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Ultra-personal therapy: Gene tumor boards guide cancer care

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Doctors were just guessing a decade ago when they gave Alison Cairnes’ husband a new drug they hoped would shrink his lung tumors. Now she takes it too, but the choice was no guesswork. Sophisticated gene tests suggested it would fight her gastric cancer, and they were right. Cancer patients increasingly are having their care guided by gene tumor boards, a new version of the hospital panels that traditionally decided whether surgery, radiation or chemotherapy would be best. These experts study the patient’s cancer genes and match treatments to mutations that seem ...

College enshrines healthy living in bricks and mortar

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — Pledges by college students to eschew drugs and alcohol are old hat. Now they’re meditating, working out, practicing yoga, eating healthfully, and at least one school, the University of Vermont, it has become a bona fide lifestyle. In UVM’s Wellness Environment, known as WE, students live in a new, big substance-free dorm, take a required class in what affects the health of their brains and bodies, and are given incentives to stay healthy like access to a free gym membership, nutrition and fitness coaches and an app that tracks their activities. “We ...

FDA panel considers gene therapy for blindness

By Marilynn Marchione AP Chief Medical Writer A girl saw her mother’s face for the first time. A boy tore through the aisles of Target, marveling at toys he never knew existed. A teen walked onto a stage and watched the stunned expressions of celebrity judges as he wowed “America’s Got Talent.” Caroline, Cole, Christian. All had mere glimmers of vision and were destined to lose even that because of an inherited eye disease with no treatment or cure. Until now. On Thursday, U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisers will consider whether to recommend approval of a gene ...

Adult caregivers overwhelmed and undertrained

WASHINGTON (AP) — Adult caregivers looking after aging relatives and friends have little training for their stressful roles but still find the experience rewarding, according to a poll released Thursday. The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey finds that long-term caregivers don’t just provide rides to the doctor and run errands. Nearly half perform some kind of medical care, from changing bandages (30 percent) to inserting catheters or feeding tubes (6 percent). Only 47 percent of those say they got most or all of the training needed for their often ...

Trying to get sober? Tool helps find good care

WASHINGTON (AP) — The phone calls come — from fellow scientists and desperate strangers — with a single question for the alcohol chief at the National Institutes of Health: Where can my loved one find good care to get sober? The government has released a novel online tool to help — directories of alcohol treatment providers paired with key questions patients should ask for a better shot at high-quality care. “Most people think treatment is detox for 28 days or Alcoholics Anonymous. There’s a vast in-between,” said George Koob, director of NIH’s National Institute on ...

Get your flu shots, US urges amid concerns about bad season

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s flu shot time, and health officials are bracing for a potentially miserable fall and winter. The clues: The Southern Hemisphere, especially Australia, was hit hard over the past few months with a flu strain that’s notorious for causing severe illness, especially in seniors. And in the U.S., small clusters of that so-called H3N2 flu already are popping up. “We don’t know what’s going to happen but there’s a chance we could have a season similar to Australia,” Dr. Daniel Jernigan, influenza chief at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and ...