By Eric Topol, MD

Recently, the US Preventative Services Task Force reiterated its recommendation that women not undergo routine screening for ovarian cancer. This was remarkable, not simply because it was a recommendation against screening, but because the task force was making the recommendation again, and this time even stronger.

The motivation for the recommendation was simple: a review of years’ worth of data indicates that most women are more likely to suffer harm because of false alarms than they are to benefit from early detection. These screenings are a hallmark of population medicine—an archetypal form of medicine that does not attempt to distinguish one individual from another. Moving beyond the ritualistic screening procedures could help reduce the toll of at least $765 billion of wasted health care costs per year.

We already know the common changes in the DNA sequence that identify people who have higher risk of developing ovarian, breast or prostate cancer and most other types of cancer. Consumers can now readily obtain this information via personal genomic companies like 23andMe or Pathway Genomics. But we need to do much more DNA sequencing to find the less common yet even more important variations—those which carry the highest risk of a particular cancer. Such research would be easy to accomplish if it were given top priority and it would likely lead to precision screening. Only a small fraction of individuals would need to have any medical screening. What’s more, it will protect hundreds of thousands of Americans from being unnecessarily harmed each year.

Continue reading “First, Do Net Harm?”

By James Salwitz, MD

Universal treatment standards will be the basis of future medical care.  In oncology, a leading organization for the development of such guidelines is the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN).  This national consortium of 21 National Cancer Institute designated cancer centers publishes state of the art recommendations.  Modified continuously, these are internationally respected guidelines and cover more then 97% of cancers.

The 17th Annual NCCN Conference was held in Hollywood, Florida last month. Cancer guidelines were updated in several significant ways.

The general movement of the last 20 years has been to reduce the amount of surgery for breast cancer. The NCCN recommends that during breast saving surgery (lumpectomy) the surgeon test the first lymph node (“sentinel”).  If there is no cancer in the first one or two nodes, then no more nodes need to be removed.  The NCCN also stated, that if breast cancer patients have small cancers and normal blood tests, they do not need a bone scan, or CT scan.

In lung cancer patients, several procedures received new support.  It is recommended that doctors use ultrasound-guided biopsy to sample lymph nodes in the middle of the chest (mediastinum) instead of surgery.  The new guidelines also support the use of non-invasive surgery (Video Assisted Thorascopic Surgery, VATS) instead of open surgery to treat lung cancer.  The use of VATS for lung cancer has increased more than 300% in recent years.  The pathologic name for an increasingly common form of lung cancer was changed.  Formally, called “bronchioalveolar”, it will now be called “adenocarcinoma in situ.”   Finally, the NCCN emphasized the need for accurate genetic testing for  “ALK”, before using the drug that targets this mutation, crizotinib.

Continue reading “Rethinking Cancer Guidelines”