At the first IMPAKT Breast Cancer Conference, to be a held in Brussels from May 7-9, scientists working in basic and translational research and the doctors who will implement their results will discuss how to bring emerging methods into clinical practice.

“Breast cancer is the most prevalent malignancy in women worldwide and there is an urgent need to translate scientific advances from the laboratory into tools and treatments that will help patients,” said meeting co-chair Prof Martine Piccart, Head of the Department of Medicine at the Jules Bordet Institute in Brussels.

“At IMPAKT we will have exceptional basic research scientists presenting new molecular pathways, which will then be discussed by clinicians with a focus on the new drugs being developed based on those pathways; and finally we will have imaging experts presenting their point of view on how to identify patients that can best respond to such treatments”.

At the meeting new data will be presented including:

* Specific gene mutations in breast cancer development
* Factors that influence breast cancer recurrence
* Tools to predict the efficacy of breast cancer drugs
* New methods for personalizing treatment

“New research is revealing potential new targets for the treatment of breast cancer,” said meeting co-chair Prof Jose Baselga, Director of the Division of Medical Oncology, Hematology, and Radiation Oncology at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona, Spain. “New molecular tools and novel diagnostic, prognostic and predictive methods are being developed. We now need to evaluate those new targets, and implement the new techniques. The meeting will help doctors bring the research directly into their clinical work. ”

IMPAKT is more than just a breast cancer meeting. It represents a strong commitment by a growing and united alliance of European breast cancer groups, working together to keep pace with advances in translational research and their relevance for treating patients.

The meeting is being launched by the Breast International Group (BIG) and the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), in collaboration with St. Gallen Primary Therapy of Early Breast Cancer Conference and the three European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC) partners: The European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), the European Society of Breast Cancer Specialists, and Europa Donna – The European Breast Cancer Coalition. IMPAKT is also supported by the European School of Oncology (ESO).

“The meeting is a tangible proof that we are all committed to accelerating the transfer of scientific knowledge from the laboratory to the patient and back again,” said Prof Piccart.

Other meeting highlights:

* New therapeutic strategies
* New markers of response to treatment
* Using gene expression to tailor treatment
* New imaging techniques to help guide therapy

Notes:

Meeting venue

The IMPAKT-Breast Cancer Conference will take place at the Crowne Plaza Brussels City Center.

The conference full program.

Accommodation

For hotel reservation, please visit: esmo/events/breast-2009/book-hotel.html

About the Breast International Group (BIG)

The Breast International Group (BIG) is an international non-profit organisation for academic breast cancer research groups from around the world, based in Brussels, Belgium. Created by leading European opinion leaders in 1996, BIG now constitutes a network of 44 groups based in Europe, Canada, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific region. These research entities are tied to approximately 3,000 specialised hospitals and research centres worldwide. BIG also collaborates with the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) and North American collaborative groups, with BIG and the North Americans together representing an impressive integrating force in the breast cancer research arena. To make significant scientific advances in breast cancer research, reduce the wasteful duplication of effort, and optimally serve those affected by the disease, large-scale cooperation is crucial. Therefore BIG facilitates breast cancer research at international level, by stimulating cooperation between its members and other academic networks, and collaborating with, but working independently from, the pharmaceutical industry.

About the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)

The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) is a non-profit organization which promotes medical oncology and a multidisciplinary approach to cancer treatment.

ESMO is a community of oncology professionals that unites key stakeholders who share the common objective of preventing cancer, fostering a favorable environment for scientific research, and advocating for equal access to high quality cancer treatment. As the leading European professional medical oncology society, ESMO offers state-of-the-art educational and training programs which provide the oncology community with a platform to disseminate the most up-to-date scientific research and information available. ESMO’s scientific journal, Annals of Oncology, ranks among the top clinical oncology journals worldwide. ESMO is an authoritative voice in the fight against cancer and offers consultative expertise to oncology organizations and European authorities on important issues related to cancer research, prevention, diagnosis, treatment and cure.

Source:
ESMO Press Office
European Society for Medical Oncology

Approximately half of all American children who arrive at hospital emergency department with a head injury undergo a CT scan. In many cases, staff say parental concern and pressure may influence diagnostic decisions.

In a head CT scan, several X-rays are directed simultaneously from various angles so that a picture of the inside of the brain can be created. CT scans help detect brain tumors, they make it easier for health care professionals to determine whether there is any bleeding and how bad it is.

However, X-ray exposure slightly raises the patient’s lifetime risk of developing cancer. As children are at the beginning of their lives, their risk is greater.

Doctors tend to underestimate CT scan radiation risk, a 2007 NEJM (New England Journal of Medicine) study revealed. The authors believe there may be over 1 million unnecessary CT scans performed on American children annually.

If a child with a head injury were kept under observation for a little longer, perhaps a few hours when they enter an emergency department, a significant number of them would end up not needing a CT scan, and would not be exposed to X-rays, the authors of the Pediatrics article wrote.

Co-lead author Dr Lise Nigrovic, said:

“Only a small percentage of children with blunt head trauma really have something serious going on.”

Not only would fewer CT scans be better for children’s long-term health, it would also reduce costs. CT scans are extremely useful if the patient really needs it, Nigrovic said, but children who are at low risk of serious injury do not often need it.

As far as parents are concerned, it would mean waiting in the hospital a few hours longer while the child is under observation.

Nigrovic said:

“It’s the children in the middle risk groups – those who don’t appear totally normal, but whose injury isn’t obviously severe – for whom observation can really help.”

Nigrovic and team gathered data from PECARN (the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network), a subset of data from a larger study.

They examined the outcomes of over 40,000 child patients with head injuries in 25 emergency departments. 14% were kept under observation before deciding whether to order a CT scan. 31% of those kept under observation subsequently underwent a CT scan, compared to 35% who were not observed.

As the head injuries became more severe, the difference between those placed under observation and those not widened – children placed under observation had half the likelihood of having to undergo a CT scan. In many cases, while being observed, the children’s symptoms improved.

A further study is required which would look at how long children were under observation – this was not done in this study, the authors added. Children should be kept under observation after a head injury for between 4 and 6 hours, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The following steps should be taken if your child has a head injury, says Nigrovic:

Before taking your child to the emergency department, consult with your GP (general practitioner, primary care physician, family doctor)
If the child seems confused, vomits or has a headache take him/her straight to the emergency department.
If the child’s symptoms appear to be getting worse, take him/her straight to the emergency department
At the hospital, accept that the medical staff may recommend placing the child under observation for a few hours before deciding on whether to order a CT scan. It gives the doctors time to see whether symptoms are changing, which helps them make that decision.

“The Effect of Observation on Cranial Computed Tomography Utilization for Children After Blunt Head Trauma”
Lise E. Nigrovic, MD, MPH, Jeff E. Schunk, MD, Adele Foerster, MSN, Arthur Cooper, MD, Michelle Miskin, MS, Shireen M. Atabaki, MD, MPH, John Hoyle, MD, Peter S. Dayan, MD, MS, James F. Holmes, MD, MPH, Nathan Kuppermann, MD, MPH
Pediatrics Doi: 10.1542/peds.2010-3373

Led by Biochemistry professor Peter Davies, the research team’s discovery will be useful in developing new drug treatments that can aid recovery in stroke and heart disease, as well as lessen the effects of Alzheimer’s and other neurologically degenerative diseases.

“This is particularly exciting because the enzyme structure we were seeking – and the way its inhibitor blocks activity without itself being damaged – have proved so elusive until now,” says Dr. Davies, Canada Research Chair in Protein Engineering.

The team’s findings will be published on-line in the international journal, Nature, on Thursday Nov. 20.

In remodeling proteins needed for cell growth and movement, our cells use the enzyme calpain to break off pieces from other proteins. Calpain is activated when the cell releases short bursts of calcium.

During heart attacks or strokes, however, blood supply to cells is interrupted. When the blockage is re-opened, the influx of blood causes calcium levels in the cell to become dangerously high, and the calpain activity to increase. The result is significant damage to tissues. “While you want the enzyme to switch on and off, you don’t want it to go out of control,” says Biochemistry research associate Rob Campbell, a member of the Queen’s team.

The study shows how another protein, calpastatin, binds and blocks calpain once it has been activated by calcium. Dr. Campbell, an x-ray crystallographer, and PhD student Rachel Hanna were able to determine the structure of the calcium-bound calpain and discover how calpastatin can inhibit calpain without being cut and destroyed in the process. That information will be useful in designing drugs to protect against the damage caused by over-activation of calpain.

Because the crystals grown in the lab at Queen’s were too small to be used for X-ray diffraction data collection on the university’s diffractometer, Dr. Campbell and Ms Hanna booked time on the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven Long Island (operated by the U.S. Department of Energy).

Working in shifts around the clock, they collected the required data during the first nine of their 48 allotted hours. After another hour, “We knew we had the structure solved,” Ms Hanna recalls. “It was really exciting. We immediately sent an e-mail to Peter to say: ‘We did it!’”

###

The study was funded in part by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. Ms Hanna is the recipient of an E.G. Bauman Fellowship and an R.J. Wilson Fellowship.

Contact: Nancy Dorrance

Queen’s University

Costa-Mattioli is being honored with the prestigious Eppendorf and Science Prize for Neurobiology for his work identifying a single molecule that when modified can affect memory.

His findings are outlined in his winning essay titled “Switching memories ON and OFF” that can be found in the current publication of Science.

“This is certainly one of the first steps to one day being able to help those suffering from age-related memory loss or even the more devastating memory loss caused by Alzheimer’s disease,” Costa-Mattioli said. “It is imperative to understand how the brain’s basic molecular processes function to generate corresponding insights in cognitive disorders.”

It is well known that making long-lasting memories is dependent on the ability of brain cells to create new proteins. Costa-Mattioli found that by reducing activity of a key protein called translation initiation factor 2 alpha, eiF2?±, the expression of genes and proteins needed for the formation of a long-lasting memory is increased. Costa-Mattioli and colleagues genetically reduced eiF2?± activity in mice. The test mice were then tested in a variety of behavioral paradigms. For instance, to study spatial memory, which underlie our ability to remember people, events and a particular environment; mice were trained in the Morris Water. In this task, mice swimming in a pool of opaque water search for a submerged platform. The mice used visual cues that are placed on the walls of the room to remember the location of the platform.

The mice with reduced activity of eiF2?± were able to find the platform significantly faster than the average mice.

“Unlike normal mice, mice with decreased eIF2?± activity knew exactly where the platform was located and swam straight towards it,” he said.

Researchers also looked at the strength of the connections between neurons, called synapse, what is believed to be a “cellular model” to study learning and memory. Usually weak stimulation elicits a short lasting response or a transient enhancement of such synaptic connections, while strong or repeated activity triggers a long-lasting persistent enhancement of the strength of synaptic connections. Strikingly, in the test mice weak stimulation induced longer lasting strengthening of the synaptic connections between neurons, indicating that a short exposure to a given experience created long term memories.

“It usually takes several attempts to memorize a passage of a textbook, practice makes it perfect” Costa-Mattioli said. “A human equivalent of these mice would get the information if he reads it just once.”

An important aspect of Costa-Mattioli’s studies is that treatment of mice with a drug which increases the activity of eIF2?± block the formation of long-lasting changes and long-term memory.

“The ability to erase specific memories would be crucial in the treatment of patients suffering from traumatic memories such as post-traumantic stress disorder,” he said.

Dr. Michael Friedlander, chair of the department of neuroscience at BCM and the director of Neuroscience Initiatives at the College, said, “We are extremely fortunate to have recruited Dr. Costa-Mattioli to BCM. His recent discoveries on the role of specific protein synthesis in the conversion of short-term to long-term memories have dramatically re-awakened the world neuroscience community’s interest in this critical molecular process. These new insights will drive experimental innovation in basic neurobiology of memory and diseases such as Alzheimer’s that rob us of this most precious function.”

Costa-Mattioli’s recruitment to Houston was supported by the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation. He joins a growing memory research community in the Department of Neuroscience and in the new Mitchell Center for Brain Aging and Dementia and the Center for Memory and Learning at BCM.

Costa-Mattioli’s studies were started at McGill University in Canada in the laboratory of Nahum Sonenberg.

###

The Eppendorf and Science Prize for Neurobiology acknowledges the role of neurobiology in advancing our understanding of the functioning of the brain and the nervous system. It is awarded annually for the most outstanding neurobiological research by a young scientist.

The award ceremony will be held in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 16.

The embargo lifts the essay can be found at sciencemag/.

For more information on basic science research at Baylor College of Medicine, please go to bcm.edu/fromthelab.

Source: Graciela Gutierrez

Baylor College of Medicine

The researchers found decreased formation of cell-to-cell connections, cell division and amounts of growth factors in the fetuses of mothers fed a reduced diet during the first half of pregnancy, in baboons located at SFBR’s Southwest National Primate Research Center.

The study, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and funded by the National Institutes of Health and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, also included scientists from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA) and Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany.

“Our collaboration allowed us to determine that the nutritional environment impacts the fetal brain at both the cellular and molecular levels,” said SFBR’s Laura Cox, Ph.D. “That is, we found dysregulation of hundreds of genes, many of which are known to be key regulators in cell growth and development, indicating that nutrition plays a major role during fetal development by regulating the basic cellular machinery.”

The team compared two groups of baboon mothers, one eating as much as they wanted during the first half of pregnancy and the other receiving 30 percent less food, a level of nutrition similar to what many prospective mothers in the U.S. experience. The nonhuman primate model’s brain developmental stages are very close to those of human fetuses, the researchers noted. Most previous research in this area was conducted in rats.

“This study is a further demonstration of the importance of good maternal health and diet,” said senior author Thomas McDonald, Ph.D., of UTHSCSA. “It supports the view that poor diets in pregnancy can alter development of fetal organs, in this case the brain, in ways that will have lifetime effects on offspring, potentially lowering I.Q. and predisposing to behavioral problems.”

While it is known that marked nutrient restriction, such as in famine conditions, adversely affects development of the fetal brain. McDonald said the study “is the first demonstration of major effects caused by the levels of food insecurity that occur in sections of U.S. society and demonstrates the vulnerability of the fetus to moderate reduction in nutrients.”

Researchers now must review the commonly held notion that during pregnancy the mother is able to protect the fetus from dietary challenges such as poor nutrition, McDonald said.

“This is a critical time window when many of the neurons as well as the supporting cells in the brain are born,” said Peter Nathanielsz, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center for Pregnancy and Newborn Research in the Health Science Center School of Medicine.

Nathanielsz noted:

– In teenage pregnancy, the developing fetus is deprived of nutrients by the needs of the growing mother;

– In pregnancies late in reproductive life, a woman’s arteries are stiffer and the blood supply to the uterus decreases, inevitably affecting nutrient delivery to the fetus;

– Diseases such as preeclampsia or high blood pressure in pregnancy can lead to decreased function of the placenta with decreased delivery of nutrients to the fetus.

Developmental programming of lifetime health has been shown to play a role in later development of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. This new finding provides impetus for researchers to look into the effects of developmental programming in the context of autism, depression, schizophrenia and other brain disorders.

Source: Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (SFBR)

Neuroscientists from UC Berkeley, UCSF and Johns Hopkins University tracked the electrical signals emitted from the brains of hospitalized epilepsy patients. They discovered that neurons in one part of the patients’ hearing mechanism were dimmed when they talked, while neurons in other parts lit up.

Their findings, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, offer new clues about how we hear ourselves above the noise of our surroundings and monitor what we say. Previous studies have shown a selective auditory system in monkeys that can amplify their self-produced mating, food and danger alert calls, but until this latest study, it was not clear how the human auditory system is wired.

“We used to think that the human auditory system is mostly suppressed during speech, but we found closely knit patches of cortex with very different sensitivities to our own speech that paint a more complicated picture,” said Adeen Flinker, a doctoral student in neuroscience at UC Berkeley and lead author of the study.

“We found evidence of millions of neurons firing together every time you hear a sound right next to millions of neurons ignoring external sounds but firing together every time you speak,” Flinker added. “Such a mosaic of responses could play an important role in how we are able to distinguish our own speech from that of others.”

While the study doesn’t specifically address why humans need to track their own speech so closely, Flinker theorizes that, among other things, tracking our own speech is important for language development, monitoring what we say and adjusting to various noise environments.

“Whether it’s learning a new language or talking to friends in a noisy bar, we need to hear what we say and change our speech dynamically according to our needs and environment,” Flinker said.

He noted that people with schizophrenia have trouble distinguishing their own internal voices from the voices of others, suggesting that they may lack this selective auditory mechanism. The findings may be helpful in better understanding some aspects of auditory hallucinations, he said.

Moreover, with the finding of sub-regions of brain cells each tasked with a different volume control job – and located just a few millimeters apart – the results pave the way for a more detailed mapping of the auditory cortex to guide brain surgery.

In addition to Flinker, the study’s authors are Robert Knight, director of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at UC Berkeley; neurosurgeons Edward Chang, Nicholas Barbaro and neurologist Heidi Kirsch of the University of California, San Francisco; and Nathan Crone, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.

The auditory cortex is a region of the brain’s temporal lobe that deals with sound. In hearing, the human ear converts vibrations into electrical signals that are sent to relay stations in the brain’s auditory cortex where they are refined and processed. Language is mostly processed in the left hemisphere of the brain.

In the study, researchers examined the electrical activity in the healthy brain tissue of patients who were being treated for seizures. The patients had volunteered to help out in the experiment during lulls in their treatment, as electrodes had already been implanted over their auditory cortices to track the focal points of their seizures.

Researchers instructed the patients to perform such tasks as repeating words and vowels they heard, and recorded the activity. In comparing the activity of electrical signals discharged during speaking and hearing, they found that some regions of the auditory cortex showed less activity during speech, while others showed the same or higher levels.

“This shows that our brain has a complex sensitivity to our own speech that helps us distinguish between our vocalizations and those of others, and makes sure that what we say is actually what we meant to say,” Flinker said.

Source:
University of California – Berkeley

With a real intention to change the current situation and shape advanced processes: governmental bodies, the pharma industry and leading academics are strongly advocating initiatives such as HTA establishment and increasing transparency of reimbursement processes. Although the mission ahead is complicated and is raising a number of debates, it seems like the process has started and pricing and reimbursement models will be clearer in the short to medium terms.

This event will provide a first-source information from the people which are deeply involved in promoting advanced market access models in Turkey and wish to have a voice in such discussions.

This will be an excellent platform for a unique multi-stakeholder discussion and a reliable source of information for all manufacturers which are already active or planning to extend their business in Turkey.

Why Attend?
Achieve your planned pricing and reimbursement targets by understanding how Policy makers, pharma manufacturers and academics are viewing market access models in Turkey today.

Learn more about how reimbursement applications are being assessed and which data can make the difference.

Understand which pricing and reimbursement models are being followed in Turkey and which models may be implemented in the future.

Meet experts which are involved in designing HTA initiatives and find out which models they are advocating.

Network with decision makers and have a voice on future developments in a unique event that is focusing purely on market access in Turkey.
Who will benefit?

Pharmaceutical manufacturers:

Vice-Presidents, Directors, Managers involved in:Pricing & Reimbursement, Market-Access, Health Outcomes, Health Economics, Payer-Relations, Government Affairs, Regulatory Affairs, Medical, Marketing, Emerging Markets, Country Heads, Brand & Product Managers.

Solution providers & consultants:

CEOs, Business Development, Senior Consultants, Regional Heads.

Agenda request.

For Booking Information contact:
Erika Vavrovicova
Tel: +421 232 660 382
Fax: +421 233 010 331
erikanextlevelpharma

“If you want your kids to do well in school, then the amount of education you get yourself is important,” said Pamela Davis-Kean, a psychologist at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). “This may mean that parents need to go back to school.

“A growing number of large-scale, long-term studies now show that increasing parental education beyond high school is strongly linked to increasing language ability in children. Even after controlling for parental income, marital status and a host of other factors, we find that the impact of parental education remains significant.”

Davis-Kean, who is also affiliated with the U-M Psychology Department, directs the ISR Center for the Analysis of Pathways from Childhood to Adulthood, funded by the National Science Foundation. She is co-editor of the July 2009 issue of the Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, a peer-reviewed journal presenting research sponsored by the center that employs multiple perspectives to analyze the impact parents have on their children’s educational attainment.

One of the studies in the special issue examines the long-term effects of parental education on children’s success in school and work, beginning when children are eight years old and extending until they are age 48.

Another study examines how language skills and school readiness of three-year-olds are positively affected when mothers return to school.

“In every case, we’ve found that an increase in parental education has a positive impact on children’s success in school,” said Davis-Kean. “And this impact is particularly strong when parents start with a high school education or less.

“These findings may be reassuring to parents at a time when many are unemployed or worried about future job prospects. They clearly show that in terms of the effect on children’s achievement, it’s more important for parents to get a good education than to get a high-paying job. Of course, the more education you have, the more likely it is that you’ll find a good job, so an increase in education often leads to an increase in income.”

The reasons behind the power of parental education are not yet fully understood, but researchers think it’s more than just providing a model that children want to imitate.

More education might mean that parents are more likely to read to their children, suggests Davis-Kean. Or it could be that parents who are in school need to be more organized in order to get everything done, so they tend to create a more structured home environment, with dinner and bedtime occurring at regular times, for example. This kind of predictable, structured environment has a positive impact on child development, many studies have shown.

Creating a more structured environment for children – as opposed to giving them lots of free time – has been getting something of a bad reputation lately, Davis-Kean notes. But she believes that for the vast majority of U.S. children, the value of free time has been exaggerated.

“There’s this idealistic, nostalgic idea that free time gives children a chance to go out and play, and just experience nature,” she said. “But in reality, in today’s world where both parents are likely to be employed outside the home, what free time means for most kids is sitting in front of the TV, playing video games and generally being bored with no stimulation.

“What’s really valuable for children is being engaged in activities that are supervised by adults. When kids are unsupervised, you see an increase in injuries. And summer down time also has negative influences on school achievement in the fall.”

So parents who are going to school themselves should not worry about the effects of arranging more supervised activities for their children, according to Davis-Kean.

Source:
Diane Swanbrow

University of Michigan

Nursing facilities are facing increased government scrutiny. Federal and state government agencies are auditing the services provided and carefully inspecting documentation, coding, billing, and the quality of care provided. An effective compliance education program is essential in protecting nursing facilities from fines and penalties.

Online compliance training courses from HCCS are in use at hundreds of healthcare institutions across the country to provide recurring compliance training for staff and administrators. The courses, including the new Nursing Facility compliance course and online HIPAA compliance training course, are designed to change staff behavior and maintain compliance with changing regulations. The online courses are customizable, easy to understand, and updated annually or more often as regulations change. The courses include interactive exercises to keep learners engaged and increase retention.

The Nursing Facility Compliance course covers many areas including:

– Compliance Risk Areas

– Compliance Programs

– Documentation and Coding

– Compliance Review

– Billing and Reimbursement

– Resident Care Risk Areas

“The Nursing Facility Compliance course expands our widely used online compliance training library to the vital long term care providers,” says Ben Diamond, President of HCCS. “The course provides a great foundation for a compliance program to educate nursing facility employees about fraud, waste, and abuse. It provides a measure of protection for these organizations from increasing and relentless government attention. Large health systems can utilize both the HCCS Corporate Compliance online training course and this new Nursing Facility Compliance course to meet the compliance training needs of all of their facilities.”

Source: Health Care Compliance Strategies, Inc

“The program helped improve distress and despair during the initial three months and up to six months after diagnosis among women with metastatic breast cancer and a six month life expectancy,” said Amy Abernethy, M.D., an oncologist at Duke University Medical Center and lead investigator on the study. “Even though the women were getting sicker and experiencing more symptoms related to their cancer, they reported that they felt less distress and despair as a result of being able to better cope with the cancer.”

Pathfinders focuses on the seven pillars of personal recovery: hope, balance, inner strengths, self care, support, spirit and life review. The program provides patient navigation, counseling, coping skills training, mind and body techniques and lifestyle advice.

“The goal of the program is to teach patients coping skills for dealing with their cancer,” said Tina Staley, director of Pathfinders. “To reach this goal, we have created a common language between patients, nurses, physicians and Pathfinders for communicating coping skills.”

For this pilot study, the researchers enrolled 50 adult breast cancer patients with a prognosis of less than six months survival. The women met with a Pathfinder, a trained social worker, at least monthly, plus telephone conversations and e-mail exchanges. The social workers helped the women identify inner strength, taught them coping skills and encouraged them to engage in complementary and alternative medical services.

The researchers present their findings on a poster at the 2009 American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Orlando, on Sunday, May 31.

“There is a growing body of data that shows cancer patients have unmet psychosocial needs, and with programs like Pathfinders we are able to care for the whole person,” Abernethy said. “As a result, we found that this group of women reported a higher quality of life three months after being diagnosed than was expected.”

Additional authors on the study include Tina Staley, James Herndon II, April Coan, Jane Wheeler, Krista Rowe, Barbara Horne and H. Kim Lyerly of Duke.

Source:
Erin Pratt

Duke University Medical Center