December 2020, Vol 10, No 12

No one can say that 2020 has been an ordinary year, although for most of us, it started out in a fairly normal manner. For me, it meant celebrating the New Year, writing, and enjoying some occasional snow. My speaking engagements and travel began ramping up in January, February, and early March, which allowed me to meet with colleagues and clients at practices, hospitals, and conferences. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the bottom dropped out of all our worlds. Read More ›

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a massive boom in telehealth, according to Heidi Kocher, Esq, Partner, Liles Parker, PLLC, Plano, TX. When lockdowns began to be enforced around the world, providers needed to make rapid and unprecedented changes to the way they delivered care, and healthcare teams and patients alike were required to quickly adapt to telehealth and telemedicine. Read More ›

At the 2020 NCCN hematologic malignancies conference, Shaji Kumar, MD, Consultant and Professor of Medicine, Division of Hematology, Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, Rochester, MN, discussed the “bonanza of treatment regimens for multiple myeloma.” Read More ›

The approaches to the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and small lymphocytic lymphoma are evolving, including the sequencing of therapy and a possibly expanded role for minimal residual disease (MRD) status, said William G. Wierda, MD, PhD, Section Chief, Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) 2020 Virtual Congress: hematologic malignancies. Read More ›

Although chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has been a life-saving treatment for some patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), additional therapies may be able to perform equally well in select patients, said Andrew D. Zelenetz, MD, PhD, Medical Director, Quality Informatics, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York City, at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) 2020 Virtual Congress: hematologic malignancies. Read More ›

At the 2020 ASCO Quality Care Symposium, Jean Wright, MD, Director of Safety and Quality, Department of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences, The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, advocated for multidisciplinary teams that include the patient as part of the care team. Read More ›

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on cancer care delivery in the United States. Although access to high-quality care has been compromised, the pandemic has also driven innovation, according to information presented at the 2020 ASCO Quality Care Symposium by experts who discussed recent healthcare transformations. Read More ›

Approximately 7 months after the coronavirus sparked social distancing measures and concerns about hospital capacity, new medical records data help shed light on the magnitude of the drop in hospital admissions and the more recent rebound in hospitalizations. These new data provide additional information to help assess the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on hospitals and insurers and also provide more information to help assess the extent to which people are still delaying or forgoing care. Read More ›

We often relate infusion appointment scheduling to playing a game of Tetris, because most of the effort is focused on scheduling patients with appointments of varying lengths into all available resources in the center. Once every resource is scheduled into and there are no more gaps on any of the resources (ie, the Tetris board is completely covered), then no additional patients can be booked. Read More ›

Sotorasib, an investigational small-molecule inhibitor of the KRAS p.G12C mutation, demonstrated promising activity and encouraging safety in patients with advanced solid tumors, in particular those with non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), in the preliminary phase 1 CodeBreaK 100 trial. Read More ›