cancer
Can MRIs help avoid overdiagnosis in prostate cancer?
JEFF PACHOUD/AFP via Getty Images
Most prostate cancers are "indolent," meaning they'll never metastasize during a patient's lifetime and treatment could do more harm than good. At the same time, they're the second highest cause of cancer-related death in men. So how often should people be screened? That's a major disagreement in the field, but a study published yesterday in NEJM could help clinicians and patients find a balance. The paper showed that using MRIs could reduce unnecessary diagnosis and treatment by more than half.
The idea is that only men who have a suspicious lesion on an MRI scan would then get a full biopsy. Then doctors would only take a sample from the lesion, rather than the usual practice of taking from all around the prostate.
It sounds good, but it won't be easy. "We know MRI should happen before biopsy. It's already in the guidelines. It's not happening because there aren't enough MRI scanners," said Tyler Seibert, a radiation oncologist who didn't work on the study. Read more from STAT's Angus Chen.
one small number
13
That's the number of women from racial and ethnic groups underrepresented in medicine who were appointed emergency medicine chief resident from the classes of 2017 and 2018. A study, published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open, analyzed data from more than 3,400 emergency medicine residents, 738 of whom served as chief. White women were most likely to be selected for chief — 20% more likely than white men. Underrepresented women were half as likely as white men to be selected. Overall, Black doctors were half as likely to be selected chief as white ones.
pharma
New drug eases chronic hives but could change your hair color
If you've ever broken out in hives, you know how unpleasant it can be. The condition is considered chronic when it lasts for weeks or months without responding to standard allergy meds. Now there may be relief on the horizon: A new medication from Celldex Therapeutics reduced hives in patients, and completely cleared hives in some.
But there's an interesting catch. One of the most common side effects was changes in hair color. The company described the side effects as mild and reversible, but a high rate of patients in the study decided to stop treatment. Read more in STAT+.
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