Medical Journal May 2023 digital edition
May 20, 20231 min
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BY MINDI SZUMANSKI, Publisher & Editor, Medical Journal – Houston Giving sight to the blind “You are blind.” That is something no one wants to hear—much less live. From the beginning of time, these three words have wreaked havoc on their numerous victims by stealing their sight and robbing their freedom. Blindness has put untold millions of people in the prison of darkness and left them without a shining light of a cure....
Federal policy shift on antitrust enforcement creates uncertainty for healthcare mergers
May 20, 20239 min
BY Kianna Sitarski and Beth Anne Jackson, Brown & Fortunato Healthcare providers are now facing increased scrutiny from the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) when it comes to antitrust enforcement in the context of mergers, acquisitions and other collaborations. On February 3, 2023, the DOJ issued a policy statement that withdrew previous DOJ-FTC joint guidance issued in 1993, 1996, and 2011 (Guidance) that provided “antitrust safety zones”...
BY Todd Ellis, Advisory Principal, Customer and Operations Health & Government Practice, and Health Equity Sector Leader In America, the same city may encompass markedly different neighborhoods with divergent education, health care, home ownership, food quality and meaningful employment. These social determinants of health help determine whether a community will thrive or struggle. In Houston’s Harris County, for example, the lack of access to education and higher rates of unemployment, homelessness and poverty correlate...
Wegovy won’t work without watching what we eat
May 20, 20239 min
BY Samuel Mathis, MD, Assistant Professor, UTMB, Family Medicine, UTMB In the past few months, I have seen several patients with what one of my colleagues calls a “GLP-1 deficiency.” Where I work, semaglutide has quickly become the newest fad diet. It does not help that the media and pharmaceutical companies continue to promote these drugs as “cures” rather than weight loss aids. I admit, many patients are seeing significant results in their weight...
Tell Congress to keep our safety net wide and strong
May 20, 20238 min
BY John Hawkins, President, THA If there’s one theme you’ve seen me come back to in this column in the past year or so, it’s this one: Hospitals need help. Up in Washington, D.C., congressional lawmakers have a golden opportunity in front of them to give our safety-net hospitals – and the vulnerable patients they serve – a major helping hand by avoiding payment cuts that would total billions. Two members of the...
Study unlocks potential breakthrough in Type 1 diabetes treatment
May 20, 202311 min
For the well over 700 million people around the globe living with Type 1 diabetes, getting a host immune system to tolerate the presence of implanted insulin-secreting cells could be life-changing. Rice University bioengineer Omid Veiseh and collaborators identified new biomaterial formulations that could help turn the page on Type 1 diabetes treatment, opening the door to a more sustainable, long-term, self-regulating way to handle the disease. To do so, they developed a new screening technique that involves...
Novel immunotherapy delivery approach safe and beneficial for some melanoma patients with leptomeningeal disease
May 20, 20236 min
A novel approach to administering intrathecal (IT) immunotherapy (directly into the spinal fluid) and intravenous (IV) immunotherapy was safe and improved survival in a subset of patients with leptomeningeal disease (LMD) from metastatic melanoma, according to interim analyses of a Phase I/Ib trial led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The study represents the first-in-human trial of concurrent IT and IV nivolumab (anti-PD-1) in melanoma patients with LMD. Across...
Combined delivery of engineered virus with immunotherapy is safe and improves outcomes in subset of patients with glioblastoma
May 20, 20238 min
Intratumoral delivery of an engineered oncolytic virus (DNX-2401) targeting glioblastoma (GBM) cells combined with subsequent immunotherapy was safe and improved survival outcomes in a subset of patients with recurrent GBM, according to results from a multi-institutional Phase I/II clinical trial co-led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Toronto. The study met its primary safety endpoint and demonstrated the combination was well tolerated overall with no dose-limiting toxicities. The study did not meet...