Patients affected by cancer are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence-powered chatbots, such as ChatGPT and Gemini, for answers to pressing health questions. These tools, available around the clock and free from geographic or scheduling constraints, are appealing when access to medical professionals is limited by financial, language, logistical, or emotional barriers.
There is general agreement that the United States spends too much on health care, especially on pharmaceuticals. But what we spend on drugs is not simply a function of price. If eggs double in price, people can simply cut the number of eggs they eat in half. Simply stated, cost is the product of (price per unit times the number of units purchased).
Our Hispanic community is a vibrant and essential part of the American tapestry, contributing richly to the country’s society, culture, and economy. Yet, when it comes to healthcare, this community grapples with significant disparities, especially in cancer care.
It started innocuously enough. I looked in the mirror and noticed a pigmented area on my scalp just into the hairline. Like many patients, thoughts started running through my head: “Maybe it’s nothing.” Looking at my Outlook calendar, it was packed morning-to-night with meetings, patients, and travel, so I decided I would get that spot checked out the minute I had “time.”
With advances in treatment and screening for earlier detection, oncologists have improved cancer survival rates dramatically. That is excellent news, but the surging number of survivors means it is increasingly important for providers to focus more diligently on what patients need to thrive after treatment.
Credit: Jonah Elkowitz/ShutterstockThat President Biden was diagnosed with prostate cancer is certainly unfortunate news, but it should come as no surprise. One in eight men in the U.S. will be told they have prostate cancer at some point in their lifetime: more than 300,000 new diagnoses occur annually, and the absolute numbers are rising.
True innovation in healthcare requires us to look beyond the obvious. For years, DNA sequencing has been the key pillar of precision medicine, offering insights into disease predispositions, mechanisms, and diagnosis that inform treatment.
As the number of cancer survivors in the U.S. continues to rise and the age at diagnosis for some cancers appears to be shifting younger, the need for long-term survivorship care is more urgent than ever.
In an effort to target the right patients, genetic screening is becoming more common in clinical trials. But incorporating it can be complex and add a significant burden for both patients and clinical trial sites. Genetic counseling can streamline that process and help drug and gene therapy developers expedite the recruitment of genetically-eligible participants for their trials and use genetic testing results to accelerate the speed and success of clinical trials.
The definition of “therapeutic imperative” is this: A treatment necessity that must be met in order to prevent death. Once the imperative is clearly defined, addressing it properly links correct diagnosis with therapy and favorable prognosis. On the other hand, misdiagnosis or inadequate diagnosis fails to provide a framework for highly effective or curative therapy.
