Healthcare Unfiltered

Continuing his ASH Annual Meeting coverage, Chadi invites Matt Maurer (@MaurerStats), MS, principal biostatistician, Mayo Clinic, and Alan Skarbnik (@ASkarbnik), MD, director of the lymphoma and CLL program, Novant Health (Charlotte, NC), to review the three prominent CAR-T studies in relapsed/refractory DLBCL presented at the meeting. Why were the results divergent and what does this mean for CAR-T’s utility in this setting? The trio break down the ins-and-outs of the trials – both from a statistician and practitioner point of view.Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Chadi invites a trio of lymphoma experts to weigh the importance of the POLARIX trial – which was presented at the ASH Annual Meeting and looked at frontline therapy for patients with DLBCL. Matthew Matasar, MD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, co-authored publication of the POLARIX study “Polatuzumab Vedotin in Previously Untreated Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma” in the New England Journal of Medicine and defends the its results with guests Liz Brem, MD, UC Irvine, and Daniel Landsburg, MD, University of Pennsylvania. Can polatuzumab vedotin supplant conventional R-CHOP as the standard of care for previously untreated DLBCL? As they work through the details of the study, the experts share whether they believe the data supports an immediate standard-of-care change or if more research is needed.Read the study published in NEJMhttps://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2115304Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

David Zweig (@davidzweig), published author and science journalist based in New York, joins the show to tackle one specific topic pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic: mask mandates for children in schools. David’s article “The CDC’s Flawed Case for Wearing Masks in School” was published in The Atlantic early this month and spotlights the “very shaky science” propped up by the CDC that has compelled many schools throughout the US to institute mask mandates for their students. Chadi and David analyze the data—fleshing out all of the details and scenarios—of mask wearing in schools in this fiery, no-holds-barred discussion that will surely ruffle some feathers.Read David’s article in The Atlantichttps://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/12/mask-guidelines-cdc-walensky/621035/Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Emily Landon, MD, Executive Medical Director, Infection Prevention and Control, University of Chicago, makes her long-awaited return to the show to provide an update on the status of COVID-19 in the US. Chadi and Dr. Landon discuss the proportion of people in America that have gotten their vaccine and booster, how Omicron has come along so quickly as an “escape” variant, how effective the vaccines are against contracting and fighting Omicron, whether vaccine mandates for healthcare workers are justifiable, why Omicron is likely to be worse in the US than in South Africa, when and where people should wear masks now, weighing the risk (ie, myocarditis) and benefits of vaccines for children, and so much more.Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Samer Al Hadidi (@HadidiSamer), MD, assistant professor in the multiple myeloma program, University of Arkansas, shares his own human experience of receiving an unfortunate diagnosis as an immigrant going through residency and through fellowship, all while dealing with the loss of a close relative. Dr. Al Hadidi recounts the dilemma he had as an immigrant in the US on a visa and deciding whether to prioritize his health or his medical training, the way things escalated while progressing through his fellowship, how the pandemic further complicated travel opportunities for immigrant trainees and HCPs, and many more unfortunate details in his story to date. There is much to be learned and lessons to be taken from Dr. Al Hadidi’s story, and at the very least, it’s an emotional interview that reminds us to count our blessings during this holiday season.Read Dr. Al Hadidi’s published commentary in ASCO Connection https://connection.asco.org/blogs/vacationCheck out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

To debate the utility and appropriateness of real-world evidence against clinical trials for treating patients with hematologic malignancies, Chadi welcomes back Aaron Goodman (@AaronGoodman33), MD, hematologist, University of California San Diego, and Alan Skarbnik (@ASkarbnik), MD, director of the lymphoma and CLL program, Novant Health (Charlotte, NC), as well as invites first-time guest Liz Brem (@DrLizBrem), MD, assistant clinical professor of hematology, UC Irvine. Can RCT designers ever escape inherent bias? Will we ever enroll a more diverse, higher volume patient population in clinical trials? Who has the right to criticize a clinical trial design? The group uses a phase I study published in Lancet Hematology to frame their arguments in this riveting, hotly contested discussion.Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Chadi hosts Graham Collins (@graham74GC), MBBS, MA, MRCP, FRCPath, DPhil, hematology consultant in the UK, for a broad discussion aimed to simplify an often complicated disease: Hodgkin lymphoma. The duo talk about early-stage disease categorizing, treatment considerations for each stage, reasonable clinical trial endpoints of practice-changing potential, adverse effects resulting from intensive treatments, notable clinical trials and novel treatment approaches, and programs for young adult survivors. This episode is a perfect refresher to get you in the spirit for the ASH Annual Meeting – just a few weeks away!Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Chadi re-invites Dave Feldman (@DaveKeto), senior software engineer and entrepreneur, and Ethan Weiss (@ethanjweiss), MD, cardiologist at UC San Francisco, to rehash a Twitter argument on secondary prevention for heart attacks for patients with high LDL. Should patients receive statins or should they not? What does the data show and where is the controversy, if any? How does diet play a role? What about the infamous KETO diet? The guests discuss a couple of realistic hypothetical scenarios with different LDL receptor and metabolism variables. Dave shares an IRB-approved trial that he is leading to better understand high LDL that emerges from Keto and its impact on cardiac atherosclerotic disease. This was a high-spirited debate where the host said so little and the guests were arguing respectfully about various views. Will there be a common ground? You must listen to find out.Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Ramaswamy Govindan, MD, Anheuser Busch Endowed Chair in Medical Oncology, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, provides the condensed oral history of thoracic oncology – dating from the late 1990s to the present day. Chadi and Dr. Govindan discuss how stage III chemoradiation and PET scans were new strategies before the turn of the century, the introduction of gefitinib as a pivotal moment in the treatment paradigm, the doors opening for EGFR inhibitors, the discovery of ALK as a targetable mutation, how genome sequencing in the 2010s opened additional targets, PD-1 and PD-L1 inhibition, and so much more.Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Adam Stern (@AdamPhilipStern), MD, neuropsychiatrist and assistant professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, joins the show to discuss his book “Committed: Dispatches from a Psychiatrist in Training” and the struggles that psychiatry trainees face today. Dr. Stern hits on an unexpected diagnosis he was given three years ago, dealing with imposter syndrome, the cruelty of survival rates when given to individual patients, anecdotes in the book that highlight the nuances of psychiatry training, the need for human connection while practicing, advice for coming out of training successfully, and so much more in this invigorating conversation.Order Dr. Stern’s book “Committed.”https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/committed/9780358434733Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA