Author Interviews, Cancer Research, JAMA / 31.12.2020
How Have Payments to Cancer Doctors Changed Since Open Payments Program?
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
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Dr. Marshall[/caption]
Deborah C. Marshall, MD
New York University School of Medicine
New York, New York
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Tarras ES, Marshall DC, Rosenzweig K, Korenstein D, Chimonas S. Trends in Industry Payments to Medical Oncologists in the United States Since the Inception of the Open Payments Program, 2014 to 2019. JAMA Oncol. Published online December 30, 2020. doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2020.6591
MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?
Response: Overall, though, there has not been a dramatic shift in these interactions after the inception of Open Payments.
Dr. Marshall[/caption]
Deborah C. Marshall, MD
New York University School of Medicine
New York, New York
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Tarras ES, Marshall DC, Rosenzweig K, Korenstein D, Chimonas S. Trends in Industry Payments to Medical Oncologists in the United States Since the Inception of the Open Payments Program, 2014 to 2019. JAMA Oncol. Published online December 30, 2020. doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2020.6591
MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?
Response: Overall, though, there has not been a dramatic shift in these interactions after the inception of Open Payments.
Dr. Li[/caption]
Li Li, MS, PhD Candidate
Division of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, Ohio State University
Graduate Research Associate, Center for Injury Research and Policy
The Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Marijuana use impairs cognitive abilities necessary for safe driving, including reaction time, road lane-tracking ability, and attention maintenance. Given increasing legalization of marijuana use in the US, our study aimed to estimate marijuana-impaired driving among teens at a national level and help to identify the current prevalence to guide future intervention programs.
Dr. Reed[/caption]
Nicholas S. Reed, AuD
Assistant Professor | Department of Epidemiology
Core Faculty | Cochlear Center for Hearing and Public Health
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: It is known that hearing aid ownership is relatively low in the United States at less than 20% of adults with hearing loss owning and using hearing aids. However, many national estimates of hearing aid ownership are based on data that is over 10 years old. Our team was interested in trying to understand whether ownership in hearing aids had changed over time. We used data from 2011 to 2018 in a nationally representative (United States) observational cohort (The National Health and Aging Trends Study) of Medicare Beneficiaries aged 70 years and older to estimate the change in hearing aid ownership.
In our analysis, the proportion of Medicare beneficiaries 70 years and older who reported owning and using their hearing aids increased 23.3% from 2011 to 2018. However, this growth in ownership was not equal across all older adults. For example, while White males saw a 28.7% increase in hearing aid ownership, Black females saw only a 5.8% increase over the same 8-year period. Moreover, adults living at less than 100% federal poverty level actually saw an overall 13.0% decrease in hearing aid ownership while those living at more than 200% federal poverty line saw an overall 30.6% increase. 
Dr. Halpern-Felsher[/caption]
Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, PhD, FSAHM (pronouns: she/her)
Professor of Pediatrics
Taube Endowed Research Faculty Scholar
Professor (by courtesy), Epidemiology and Population Health
Professor (by courtesy), Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Director of Fellows’ Scholarship, Department of Pediatrics
Director of Research, Division of Adolescent Medicine
Co-leader, Scholarly Concentrations, Pediatrics Residency Program
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: To examine adolescent and young adult e-cigarette use during the COVID-19 pandemic.
There were 4 main findings:
Dr. Flaherty[/caption]
Michael R. Flaherty, DO
Attending, Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
Co-Director, Trauma and Injury Prevention Outreach Program, MGH
Instructor in Pediatrics,
Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA 02114
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: This study was a joint collaboration between Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) found an increasing incidence of rare earth magnet ingestions by children causing serious injury; Injuries are particularly serious when a child ingests two of these small magnets, or a magnet with another metal object – this can lead to bowel walls becoming attached and kinked, leading to catastrophic bowel injury and/or death.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission initiated campaigns to limit sales in 2012 with voluntary recalls and safety standards, as well as public awareness campaigns, legislative advocacy, and lawsuits. In October 2014, the CPSC published their final rule, “Safety Standard for Magnet Sets,” which prohibited the sale of magnets based on a pre-specified size and power scale, essentially eliminating the ability to sell SREMs. This rule was appealed by largest manufacturer of these magnets, Zen Magnets, LLC., and in November 2016 this rule was legally reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit resulting in a resurgence of these magnets on the market.
Dr. Spann[/caption]
Marisa N. Spann, PhD, MPH
Columbia University Irving Medical Center
New York, New York
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Prior research has demonstrated that higher maternal pre-pregnancy body mass index is associated with adverse long-term outcomes for offspring including obesity, poorer cognitive and social abilities, and increased risk of psychiatric disorders.
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?
Response: In this study, we investigated the association of maternal pre-pregnancy body mass index with fetal growth and neonatal functional connectivity and found that maternal pre-pregnancy BMI has a significant positive correlation with fetal weight and with greater thalamic connectivity of the brain. 
Dr. Sachdev[/caption]
Darpun D. Sachdev, M.D.
Case investigation and Contact tracing Branch Chief
SFDPH Covid Command Center
San Francisco Department of Public Health
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: The ultimate goal of contact tracing is to rapidly identify and isolate contacts who are COVID-19 positive before they have time to transmit to others. As mentioned in the published research letter by SFDPH, through JAMA, during early shelter-in-place (from April to June 2020), our contact tracing program successfully reached greater than 80% of cases and contacts within a median timeframe of 6 days from the onset of their case’s symptoms. Approximately 10% of named contacts were newly diagnosed with COVID-19 (compared to 2% positivity during this time period). Household contacts made up approximately 80% of all identified contacts, but 90% of contacts who tested positive lived in the same household as the case. Secondary cases (contacts who were found to be newly diagnosed with COVID-19) were traced and quarantined within 6 days of the case’s symptom onset.
With that said, the 6-day time difference between symptom onset and contact notification raises concern regarding the overall effectiveness of tracing in preventing onward transmission by infected contacts. We are working with community-based organizations to scale up access to testing and culturally competent tracing and wraparound services. Currently, we have now decreased the time difference to 5 days. Moreover, given that the majority of contacts resided in the same household, transmission could have occurred presymptomatically such that by the time infected contacts were identified, they might have already transmitted the virus. Hence, why SFDPH, on May 5, 2020, implemented the recommendation of universal testing for COVID-19 contacts, regardless of symptoms.
We recommend that testing should be offered to all contacts regardless of symptoms and encourage local health departments to adopt novel ways of increasing testing access for contacts.
![MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Selin Tokez, PhD Student Department of Dermatology Erasmus MC, Rotterdam MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) is the second most common skin cancer worldwide with still increasing incidence rates. Given these high incidence rates together with the associated health costs and possibility of fatal progression, it is extremely important to have accurate and complete data on the epidemiology of this disease. Nevertheless, national cancer registries in many countries do not routinely record cSCC cases and therefore currently known numbers are mainly based on incomplete data sources. Additionally, if cSCC cases are registered, this usually only concerns the first cSCC per patient while we know that, contrary to many other malignant neoplasms, patients may develop numerous cSCCs over time. MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings? Response: In the present study, we analyzed Dutch nationwide data comprising about 145,000 patients with a first invasive cSCC diagnosis between the years 1989 and 2017. We found that the incidence rates of a first cSCC per patient almost tripled in male patients and increased about fivefold in female patients in this 30-year time period. Also, we had data on all cSCCs per patient for the year 2017 and could therefore compare this with the data on only the first cSCC per patient: incidence rates increased by 58% for men and 35% for women when multiple cSCCs were considered. In absolute numbers, this resulted in an increase of 45% in cSCC diagnoses in 2017. Lastly, we extended our analyses by predicting future cSCC incidence rates up to 2027. Given that no substantially effective measures are undertaken in the near future, current cSCC incidence rates will increase with 23% in males and 29% in females in the next decade. MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report? Response: We could summarize our main message in two points: while people generally know that cSCC is a very common disease with increasing incidence rates, it is not taken into account that these numbers are often based on incomplete data registries and that the real numbers are even higher. In this paper, we provided these numbers for a period of 30 years based on highly accurate data from the Netherlands Cancer Registry. On top of that, as a second main finding, we showed that the real burden caused by cSCC is approximately 50% higher (taken males and females together) when all cSCC diagnoses in 1 year are registered instead of only the first tumor per patient. Together with our prediction analyses that showed an on average 26% further increase for the coming decade, this will have enormous implications for the dermato-oncological health care planning and cost management. Our results urgently call for revision of skin cancer health policies to be able to cope with this rising burden of cSCC management. Ultimately, primary prevention will remain the key strategy to halt the increasing trend in cSCC incidence and the occurrence of multiple cSCCs per patient, which we hope to further stimulate with our paper as well. MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this work? Response: As we had data on multiple cSCCs for only one year, we would suggest to perform trend analyses for multiple cSCCs per patient as well when a longer follow-up duration has been reached. Furthermore, it would be very relevant to identify high-risk cSCCs or patients at risk for multiple cSCCs in order to be able to establish efficient follow-up regimens and take these high risk groups into account when revising skin cancer health policies. MedicalResearch.com: Is there anything else you would like to add? Response: The authors of this study have no conflicts of interest that are relevant to this article. Citation: Tokez S, Hollestein L, Louwman M, Nijsten T, Wakkee M. Incidence of Multiple vs First Cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma on a Nationwide Scale and Estimation of Future Incidences of Cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma. JAMA Dermatol. Published online October 28, 2020. doi:10.1001/jamadermatol.2020.3677 [subscribe] Last Modified: [last-modified] The information on MedicalResearch.com is provided for educational purposes only, and is in no way intended to diagnose, cure, or treat any medical or other condition. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health and ask your doctor any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. In addition to all other limitations and disclaimers in this agreement, service provider and its third party providers disclaim any liability or loss in connection with the content provided on this website.](https://medicalresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/squamous-cell-cancer-dermnetnz-image.jpg)
