‘That Belongs in Alice in Wonderland’: What We Heard This Week

“Logic like that belongs in Alice in Wonderland.” — Robert Field, PhD, MPH, JD, of Drexel University in Philadelphia, on a Department of Justice legal brief in support of overturning the Affordable Care Act.

“This is the kind of data that oncologists get excited about.” — Nicholas Rohs, MD, of Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai in New York City, commenting on a study about reduced-intensity treatment for older and frail patients with advanced gastroesophageal cancer.

“Your heart kind of drops into your stomach a little bit and you hope it’s not as bad as it really is.” — Rachael Accardi, LMFT, of the University of California San Diego, on hearing from an individual who’s been flagged as suicidal.

“There is very little data to guide what the recommendation should be.” — Justin Brown, PhD, Pennington Biomedical Research Institute in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on the value of BMI for predicting risk for cardiovascular events in patients with colorectal cancer.

“On any given day, about half of Americans are drinking a sugary drink and we know those drinks have no nutritional value and that they are linked to chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes.” — Christina Roberto, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, on a study evaluating the impact of a “soda tax” on sugary drink purchases.

“Thus, it has the potential to change guidelines.” – Rajiv Agarwal, MBBS, MD, of the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, on a trial examining spironolactone combined with patiromer in chronic kidney disease patients with resistant hypertension.

“Providers and patients may have preconceptions — that someone is too old or too sick or has too many conditions to exercise.” — Daniel Weiner, MD, of Tufts University in Boston, discussing the potential impact of the AWARD trial.

“I would certainly feel comfortable in using this in patients with chemotherapy-induced cardiomyopathy.” — Jagmeet Singh, MD, DPhil, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, on results from the MADIT-CHIC study.

“I don’t love risk scores, in fact, I don’t like them at all because I do sometimes think they take away from independent thinking … ” — Maria Birgersdotter-Green, MD, of the University of California San Diego, acknowledging that a new infection risk score for cardiac implanted electronic devices may be the exception.