Research Plug!

Hey there everyone,

Hope is a super powerful medicine - for both patients and their doctors.  I am an advocate of clinical trials because in the 9 years I've been at WVCI - I've seen firsthand how research changes lives and the diseases we have been treating.  I've had the blessing to be involved with ibrutinib, idelalisib, obinutuzumab since the very beginning and many more drugs - some of which we will be routinely using soon.

My research group put together this video and it packs a punch in 3 minutes.  I hope you are all energized to go out there and talk to your providers about research options that might be right for you.

Thanks for watching

Selecting Therapy in CLL

The CLL landscape continues to change very quickly.  I have previously written about picking a first line therapy, but my post from 2013 has become quickly outdated.

I recently had the opportunity to participate with a group called "Clinical Care Options" on a decision support tool that allows you to plug in a variety of variables that are central to picking out a treatment regimen and then seeing what therapy would be selected by a handful of experts.

To use the tool, you have to register for an account - but I thought it would be worth it for a number of patients who are at the point of picking out a particular therapy.

Here is a link to the tool

I also serve on the CLL Steering Committee for Medscape.  We have recently conducted several taped interviews discussing how to pick therapy in both the front line and relapsed / refractory setting.  Here again, you need to sign up for an account - but worth it if you want more color commentary regarding the tool outlined above.

Here is the link for the frontline video with me and Steve Coutre

Here is the link for the the relapsed / refractory video with Stephen Schuster, Matthew Davids and Amy Goodrich

I would like to predict that these will remain relevant tools for the foreseeable future but I am happy to report that they will only be valuable for another 12-24 months before the world changes again.

I tried to embed these tools directly on the blog but unfortunately was not able to do so.  I hope you find them helpful.

Thanks for reading / viewing / tooling.

The Improvisational Oncologist

I have been a big fan of Sid Mukherjee ever since we were om training together.   I was a mere intern and he was a Jr. Resident but it is always fun to be in the presence of somebody who is really smart and really humble about it.

He went on to write, "The Emperor of all Maladies" which won the Pulitzer Prize and documents the history of cancer treatment.  If you haven't read it, I highly recommend you read it or watch the six hour documentary that Ken Burns made out of it for PBS.

Sid wrote an article for the New York Times Magazine posted this weekend called "The Improvisational Oncologist."  It is an informative read that describes some of the new medical adventures we have to take with our patients.  If you haven't read it, I would encourage you to do so.