Author Interviews, Heart Disease, JAMA, Kidney Disease, Surgical Research / 04.05.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Nirat Beohar, MD Vice-Chief of Cardiology Director Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory Director Structural Heart Disease Program Director Interventional Cardiology Fellowship program Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory Columbia University Division of Cardiology, Mount Sinai Medical Center Miami Beach, Miami, FL 33140 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Nirat Beohar MD, Director of the Cardiovascular Catheterization Laboratory and Vice-Chief of Cardiology at the Columbia University Division of Cardiology at the Mount Sinai Medical Center and co-authors report the effect of trans-catheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) on subsequent renal function and outcomes in high-risk and inoperable patients presenting with baseline renal dysfunction (eGFR < 60 ml/min/1.73 m2). This was a sub-study of patients undergoing TAVR in the PARTNER 1 trial and continued access registry that was conducted in 25 centers in the United States and Canada. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Opiods, Pain Research, Surgical Research / 03.05.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Chad M. Brummett, M.D. Associate Professor Director, Clinical Anesthesia Research Director, Pain Research Department of Anesthesiology Division of Pain Medicine University of Michigan Medical School Ann Arbor, MI  48109  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The opioid epidemic has received tremendous attention in recent years, but most of the focus has been on chronic pain, opioid abuse and overdose. Far less attention has been paid to the importance of acute care prescribing (e.g. surgical pain) in patients that are not chronic opioid users. We found that 5-6% of patients not using opioids prior to surgery continued to fill prescriptions for opioids long after what would be considered normal surgical recovery. Moreover, the rates of new chronic use did not differ between patients having major and minor surgeries, suggesting that patients continue to use these pain medications for something other than simply pain from surgery. Building on other work by our group, and the few additional studies done on the topic to date, these data suggest that pain medications written for surgery are a major cause of new chronic opioid use for millions of Americans each year. (more…)
Author Interviews, JACC, Stroke, Surgical Research / 03.05.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jay S. Giri, MD, MPH Director, Peripheral Intervention Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine Penn Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We analyzed data from 6,526 patients in the 5 most recent randomized trials comparing carotid artery stenting to carotid endarterectomy.  These procedures are performed to prevent long-term stroke in patients with severe narrowings of their carotid arteries.  We learned that the procedures are equally effective in preventing stroke over the long-term.  However, the procedures have quite different safety profiles, defined as adverse events that the patients experienced within 30 days of their procedure. Carotid artery stenting was associated with a higher risk of stroke in the initial 30 days after the procedure.  Carotid endarterectomy was associated with greater risks of myocardial infarction (heart attack) and cranial nerve palsy, a variable condition that most often results in difficulty with swallowing or speaking, over this timeframe. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, JAMA, Surgical Research / 02.05.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. PJ Devereaux MD, PhD, FRCP(C) Director of the Division of Cardiolog Scientific Leader of the Anesthesiology, Perioperative Medicine and Surgical Research Group at the Population Health Research Institute Professor and University Scholar in the Departments of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact and Medicine McMaster University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Although the majority of patients undergoing noncardiac surgery benefit from surgery and do well, even when a small proportion of these patients have a serious complication it represents a major population issue. A recent publication in JAMA Cardiology established that >5 million Americans age ≥45 years undergo major in-patient noncardiac surgery annually, and 1.3% of these patients die in the hospital. This means 65,000 of these patients die, and cardiovascular causes are a dominant cause. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, JAMA, Mental Health Research, Surgical Research / 30.04.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Elinore J. Kaufman, MD, MSHP Department of Surgery, New York Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Medicine New York, New York MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Deaths of civilians in contact with police have recently gained national public and policy attention. However, we know very little about nonfatal injuries, which far outnumber deaths. MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report? Response: Nonfatal injuries are much more pervasive than law enforcement-associated deaths, and rates have remained stable over several years, at approximately 51,000 emergency department visits and hospitalizations each year. These injuries primarily affect young men, and mental illness is a common theme. As a physician, my goal is always to get to zero preventable injuries. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, JAMA, Outcomes & Safety, Surgical Research / 24.04.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Haggi Mazeh, MD, FACS Endocrine and General Surgery Department of Surgery Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, Mount Scopus Jerusalem, Israel 91240 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The level of operating room autonomy given to surgical residents varies greatly between different institutions and different countries. On one hand, providing residents the opportunity to operate alone augments their confidence and their sense of responsibility, possibly accelerating their learning process. On the other hand, it may be argued that the presence of a senior general surgeon in every operation is a safer approach. Before 2012, a large proportion of appendectomies at our institution were performed by surgical residents alone. After 2012, our institutional policy changed to require the presence of a senior general surgeon in every appendectomy case. This unique situation provided us the opportunity to compare the outcomes of appendectomies performed by residents alone to those performed in the presence of a senior general surgeon. Our study demonstrated no difference in the complication rates between the two groups of patients. However, surgeries performed in the presence of senior general surgeons were significantly shorter than those performed by residents. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Surgical Research / 20.04.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Emmanouil S. Brilakis, MD, PhD Director, Center for Advanced Coronary Interventions Minneapolis Heart Institute Minneapolis, Minnesota 55407 Adjunct Professor of Medicine University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Calcification in the coronary arteries might hinder lesion crossing, equipment delivery and stent expansion and contribute to higher rates of in-stent restenosis, as well as stent thrombosis. In this project we sought to examine the impact of calcific deposits on the outcomes of chronic total occlusion (CTO) percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in a contemporary, multicenter registry. We analyzed the outcomes of 1,476 consecutive CTO PCIs performed in 1,453 patients between 2012 and 2016 at 11 US centers. Data collection was performed in a dedicated online database (PROGRESS CTO: Prospective Global Registry for the Study of Chronic Total Occlusion Intervention, Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT02061436). (more…)
Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, Chemotherapy, JAMA, MD Anderson, Surgical Research / 20.04.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Audree Tadros, MD, MPH Chief Administrative Fellow, Breast Surgical Oncology Training Program Department of Breast Surgical Oncology MD Anderson Cancer Center and Henry M. Kuerer, MD, PhD, FACS Executive Director, Breast Programs MD Anderson Cancer Network PH and Fay Etta Robinson Distinguished Professor in Cancer Research Dept of Breast Surgical Oncology Director, Breast Surgical Oncology Training Program MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NCT) has the ability to confer a pCR (pathologic complete response-when no residual cancer is found) in both the breast and axillary lymph nodes. We know that this is most likely to occur in women with HER2 positive and triple negative disease. The high rate of pCR among these patients raises the question of whether surgery is still required, particularly among those who will receive adjuvant radiation therapy. Until recently, we lacked the ability to pre-operatively predict patients who achieved a breast pCR. Recently, we completed a clinical feasibility trial examining the ability of image-guided biopsy to predict a pCR after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Our biopsy technique was able to accurately predict a pCR in 98% of patients with only a 5% false negative rate. Based upon these findings, we believe we can accurately determine which patients achieve a breast pCR. This led us to develop a clinical trial to see if breast surgery is redundant in patients who achieve a pCR. An important question that remained was if we are going to omit breast surgery in these exceptional responders, can we also omit axillary surgery? (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Opiods, Surgical Research, University of Michigan / 18.04.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Chad M. Brummett, MD Division of Pain Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology University of Michigan Medical School Ann Arbor, MI 48109  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The opioid epidemic has received considerable attention, but most of the focus has been on chronic pain and primary care. However, surgeons prescribe ~40% of the opioids in the US, and little attention has been given to the importance of prescribing after surgery. In this study, we found that among patients not using opioids in the year prior to surgery, ~6% of patients continued to use opioids long after what would be considered normal surgical recovery. Furthermore, there was no difference between patients undergoing minor and major surgeries, thereby suggesting that some patients continue to use opioids for reasons other than pain related to surgery. (more…)
Author Interviews, Surgical Research / 08.04.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sang W. Kim, MD Diplomate, American Board of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Diplomate, American Board of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery Natural Face Clinics East Syracuse, NY MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: There are extensive volume of studies and descriptions in literature describing ideal proportions and measurement of facial features, objective measurements for what constitute "artificial" and "overdone" facial appearance have not been studied extensively. But as elective and cosmetic treatment for face become more mainstream and push its limits, we felt it is important to investigate objective measurement to determine when certain facial features appear to be "artificial" and "overdone". We decided to study the lips because compared to other features of the face, it is more practical to translate in 2-dimension and alter objective measurements such as the height of the lips or the shapes of the curvature. (more…)
AACR, Author Interviews, Lung Cancer, Surgical Research / 06.04.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Emanuela Taioli MD PhD Professor, Population Health Science and Policy, and Thoracic Surgery Director, Institute for Translational Epidemiology Director, Center for the Study of Thoracic Diseases Outcome Director, Division of Social Epidemiology Icahn Medical Institute, New York, NY 10029  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Extensive literature documenting the relationship between hospital volume and clinical outcomes has resulted in the centralization of cancer care advocating patients to seek cancer surgical procedures at high-volume (HV) hospitals. Lung resection and cystectomy have been specifically recommended for centralization, but improvements in outcomes are not shared equally among racial groups. It has also been reported that black patients more commonly undergo surgery at low-volume and lower-quality hospitals, despite living in close proximity to higher quality hospitals. We investigated the effects of centralization on HV hospital utilization and surgical outcomes for lung (n = 28,047 White; n = 2,638 Black) and bladder (n = 7,593 White; n = 567 Black) cancer patients over a 15 year time span (1997-2011) in New York State. We hypothesized that centralization has improved utilization of HV hospitals and outcomes for both black and white patients, but significant disparities remain between black and white patients. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, JAMA, Surgical Research, Thyroid / 05.04.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Benjamin James, MD MS Assistant Professor of Surgery Adjunct Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology Section of Endocrine Surgery IU Division of General Surgery Indiana University Hospital Indianapolis, IN 46202 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Over the few decades, there has been a substantial increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer. It is the fastest growing cancer and a recent study in JAMA found that the mortality rate has been rising. In 2006, Massachusetts passed healthcare reform, which expanded Medicaid, created new subsidized insurance programs for those ineligible for Medicaid and extended young adults eligibility on parental plans until the age of 26. The aim of our study was to evaluate the impact this has had on the treatment of thyroid cancer. To address this question, we used the Hospital Cost and Utilization Project State Inpatient Databases for Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Florida, which included a cohort of 56,581 inpatient admissions from 2001 to 2011. We then compared these states before and after the healthcare reform in Massachusetts to evaluate the effect the healthcare reform had on the treatment of thyroid cancer. (more…)
Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, Surgical Research / 02.04.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ahmedin Jemal, DVM, PHD Vice President, Surveillance and Health Services Research American Cancer Society, Inc. Atlanta, GA 30303 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Previous studies reported that Contralateral Prophylactic Mastectomy (CPM) increased in the United States among women diagnosed with unilateral early-stage breast cancer with surgery without evidence for survival benefit. Previous studies also reported that receipt of this procedure is more common in younger than older patients, in white than in black patients, and in privately insured than uninsured patients. However, the extent of variation in receipt of CPM by state of residence was unknown. (more…)
Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, Cancer Research, JAMA, Surgical Research / 31.03.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rebecca Nash, MPH Rollins School of Public Health Emory University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM) in women with invasive early-stage unilateral breast cancer has significantly increased in the U.S. over the past decade, despite the lack of evidence for a survival benefit. This procedure is particularly common among patients younger than 45 years old. It is also more common in whites compared to blacks, and in privately insured patients compared to uninsured or Medicaid insured patients. However, the extent of regional variation across the United States was unknown. (more…)
Author Interviews, Clots - Coagulation, Electronic Records, JAMA, NYU, Surgical Research / 23.03.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Zachary Borabm, Research fellow Hansjörg Wyss Department of Plastic Surgery NYU Langone Medical Center MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Recent studies have shown that health care providers perform poorly in risk stratifying their patients for venous thromboembolism (VTE) which leads to inadequate VTE prophylaxis delivery, especially in surgical patients. Computerized Clinical Decision Support Systems (CCDSSs) are programs integrated into an electronic health record that have the power to aid health care providers. Using a meta-analysis study technique we were able to pool data from 11 studies, including 156,366 patients that either had CCDSSs intervention or routine care without CCDSSs. Our main outcome measures were the rate of prophylaxis for VTE and the rate of actual VTE events. We found that CCDSSs increased the rate of VTE prophylaxis (odds ratio 2.35, p<0.001) and decreased the risk of VTE events (risk ratio 0.78, p<0.001). (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Surgical Research / 19.03.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sung-Han Yoon MD Clinical Trials, Cardiology, Developmental Biology Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) has become the standard treatment in inoperable patients in high surgical risk patients with symptomatic severe aortic stenosis (AS). However, major randomized trials excluded congenital bicuspid AS due to its unique morphological features. The indication of TAVR is expanding into a younger population, in which the frequency of bicuspid AS is higher. Therefore, we will encounter TAVR for bicuspid AS more frequently. However, the experience of TAVR in bicuspid AS is limited to small series. Therefore, we aim to evaluate the clinical outcomes of TAVR in bicuspid AS and compare them to tricuspid AS. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Imperial College, Medical Imaging, Surgical Research / 19.03.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Justin Davies PhD Senior Reserch Fellow and Hononary Consultant Cardiologist National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We know from the FAME study that compared to angiography alone, FFR guided revascularization improves long-term clinical outcomes for our patients. Despite this, adoption of FFR into everyday clinical practice remains stubbornly low. One major factor for this is the need for adenosine (or other potent vasodilator medications) in order to perform an FFR measurement. Adenosine is expensive, unpleasant for the patient, time consuming and even potentially harmful. iFR is a newer coronary physiology index that does not require adenosine for its measurement. In the prospective, multi center, blinded DEFINE FLAIR study, 2492 patients were randomly assigned to either FFR guided revascularisation or iFR guided revascularization and followed up for a period of 1 year. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, NYU, Surgical Research / 19.03.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Adam Skolnick, MD Cardiologist Associate professor of medicine NYU Langone Medical Center   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: I am privileged to serve on the ACC Program Planning Committee and helped to design this important session that seeks to determine the line between when a cardiovascular procedure is high risk and when it is futile.    I am co-chairing the session with the incoming chair of the section on Geriatric Cardiology for the ACC, Dr. Karen Alexander from Duke. We are practicing medicine at one of the most extraordinary times when there are so many devices and procedures to prolong and improve quality of life.    It is critical to assess a patient's goals of care for a given intervention.   In some patients, particularly those who are multiple degenerative chronic conditions, are frail and/or have cognitive impairment it is difficult to know when a given procedure multiple medical conditions will achieve a patient's goals.   When is a procedure high risk, and when is it simply futile?    This is the fine line upon which many cardiologists often find themselves. The speakers present case examples of high risk patients considering TAVI, high risk PCI or CABG and mechanical support devices and with interaction from the audience work through when each procedure is high risk and when it is unlikely to achieve a patient's goals of care.   We also have a dedicated talk on high risk procedures in patients with cognitive impairment, such as advanced dementia. (more…)
Author Interviews, NYU, Smoking, Surgical Research, Tobacco Research / 17.03.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Amy Wasterlain, MD Fourth-year orthopaedic surgery resident NYU Langone Medical Center who led the study with Dr. Richard Iorio  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response:  We looked at smoking habits and outcomes for 539 smokers undergoing primary total hip or knee arthroplasty, 73 of whom participated in a pre-operative smoking cessation program. Patients who participated in program were 4.3 times more likely to quit than smokers who tried to quit on their own. Program participants also reduced their tobacco intake dramatically (10.6 fewer cigarettes/day) compared to smokers who didn’t participate (2.3 fewer cigarettes/day), even if they weren’t able to quit completely. Patients who completed the program before undergoing total knee arthroplasty had about 24% fewer adverse events (readmission, venous thromboembolism, stroke, urinary tract infection, pneumonia, and surgical site infection) than smokers who didn’t participate in the program. (more…)
Author Interviews, ENT, JAMA, Johns Hopkins, Surgical Research / 16.03.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Lisa E. Ishii, MD, MHS Associate Professor of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery John Hopkins Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: There was a gap in our knowledge about what the average lay person thought about the impact of a facelift. We had information about what experts in the field like Dr. Swail thought, and some about what patients themselves thought, but nothing about lay people. Patients who choose to have a facelift are typically concerned about the opinions of: 1) Themselves when they look in the mirror, and 2) Laypeople they encounter socially in society. Our study showed for the first time that laypeople find people who have had a facelift to appear more attractive, more youthful, healthier and more successful than they were before their facelift. (more…)
Author Interviews, Gastrointestinal Disease, Surgical Research / 11.03.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Ronnie Fass, MD Professor, School of Medicine Case Western Reserve University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The endoscopic radiofrequency procedure (Stretta) has been used for more than a decade to treat patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Over time, there were several Meta-analyses with variable designs of the Stretta procedure providing conflicting results. Thus, the purpose of the current systematic review and meta-analysis was to determine the efficacy of the Stretta procedure using all currently available controlled and cohort studies. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Surgical Research / 09.03.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Daniel Dante Yeh, MD FACC Assistant Professor of Surgery Harvard Medical School Course Director General/GI Surgery sub-internship Associate Course Director, Surgery Core Clerkship Associate Director, Surgical Intensive Care Unit Co-Director, Nutrition Support Unit Department of Surgery Division of Trauma, Massachusetts General Hospital Emergency Surgery, and Surgical Critical Care Boston, MA 02114 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?  Response: High Fresh Frozen Plasma to Red Blood Cells FFP:RBC transfusion ratio is a strategy which has emerged in the trauma literature as the preferred method of resuscitation for massively bleeding injured patients.  However, this strategy has now spread to other patient populations which have never been formally studied.   These populations include elective operations and even non-surgical patients.  Giving excess FFP when it is not needed is not only wasteful, but may be harmful, as other studies have reported that FFP can cause problems with lung function, heart function, and immune function. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Surgical Research / 17.02.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Brian J. F. Wong, MD, PhD Division of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Department of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic Department of Biomedical Engineering University of California, Irvine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Research in facial attractiveness is difficult because of the inherent subjectivity of rating. Most people can look at a face and instinctively tell you whether that face is attractive or not, by subconsciously picking up on biologic cues like fertility, coloration, and proportions. (more…)
Author Interviews, Surgical Research / 14.02.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Edward L Jones, MD MS Assistant Professor Department of Surgery, Denver VA Medical Center and University of Colorado, Denver, CO  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Operating room fires continue to be an underreported source of sometimes catastrophic injuries to our patients and we could find no recent data evaluating common surgical skin antiseptics as a potential fuel for these flames. Manufacturers continue to recommend waiting at least 3 minutes for “drying” of an alcohol-based prep prior to a surgical start but cite no searchable studies to support this timeframe. We were curious if these alcohol-based preps were flammable and what impact a 3 minute delay had on their flammability. Thus we decided to study them in rigorous fashion. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Orthopedics, Pain Research, Surgical Research / 08.02.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jonas Bloch Thorlund Associate Professor (MSc, PhD) Department of Sports Science and Clinical Biomechanics Research Unit for Musculoskeletal Function and Physiotherapy University of Southern Denmark MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Arthroscopic partial meniscectomy is a very common knee surgery. Research evidence has seriously questioned the effect of this type of surgery for degenerative meniscal tears in middle-aged and older patients. Most young patients with traumatic meniscal injury (from sports or similar) also undergo this type of surgery. There is a general understanding that young patients with traumatic tears experience larger improvements in patient reported pain, function and quality of life. However, evidence for this presumption is sparse. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Surgical Research, Vitamin C / 06.02.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Harri Hemilä, MD, PhD Department of Public Health University of Helsinki MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: I have a long term interest in vitamin C. Previously I have shown that it alleviates exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (EIB) (http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1710-1492-10-58 ) and shortens the duration of colds ( http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020168 ). Now I had been following the literature and I noted that a number of randomized trials were being published about vitamin C for preventing post-operative atrial fibrillation (POAF). Therefore I reasoned that it is worthwhile to analyze that set of trials (more…)
Author Interviews, Surgical Research / 02.02.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Karen Zaderej CEO, AxoGen Karen Zaderej joined AxoGen in May 2006. She has served as President, Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of AxoGen, Inc. since May 2010. Prior to her current role, she served as Chief Operating Officer from October 2007 to May 2010 and as Vice President of Marketing and Sales from May 2006 to October 2007. From October 2004 to May 2006, Karen worked for Zaderej Medical Consulting, a consulting firm she founded that helped medical device companies build and execute successful commercialization plans. From 1987 to 2004, Karen worked at Ethicon, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company, where she held senior positions in marketing, business development, research & development, and manufacturing. Karen is a Director of SEBio, a non-profit supporting the life science industry in the southeastern United States. Karen earned an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Business at Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University. MedicalResearch.com: Please tell us about yourself and how you became CEO at AxoGen. Response: I met Jamie Grooms, co-founder of AxoGen, in 2005 and we had one of those meetings that change your life. Jamie is a serial entrepreneur and loves to start businesses. He had tried to make nerves in the past but had been unsuccessful. When he saw new technology at the University of Florida that explained some of the issues in regenerating nerves, he decided to found a company focused on nerve repair. In parallel, I had been in business development and strategic marketing for Johnson & Johnson and we had looked at the nerve repair market. We determined there was a significant unmet need in nerve repair, but we could not find any technology at that time that solved the surgical need. Several years later, I left J&J and started a consulting business focused on market development and commercialization of early stage med tech companies. Jamie and I met, and I found the technology I had been looking for years earlier. We had an exciting conversation about the potential to improve the lives of patients with nerve injuries. I saw the possibility to create an entire new segment in med tech, one dedicated to nerve repair. With that great potential in front of me, I closed my consulting business, moved to Florida, and joined the AxoGen team. (more…)
Author Interviews, Frailty, JAMA, Outcomes & Safety, Surgical Research / 01.02.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Margaret L Schwarze, MD, MPP Associate Professor Division of Vascular Surgery University of Wisconsin MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Surgery can have life-altering consequences for frail older adults, yet many undergo an operation during the last year of life. Surgeons commonly rely on informed consent to disclose risks of discrete complications; however, this information is challenging for patients to interpret with respect to their goals and values. Our research group developed a communication framework, called Best Case/Worst Case, to change how surgeons communicate with patients facing serious illness.  Surgeons use the framework to describe the best, worst, and most likely scenarios to present a choice between valid treatment alternatives and help patients imagine how they might experience a range of possible treatment outcomes. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Colon Cancer, JAMA, Surgical Research / 25.01.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Kangmin Zhu, PhD, MD John P. Murtha Cancer Center, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics Bethesda, Maryland MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: An article published on JAMA Surgery in 2015 showed more utilization of chemotherapy among young colon cancer patients.  To demonstrate the study findings, we analyzed the data from the Department of Defense healthcare system, in which all members have the same level of access to medical care and therefore the potential effects of insurance status and types on research results can be reduced. MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings? Response: The main findings were that young and middle-aged colon cancer patients were 2 to 8 times more likely to receive postoperative chemotherapy and 2.5 times more likely to receive multiagent regimens, compared with their counterparts aged 65 to 75 years.  However, no matched survival benefits were observed for the young and middle-aged among patients who received surgery and postoperative chemotherapy. (more…)
Author Interviews, Gastrointestinal Disease, Surgical Research / 24.01.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Mark Noar Director of The Heartburn and Reflux Study Center Towson, MD  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The background for this study was developed out of a need to know whether the Stretta procedure was effective in both the short and long-term in all forms of reflux. This included standard refluxing patients who had never had surgery but also in the subpopulation of patients who had recurring reflux after having had reflux corrective surgery. The question to be answered was whether the Stretta procedure would be less effective, more effective, or just as effective in the patient who had had prior surgery compared to patients who did not have surgery. The main findings were that independent of whether a patient had had surgery for the correction of reflux or just had standard reflux without prior surgery, the Stretta procedure was equally effective in all patient subgroups both in the short-term and the long-term. (more…)