatient deaths nationwide. As of press time in late April, at least 132 VA facilities had treated...
You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Party
“You gotta fight for your right to party.” ~Beastie Boys (lyric released 1986)
“If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day, I’m not going to let it stop me from partying.” This statement was made by a young Miami Beach spring-breaker on camera to a Reuters reporter on March 18, 2020.1 This sound bite played on the national news and summed up the feelings of thousands of young people who had been planning to attend this beach party for months, and they were not going to let a silly virus get in the way. Recognizing that March 18 feels like a decade ago and the impact of COVID-19 on our country was only beginning, I can empathize with this young man’s priorities. That is not to say I was not shocked and appalled when I saw this video on the nightly news.
DoD Attacks COVID-19 on Multiple Fronts, Battling Virus in Every State
WASHINGTON—Divide and conquer. The DoD is taking a new tack on the old advice, dividing the huge demand for support across the country among the services and related agencies in an effort to surmount this wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. By the end of April, more than...
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