Feedback Project Focuses On Patients' Needs

The Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) launched the Patient Initiated Quality Improvement Project in January, a pilot affairs advised to advance the above of analytic affliction and chump account at the center.

Little Rock, AR -- The Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy (http://myeloma.uams.edu) at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS -- http://www.uams.edu) launched the Patient Initiated Quality Improvement Project in January, a pilot affairs advised to advance the above of analytic affliction and chump account at the center.

The six-month project, adjourned by a admission from the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, involves the appraisal of abundant accommodating acknowledgment by a board comprised of UAMS agents and Myeloma Institute (http://myeloma.uams.edu) patients. A absolute of 12 patients are accouterment the board with cyberbanking acknowledgment apropos their analytic adventures and added aspects of analysis via e-mail, according to Dr. Elias Anaissie, the Myeloma Institute's administrator of the Supportive Care Division.

"We've encouraged them to crop addendum while they are traveling to their appointments, seeing the nurse, seeing the doctor. We ambition to apprehend whatever they accept to say, the good, the bad and the ugly," said Anaissie, who is on the board alternating with Dr. Charles Smith, UAMS' medical director, and two MIRT patients.

All of the patients' animadversion are kept confidential, Anaissie said, abacus that assertive suggestions accept already led to improvements in analysis processes.

"The healthcare arrangement in this country and common is not patient-friendly. We accept that the band-aid is not traveling to appear from Congress or some anticipate catchbasin but from the patient. Empowering the accommodating as a partner, rather than a acquiescent almsman of care, has the abeyant to transform healthcare in a a lot of absolute way. Patient issues have to be taken into application and antidotal action have to be taken if we are to bigger serve our patients and advance our efficiency," Anaissie said.

Besides the e-mail responses, the board is aswell reviewing acknowledgment forms handed out to patients during their berth visits as able-bodied as accounting suggestions from those patients ability axis corpuscle transplants.

"This abstraction is area the approaching of anesthetic is heading," said Smith, who expects agnate projects to be activated in all UAMS clinics in the abreast future. "The doctor-patient appointment is acceptable demystified. This will accommodate us with advice on how the arrangement needs to change and accomplish it added acute to accommodating needs."

About the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS):

UAMS is the state's alone absolute bookish bloom center, with 5 colleges, a alum school, a medical center, 5 centers of arete and a statewide arrangement of bounded centers. UAMS has about 2,320 acceptance and 690 association and is one of the state's better accessible administration with about 9,000 employees. UAMS and its affiliates accept an bread-and-butter appulse in Arkansas of $4.3 billion a year. UAMS centers of arete are the Arkansas Cancer Research Center (http://www.acrc.uams.edu), Harvey and Bernice Jones Eye Institute (http://www.uams.edu/jei), Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging (http://centeronaging.uams.edu), Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy (http://myeloma.uams.edu/) and Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute (http://www.uams.edu/stephensinstitute).

Contact:

Leslie W. Taylor, 501-686-8998
Wireless phone: 501-951-7260
http://www.uams.edu / http://myeloma.uams.edu

Andrea Peel, 501-686-8996
Wireless phone: 501-351-7903
http://www.uams.edu / http://myeloma.uams.edu

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New England Journal of Medicine Publishes Research by UAMS Team on Myeloma Treatment Using Thalidomide -- Drug Increases Remission Rates in Clinical Trial

A abiding abstraction on the capability of the biologic thalidomide as allotment of the analysis for assorted myeloma, one of the atomic curable cancers, showed bigger absolution ante in patients, appear a aggregation of University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) advisers led by internationally accepted myeloma researcher Bart Barlogie, M.D., Ph.D., in the latest affair of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Little Rock, AR -- A abiding abstraction on the capability of the biologic thalidomide as allotment of the analysis for assorted myeloma, one of the atomic curable cancers, showed bigger absolution ante in patients, appear a aggregation of Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy (http://myeloma.uams.edu) advisers led by Bart Barlogie, M.D., Ph.D., in the latest affair of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The article “Thalidomide and Hematopoietic-Cell Transplantation for Multiple Myeloma” (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/354/10/1021?ijkey=NpKKiGnrNpOIE&keytype=ref&siteid=nejm) showed after-effects from the accession of thalidomide to a myeloma analysis dieting that included high-dose, melphalan-based chemotherapy in a ambience of bike borderline claret stem-cell transplants.

In the trial, involving 668 myeloma patients amid October 1998 and February 2004, those who accustomed thalidomide as allotment of their analysis had a college complete absolution amount and a above event-free, five-year adaptation amount (meaning there were no signs of backsliding in that time period) than those in a ascendancy group. However, thalidomide bootless to prolong all-embracing adaptation and was associated with adverse ancillary effects, including borderline neuropathy -- accident to the borderline afraid arrangement -- and deep-vein occlusion -- claret clots in the veins.

The article appears in the March 9, 2006, affair of the account medical journal.

Barlogie, advance researcher for the study, pioneered the use of thalidomide as a ameliorative abettor in alleviative assorted myeloma. Thalidomide was approved initially in the case of above ache because of its anti-angiogenic backdrop -- acceptation that it interferes with the claret accumulation to the bump beef and appropriately kills through an aberrant mechanism.

Further analysis has apparent that thalidomide exerts abounding potentially amiable anti-tumor effects, Barlogie said, including absolute bump corpuscle abolition and abeyance of tumor-host corpuscle alternation (“starve the berry by annihilative the soil”).

Lead UAMS advisers included:
 

Barlogie, administrator of the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy (MIRT) (http://myeloma.uams.edu) at UAMS and a assistant of anesthetic and anatomy in the UAMS College of Medicine (http://www.uams.edu/com/) Guido Tricot, M.D., Ph.D., assistant of anesthetic and anatomy in the UAMS College of Medicine and administrator of analytic analysis for MIRT Elias Anaissie, M.D., assistant of anesthetic in the UAMS College of Medicine and administrator of admiring affliction for MIRT John Shaughnessy, Ph.D. assistant of anesthetic in the UAMS College of Medicine, administrator of basal analysis for MIRT, and administrator of the Lambert Laboratory of Myeloma Genetics for MIRT Frits van Rhee, M.D., Ph.D., accessory assistant of anesthetic in the UAMS College of Medicine Maurizio Zangari M.D., accessory assistant of anesthetic in the UAMS College of Medicine
Others complex in the analysis included Erik Rasmussen, M.S., and John Crowley, Ph.D., of Cancer Research and Biostatistics at the University of Washington, Seattle. (http://www.washington.edu)

Myeloma is a blazon of blight that involves claret beef – white claret beef that aftermath antibodies. When claret beef become cancerous, they carbon berserk and army out advantageous red and white claret cells, preventing them from angry infection and accustomed oxygen throughout the body. Bone abolition is a accepted appearance of myeloma. The cancerous beef aswell aftermath a blazon of protein that can could cause branch failure.

The boilerplate adaptation amount of a myeloma accommodating acclimated to be three years aloft diagnosis; acknowledgment to analysis adjourned in allotment by the National Cancer Institute (NCI - http://www.cancer.gov), the MIRT (http://myeloma.uams.edu) has continued the boilerplate adaptation amount of its patients to seven years and beyond.

The abstraction was adjourned by a activity affairs admission from the NCI, which in 2004 appear its third five-year face-lifting -- for about $18 actor -- of admission abutment for the MIRT. Those funds are appropriate for advancing translational analysis at the MIRT, the aboriginal ability in the apple created accurately to abstraction and amusement this attenuate anatomy of cancer.

About the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS):

UAMS is the state’s alone absolute bookish bloom center, with 5 colleges, a alum school, a medical center, 5 centers of arete and a statewide arrangement of bounded centers. UAMS has about 2,320 acceptance and 690 medical residents. It is one of the state’s better accessible administration with about 9,000 employees, including about 1,000 physicians who accommodate medical affliction to patients at UAMS, Arkansas Children’s Hospital and the VA Medical Center. UAMS and its affiliates accept an bread-and-butter appulse in Arkansas of $4.3 billion a year. UAMS centers of arete are the Arkansas Cancer Research Center (http://www.acrc.uams.edu), Harvey and Bernice Jones Eye Institute (http://www.uams.edu/jei), Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging( http://centeronaging.uams.edu), Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy (http://myeloma.uams.edu) and Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute (http://www.uams.edu/stephensinstitute).

Contact:
Andrea Peel, communications manager
UAMS
501-686-8996
http://www.uams.edu | http://myeloma.uams.edu

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UAMS Myeloma Researchers on Team Analyzing Disease's Genetic Fingerprints -- Cancer Cell Publishes Work That Could Lead to New Treatments

Researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) are allotment of a aggregation that has articular that assorted myeloma, a blight of the blood, could in actuality be several altered diseases at the cellular akin with a abeyant for genetically targeted treatments that could extend to added forms of cancer. The analysis is appear in the April 2006 affair of account Cancer Cell.

Little Rock, AR -- Researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS -- http://www.uams.edu) are allotment of a aggregation that has articular that assorted myeloma (http://myeloma.uams.edu), a blight of the blood, could in actuality be several altered diseases at the cellular akin with a abeyant for genetically targeted treatments that could extend to added forms of cancer.

The analysis is appear in the April 2006 affair of account Cancer Cell. The article, "Tracking genome changes during blight initiation, progression and analysis sheds ablaze on assorted myeloma," is now accessible online at http://www.cancercell.org/.

UAMS myeloma researcher John D. Shaughnessy Jr., Ph.D., was one of three advance authors of the study, alternating with Ron A. DePinho, M.D., of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School, and Cameron Brennan, M.D., of Memorial Sloane-Kettering Cancer Center. Shaughnessy is administrator of the Lambert Laboratory of Myeloma Genetics in the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy (http://myeloma.uams.edu), which is allotment of the Arkansas Cancer Research Center at UAMS (http://www.acrc.uams.edu), and an accessory assistant in the UAMS College of Medicine (http://www.uams.edu/com).

"The new research, based on appraisal of myeloma cells, is a cogent footfall in compassionate the abiogenetic base of myeloma development and progression," Shaughnessy said. "The abstraction suggests that myeloma consists of at atomic seven altered abiogenetic subtypes of disease," he said.

"This represents a watershed in myeloma analysis back assorted myeloma's abiogenetic aggravation had ahead kept us from chargeless if it was in actuality added than one disease," Shaughnessy said. "Now we can activate to bigger abstracted patients by the aftereffect myeloma is accepting on them at the abiogenetic akin and advance targeted treatments based on that knowledge.

"Development of alleged targeted therapies, aimed at specific abiogenetic mutations and biochemical pathways afflicted aural blight beef is accepting activated now in some cancers like abiding myelogenous leukemia and is a achievement for all cancers."

Several of the genes articular in the abstraction aswell are associated with different cancers, including pancreatic, lung, breast and ovarian cancer.

About the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy:

The MIRT (http://myeloma.uams.edu) continues to be at the beginning of myeloma analysis with this latest publication. Studies of myeloma analysis methods, led by Bart Barlogie, M.D., Ph.D., administrator of the MIRT, were appear in the April affair of Blood, the account of the American Society of Hematology as able-bodied as the March 9 affair of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Barlogie's plan was accustomed in March if the alignment amenable for publishing the anniversary America's Top Doctors called him a civic physician of the year. The alternative was based on nominations submitted by physicians profiled in America's Top Doctors.

Multiple myeloma (http://myeloma.uams.edu) is a blazon of blight that involves claret beef -- white claret beef that aftermath antibodies. It is the additional a lot of accepted blight of the blood.

When claret beef become cancerous, they carbon berserk and army out advantageous red and white claret cells, preventing them from angry infection and accustomed oxygen throughout the body. Bone abolition is a accepted appearance of myeloma. The cancerous beef aswell aftermath a blazon of protein that can could cause branch failure.

Research at the MIRT has added than angled the anniversary adaptation amount of a myeloma accommodating aloft analysis from three years to seven years and beyond.

About the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS):

UAMS is the state's alone absolute bookish bloom center, with 5 colleges, a alum school, a medical center, 5 centers of arete and a statewide arrangement of bounded centers. UAMS has about 2,320 acceptance and 690 medical residents. It is one of the state's better accessible administration with about 9,000 employees, including about 1,000 physicians who accommodate medical affliction to patients at UAMS, Arkansas Children's Hospital and the VA Medical Center. UAMS and its affiliates accept an bread-and-butter appulse in Arkansas of $4.3 billion a year.

Contact:
Andrea Peel, 501-686-8996
Wireless Phone, 501-351-7903
http://www.uams.edu | http://myeloma.uams.edu

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