
The risk of fracture is probably only slightly increased in persons with type 2 diabetes, said Peter Vestergaard, MD, PhD, DrMedSc, from the Osteoporosis Clinic, Aarhus Amtssygehus, Denmark.

The risk of fracture is probably only slightly increased in persons with type 2 diabetes, said Peter Vestergaard, MD, PhD, DrMedSc, from the Osteoporosis Clinic, Aarhus Amtssygehus, Denmark.

Real-time continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) can significantly improve glycemic control, but it will not help all patients. "Real-time CGM will add significantly to glucose management for some people, but not for all," said Irl Hirsch, MD, University of Washington, Seattle. "Human factors make all the difference between success and failure. Some patients will never figure it out. That?s why real-time control is so challenging.

Good glycemic control is not sufficient to relieve painful diabetic neuropathy, necessitating investigation of other modalities to achieve analgesic efficacy. Dan Ziegler, MD, German Diabetes Clinic, German Diabetes Center, and professor of internal medicine, Leibniz Institute at the Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, provided an overview of pharmacologic treatments that have been explored for painful diabetic neuropathy and the success achieved with each.

Islet cell transplants are effective in both the short- and long-term in freeing patients with diabetes from insulin injections and have proven to be safe, said Bernhard J. Hering, MD. The use of embryonic pig pancreatic precursor tissue as the source of islets appears promising and would expand the number of transplant recipients, which is currently limited by number of potential donors.

Take another look at the popular hypothesis that suggests type 2 diabetes has an acute effect on the secretion of GLP-1 and that lower GLP-1 secretion has an acute effect on insulin. It doesn't work that way, said Michael Nauck, MD, PhD, Diabeteszentrum Bad Lauterberg, Bad Lauterberg, Germany. Decreased GLP-1 secretion is not part of the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes.

Clinicians and type 2 diabetes patients have a new worry: hepatic steatosis, or nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Liver disease is a less-obvious problem than kidney disease but may have equally grave consequences.

Researchers at Stanford University are reporting positive results in healing diabetic wounds with a pharmaceutical agent already approved by the FDA, but only in mice so far.

Forget the arguments over fit and fat in the development of diabetes and the resulting complications. Both fitness and fatness can be addressed by the same prescription: physical activity.

Endothelial dysfunction is both a marker for and a cause of diabetic complications. Researchers are teasing out pathways that involve oxidative stress and endothelial dysfunction, said Per-Henrik Groop, MD, PhD, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Helsinki, Finland. The challenge is in finding drugs that show the same activity in vivo that they show in cell studies or animal models.

Intensive blood glucose control in patients with type 2 diabetes resulted in a significant reduction in the risk of microvascular complications compared with standard blood glucose control. This was driven by a reduction in the occurrence of nephropathy, in the Action in Diabetes and Vascular Disease: Preterax and Diamicron-MR Controlled Evaluation (ADVANCE) study.

Periodontal disease makes glycemic control more difficult in patients with type 2 diabetes, said George W. Taylor, DrPH, DMD, associate professor of dentistry, School of Dentistry and Public Health at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

The editorial teams in the Modern Medicine Primary Care Content Group, with content from our legacy brands ? Medical Economics, Drug Topics, Geriatrics, Formulary and Contemporary OB/Gyn ? will cover key medical meetings, bringing you breaking news, the latest research findings and reports from the general sessions.

Healthcare reform is a high-profile issue in the presidential election campaign, and drug access has become a central theme in the debate. Both Democratic and Republican candidates have rolled out healthcare reform plans that promise to cover the uninsured while also providing tax breaks and other incentives to help individuals obtain health insurance.

Formulary and Managed Healthcare Executive 2008 Media Kit

Formulary 2008 Rate Card

Ambulatory patients with cancer who are undergoing chemotherapy should not receive prophylactic anticoagulation to prevent venous thromboembolism, according to new guidelines developed by ASCO. "It's not cost effective and we also do not recommend screening these patients for thrombophilia," said Mark Levine, MD, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Physicians treating cancer-related depression with paroxetine should not expect patients' insomnia to also improve, according to a study presented by Oxana G. Palesh, PhD, University of Rochester Cancer Center, NY. "We know that insomnia and depression often occur together frequently in the general population, suggesting that there may be a common mechanism," she said.

Metformin may represent a novel antitumor agent, say investigators from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston.

Several factors contribute to a disparity of cancer care and outcomes between minority and majority populations in the United States.

Advanced age should not be a barrier to initiating adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with stage III colon cancer. In an observational study, the oldest patients suffered no more adverse events when treated with adjuvant chemotherapy than did younger patients but were much less likely than their younger counterparts to actually receive adjuvant chemotherapy for their colon cancer, said Katherine L. Khan, MD, professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Cancer-related fatigue significantly interferes with patients' quality of life, and some areas often affected among these patients are not normally included on standard quality-of-life assessments, said Karen M. Mustian, PhD, University of Rochester School of Medicine, NY. More randomized, controlled trials are needed to identify these areas, she said.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is superior to mammography alone in diagnosing intraductal components of invasive breast cancer, allowing more accurate mapping before breast conservation surgery, said Simone Schrading, MD, Department of Radiology, University of Bonn, Germany.

An individualized exercise program may significantly reduce fatigue, increase strength, and improve psychosocial functioning during cancer treatment, according to results of a small study reported by Maike de Wit, University Clinic Hamburg, Germany.

An RNA signature present in blood that is highly accurate for detecting prevalent lung cancer can accurately predict the development of lung cancer within the next 2 years 80% of the time, said Thomas Zander, MD, Department of Internal Medicine and the Center for Integrated Oncology, University Clinic Cologne, Germany. "Early detection of lung cancer is a major need, as most patients present for diagnosis at a late stage when there is no chance for cure," Dr Zander said. Two-year survival after a lung cancer diagnosis is approximately 15%. Early detection may therefore be a promising strategy to improve survival rates.

A small study suggests that acupuncture has the potential to reduce pain and dysfunction in patients with head and neck cancer who have undergone neck dissection, said David G. Pfister, MD, chief, Head and Neck Medical Oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York.

High-dose vitamin D supplementation can provide relief of symptoms related to vitamin D deficiency from aromatase inhibitor therapy in postmenopausal women with breast cancer, said Q.J. Khan, MD, Cancer Center of Kansas, Wichita.