Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Precision Cancer Treatments Show Promise But Medicines May Not Be Able To Be Created Fast Enough
Stat: Personalized Cancer Therapies Show Great Promise. The Hitch? Manufacturing Them Efficiently
It’s been a good month for companies developing the experimental immunotherapies known as CAR-T, as several released data showing strong results in patients with blood cancers. Now, though, they face a new challenge: Proving they can actually manufacture the highly personalized treatments quickly and efficiently — and get them to cancer patients across the country. ... Here’s how it works: Blood is taken from a cancer patient’s arm and undergoes a process called apheresis — in which the white immune cells are separated out from the rest of the blood. Those cells are then shipped to a manufacturing plant, where they’re re-engineered to fight the patient’s cancer. They’re grown in sterile vats and shipped back to the hospital, where they’re fed back into the patient to attack his tumors. (Keshavan, 6/9)
WBUR: With Cancer Diagnoses, Better-Off Americans May Get Too Much Attention
It's just common sense: People who are better off get better medical care. But when it comes to cancer screening — to find hidden malignancies when they're early and curable — a new analysis says conventional wisdom doesn't hold up. The analysis, in the New England Journal of Medicine, challenges the intuitive notion that well-insured Americans, who are more likely to get screened regularly for cancer, have a lower risk of dying from the disease. (Knox, 6/8)
Miami Herald: Landmark Clinical Trial Aimed At Bringing Cuban Lung Cancer Vaccine To U.S. Patients
The first patients in a clinical trial at Roswell Park Cancer Institute have begun receiving monthly doses of CIMAvax-EGF, a Cuban lung cancer vaccine that U.S. researchers say shows promise in preventing the recurrence of lung cancer — the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. The Roswell trial, which was authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last fall, is the first time that a Cuban-made therapy has been tested on U.S. patients. (Whitefield, 6/8)
And in other public health news —
NPR: Fetuses React To Face-Like Patterns
Provocative new research suggests that fetuses have the ability to discern faces when they're still in the womb. A study involving 34-week-old fetuses found they were more likely to focus on a pattern of lights that resembled a human face than on the same lights configured to look nothing like a face. (Stein, 6/8)
Kaiser Health News: Quantity Over Quality? Minorities Shown To Get An Excess Of Ineffective Care
Minority patients face a double whammy: Not only are they more likely to miss out on effective medical treatments than white patients, but, according to a new study, they’re also more likely to receive an abundance of ineffective services. The study, published in the June issue of Health Affairs, examined 11 medical services identified as “low value” by the ABIM Foundation’s Choosing Wisely initiative. That program pinpoints unnecessary, overused medical tests and treatments in an effort to reduce waste and avoid needless risk in the health care system. (Andrews, 6/9)
Tampa Bay Times: Less Invasive Treatment Lowers Risk For Those With An Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm
An aneurysm looks like a big bubble bulging out from the side of a blood vessel. In the case of an AAA, it occurs on a weakened wall of the aorta, a major blood vessel that carries blood from the heart to the abdomen, pelvis and legs. If the bubble bursts, a patient can bleed to death in minutes. (Maher, 6/8)
