26 May 2023 (Friday) - Oncology Central Update

The nice people at Oncology Central sent their update today… Much of it went over my head (I can’t pretend it didn’t), but I suspect some of it has stuck…

 

Article of the week

ASCO 2023: a collection of breaking new stories To help you keep up-to-date with key headlines coming out of the ASCO Annual Meeting 2023 (2−6 June, IL, USA), we have put together a collection of the latest news stories.

Latest news

ASCO23: Pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy improves overall survival for advanced cervical cancer patients A study has highlighted favorable survival results for advanced cervical cancer patients given pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy, with or without bevacizumab; supporting a possible new standard of care for the first-line treatment for this patient population.

ASCO23: US−Mexican cross collaboration greatly improves survival outcomes for pediatric leukemia patients Two hospitals, one in Mexico and one in the US, joined forces to seek to improve outcomes for pediatric leukemia patients. The study highlighted stark improvements in survival for these children when collaborative initiatives were implemented.

ASCO23: Medicaid expansion associated with survival improvements for both Black and White gastrointestinal cancer patients

Findings from the examination of racial disparities in mortality rates in gastrointestinal cancer patients, following Medicaid expansion, have demonstrated encouraging results.

24 May 2023 (Wednesday) - Transfusion News Update

The nice people at Transfusion News sent their update today… As always a manageable amount of information for my poor brain to take in.

 

Trauma Endotypes and Transfusion Resuscitation Strategies

May 24, 2023 In 2015 results from the Pragmatic, Randomized Optimal Platelet and Plasma Ratios (PROPPR) trial suggested that a 1:1:1 ratio of plasma to platelets to RBCs was best for severely bleeding trauma patients to achieve hemostasis, but no differences were observed in mortality. Most trauma centers now use a 1:1:1 ratio of blood products. [Read More]

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Frequent Whole Blood Donations Not Associated with Cardiovascular Disease

May 17, 2023 Few studies have examined the effects on whole blood (WB) donations on cardiovascular health. Researchers associated with the Australian Red Cross hypothesized that frequent WB donations might be protective for cardiovascular disease since pre-menopausal women have a lower risk of heart disease than men or post-menopausal women. [Read More]

Transfusing Individuals with Asian-type DEL Rh Antigen

May 10, 2023 Antibody levels are important for many aspects of clinical care from evaluating the incompatibility of transfusions and transplants to determining certain diagnoses such as hemolytic reactions. Although no gold standard exists to determine antibody levels, the majority of assays depend on titration and grading the strength of agglutination, which has been performed manually and is operator dependent. [Read More]

 

23 May 2023 (Tuesday) - Pearson's Syndrome

According to Wikipedia “Pearson syndrome is a mitochondrial disease characterized by sideroblastic anemia and exocrine pancreas dysfunction. Other clinical features are failure to thrive, pancreatic fibrosis with insulin-dependent diabetes and exocrine pancreatic deficiency, muscle and neurologic impairment, and, frequently, early death. It is usually fatal in infancy. The few patients who survive into adulthood often develop symptoms of Kearns–Sayre syndrome. It is caused by a deletion in mitochondrial DNA. Pearson syndrome is very rare, less than a hundred cases have been reported in medical literature worldwide”.

 

That would be why I hadn’t heard of the condition before…