BE CAREFUL WITH THOSE SCOOTERS AROUND TULSA

Electric scooters behind rash of visits to hospital EDs, study indicates

USA Today (1/25, Woodyard) reported, “Electric scooters are behind a rash of visits to hospital emergency” departments (EDs), researchers concluded. A study published online in JAMA Network Open revealed that “more electric scooter riders showed up with injuries in the emergency” departments “of two hospitals on Los Angeles’ scooter-heavy Westside than either bicyclists or pedestrians.” Among the patients admitted “some 40.2 percent” had “head injuries,” and 31.7 percent had fractures.

HOSPITAL ALLIANCES

Experts debate whether patients benefit when community hospitals join with major institutions

Kaiser Health News (1/28, Boodman) discusses “a much-touted but little understood collaboration in health care: alliances between community hospitals and some of the nation’s biggest and most respected institutions.” Experts warn that “affiliation with a famous name is not a guarantee of quality.” In some instances, “it’s purely branding and in other cases it’s a deep association,” one expert said. He added, “A key question is ‘how often does the community hospital interact with the flagship hospital? If it’s once a week, that’s one thing. If it’s almost never, that’s another.’” The article says it remains to be seen if patients benefit from these affiliations. The piece adds that in order to increase “their reach, flagship hospitals including Mayo, the Cleveland Clinic and Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center have signed affiliation agreements with smaller hospitals around the country.”

THE PRIMROSE CHRISTMAS BERRY - COULD IT BE USEFUL FOR MELANOMA TREATEMENT???

A molecule derived from a type of primrose may be a potent inhibitor of metastatic growth for a rare and aggressive cancer, as published in the journal Molecular Cancer Research.

Approximately 2000 adults are diagnosed with melanoma every year, in half of these cases the disease will metastasize to the liver and treatment options are scarce for these patients. Researchers from the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center and the Icahn School of Medicine have found that a compound extracted from the Christmas berry primrose plant can stop cancer growth in preliminary tests; further testing could lead to new therapeutic options for those with melanoma.
Uveal melanoma accounts for 5% of all melanoma cases and is the most common eye cancer among adults forming in the melanocytes, although differing from skin melanoma both cancers are lethal. Radiation or surgery are the standard treatment for patients with primary UM that has not spread to other parts of the body, however metastases will occur in about half of these cases most often travelling to the liver; once spread patients often have only a year or so to live as no effective therapies have been developed.
FR900359 derived from Ardisia crenata of the primrose family was tested to investigate whether it may be able to fight the disease. FR900359 works by blocking a type of G protein that sits on a cell’s membrane called Gq which is a signalling molecule; a subset of the proteins are mutated in uveal melanoma turning on a molecular pathway that leads to cancer growth.
Three types of uveal melanoma cells were grown in the lab with cancer mutations which were treated with FR, which was found to effectively block the growth of uveal melanoma cells. When uveal melanoma cells were treated with FR they appeared to revert from cancer cells to typical melanocytes; and higher doses of FR killed the cells according to the researchers who suggest the compound could be used to treat uveal melanoma one day.
The team would like to repeat the findings in a mouse model of uveal melanoma as was done in the lab, moving towards testing in humans to develop new strategies for combating uveal melanoma.

SURGERY PLUS MEDICATION MAY BE BEST FOR HIDRADENITIS SUPPURATIVA

Adalimumab therapy can get hidradenitis suppurativa under control in advance of surgery to repair associated scars and fistulas, says Jacek Szepietowski, president of the Conference of the European Hidradenitis Suppurativa Foundation. Adalimumab is the only FDA-approved biologic drug for the condition, but research is underway on monoclonal antibodies as well as adjuvant therapy with methotrexate, Szepietowski says.

American Board of Cosmetic Surgery Denied Right to Advertise as "Board Certified" in California

Today, the Medical Board of California (MBC)  took a major step to protect patients in the  state when it unanimously voted against allowing members of the American Board  of Cosmetic Surgery (ABCS) to advertise  as “board certified” cosmetic surgeons.  ASPS is proud to have worked in advance  of this vote to educate the MBC  and show that ABCS certifications  are not backed by a level of training that puts them on par with American Board of Medical  Specialties (ABMS) member boards. “This is, frankly, a tremendous relief.  California has a large number  of cosmetic surgery patients and the  most ABCS members of any  state, which means it holds the greatest  potential for those patients  to be misled by advertisements that a  doctor is a ‘board certified cosmetic surgeon’,” says ASPS  President Alan Matarasso, MD, FACS.  “Today’s ruling means those patients  are less likely to choose a  particular provider because they were exposed to a confusing ad.  That’s going to make patients safer.  Our specialty owes a huge debt  of gratitude to all the plastic surgeons  who invested their time and talents  to help protect our patients.” Today’s ruling closes the book on a  two-decades-long story. In 1996, California law was changed so that  the state’s physicians could only advertise ABMS certifications, unless  a non-ABMS board was specifically  reviewed and deemed equivalent to  an ABMS member board by the MBC.  ABCS has applied for equivalency under this process multiple times, and the MBC has repeatedly found that  ABCS falls short of the state’s standard that requires their training programs  to be equivalent in scope, content, and duration to training accredited by  the Accreditation Council for  Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).

WSJ analysis: Referrals driven by desire to keep business in hospital systems

The Wall Street Journal (12/27, A1, Mathews, Evans, Subscription Publication) reports hospitals employ a variety of strategies to encourage physicians to make referrals that keep patients within the hospital system, even when a patient may benefit from seeing a specialist outside the network. Leakage occurs when patients go to competitors for care, threatening the $1.8 million in revenue annually hospitals see from internal-medicine referrals for services like tests, according to a 2016 Merritt Hawkins survey. As hospitals acquire more physician practices, the pressure on new physicians to avoid leakage has mounted. One study found patients pay $90 more out-of-pocket for MRIs when administered in a hospital, while doctors working for the hospital system were 27 percent more likely to steer patients to the hospital for the scan.

Unfortunately, as more and more plastic surgeons are hired by hospitals, the hospital employed internists and family physicians are instructed to refer to these hospital based plastic surgeons, despite the fact that they may not have as much experience in certain cases.   It's all about the money and hospitals want to control patient flow. 

A sad state of affairs!!!  

E.B.G.