Research to Practice, a medical and patient education group, is looking for patients who have been recently diagnosed with either stage II or III colon cancer and are either receiving chemotherapy for their cancer or deciding whether or not to have chemotherapy.

Patient surveys will be used to understand patient perspectives as they make treatment decisions about chemotherapy after surgery and their experiences throughout chemotherapy and afterwards.  Information will be analyzed and presented to health professionals who work with colon cancer patients. Read the rest of this entry »

Late Tuesday night Congress successfully averted a 10.6 percent cut to the Medicare physician reimbursement rate just before it was scheduled to take affect at midnight. Congress voted to override the president’s veto of H.R. 6331, the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act.

Under considerable pressure from physician and patient groups, many Republicans split with the president and vote in favor of an override. The House of Representatives voted 383 to 41 to override while the Senate voted 70 to 26. Both well above the required 2/3 majority.

When a companion accompanies an older patient to a routine medical visit, the patients report higher satisfaction with the doctor’s skills and the information they received.

In a study of over 12,000 Medicare beneficiaries, nearly 40 percent had someone come with them to their medical appointments. More than half were spouses, about a third were adult children. Other companions included roommates, friends, neighbors, and other relatives.

Older and less-educated patients and those who were in poorer health, were more likely to have someone come to the doctor with them. On average, accompanied patients had twice the Medicare medical expenses. Read the rest of this entry »

Two members of the C3 Medical Review Network will be featured on the Diane Rehm Show on Thursday, July 17, 2008 discussing the high cost of cancer care.  They are scheduled for the 11 a.m. segment (Eastern time).

• John Marshall M.D. is Chief of Hematology/Oncology at the Lombardi Cancer Center at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C.  He is a specialist in gastrointestinal cancer.
• Neal Merepol M.D. directs the Gastrointestinal Cancer Center at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadephia.

They will be joined by Kevin LaMartina, American Cancer Society Patient Navigator at St. Agnes Hospital In Baltimore. Read the rest of this entry »

The number of cancer tumor cells circulating in the bloodstream can provide information about prognosis and survival for people with metastatic colorectal cancer.  Measuring circulating tumor cells before beginning a treatment and then during treatment can help doctors decide if the therapy is working or whether cancer is getting worse.

Tumor cells can be found in the blood of cancer patients, but are very rare in healthy people.  Using a technique that identifies and magnetically separates circulating tumor cells, researchers were able to measure the number of circulating cells in a standard amount of blood. They measured circulating tumor cells before treatment began and again several times during treatment. Read the rest of this entry »