Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
The placebo effect is well-known in medicine. Give people a sugar pill, they have shown, and those patients — especially if they have one of the chronic, stress-related conditions that register the strongest placebo effects and if the treatment is delivered by someone in whom they have confidence — will improve. Tell someone a normal…
The winners are James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo for research to treat cancer using the body’s own immune system. The Nobel Prize officially was “for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.” The Wall Street Journal reports: The work of Drs. Allison and Honjo formed the backbone of new generations…
Everyone knows about the Human Genome project. The idea was to map all the genes in human (and some animal) DNA to get a better idea of the genetic factors that cause disease. However, there are many factors beyond DNA that cause disease. One may be the sugars in your body, also known as glycans. …
This paper–written with co-authors Mintu P. Turakhia, Katalin Bognar, Jeffrey Trocio, Younos Abdulsattar, Daniel Wiederkehr, and Dana P. Goldman–is now up at PLOS One. The study abstract is pasted below. Introduction As atrial fibrillation (AF) is often asymptomatic, it may remain undiagnosed until or even after development of complications, such as stroke. Consequently the observed…
An interesting profile on the Alien Hand Syndrome from Invisibilia of NPR.
Without a doubt, medicine has made tremendous gains over the last decades and even more progress when viewed across centuries. Often to treat diseases, physicians and researchers identify a single or primary pathway that is causing the disease. Maybe there is a gene mutation which causes an abnormality. Maybe there is a bacteria or virus…
Although this Saturday Evening Post article comparing how physicians and patients prefer end of life treatment is from 2013, it is interesting throughout. Years ago, Charlie, a highly respected orthopedist and a mentor of mine, found a lump in his stomach. He had a surgeon explore the area, and the diagnosis was pancreatic cancer. This…
Tyler Cowen has one of his “Conversations” with Atul Gawande. The interview is interesting throughout. Below is an excerpt from their discussion on artificial intelligence. TYLER COWEN: …How far are we from having an AI that is capable of actually doing diagnosis to people? That is, they might speak into a Skype connection, something like Watson would…
The answer seems to be just find the “best” treatment. In theory this sounds easy, but in practice it is difficult. What does best mean? What if one treatment has better outcomes on average but is riskier? What if one treatment is more effective than another but requires injections rather than pills? What if patients have…
In one of my recent publications, I show that patient and physician risk preferences differ. Patients are willing to take take treatments with more both upside and downside risk, whereas physician prescribe treatments large based on which one provides the most efficacy to the average patient. One question that remains is how do patients and physician preferences over treatments…