In Global News: I Love Life – Not Heart Failure, Air Pollution, and Medical Overuse [1]
Patient Care
The “I Love Life” campaign [3] to raise awareness of heart failure in Egypt launched this week.
Pollution was determined to contribute to over 9 million deaths worldwide in 2015 [4], with over 70% of these being heart-related and lung-related deaths linked to air pollution.
Surgical teams from Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, Ghana, and Boston Children’s Hospital in the US collaborated to provide congenital heart surgery [5] free of charge for 140 Ghanaian children.
Drugs and Devices
Alectinib (Alecensatm, Roche) was recommended by the European Medicine Agency CHMP [6] as a first-line treatment for ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer.
The Phase 3 JUNIPER trial evaluating abemaciclib (Verzeniotm, Eli Lilly) as monotherapy for KRAS-mutated non-small cell lung cancer did not meet the primary endpoint of overall survival [7], but secondary endpoints suggested efficacy.
Research, Trials, and Funding
A review published in JAMA: Internal Medicine highlights what the authors determined to be the 10 most notable studies examining medical overuse [8] published in 2016.
Heart surgery might provide useful benefits to patients with trisomy 13 and trisomy 18 [9].