Urologists respond to the FDA's ruling on dutasteride and finasteride.
Murali Ankem, MD, in New Brunswick, NJ, says the positive results from the studies weren't enough to justify approval of the drugs for the cancer-related indication. (Both drugs remain approved for the treatment of BPH.)
"To achieve a 20% to 25% prevention of prostate cancer, you have to treat hundreds of patients," Dr. Ankem said. "So in practice, you can make a case to tell the patient, 'Listen, you have a one in six chance of developing prostate cancer. Whether you have urinary symptoms or not, I want you to start seriously considering one of these two drugs to prevent prostate cancer.' But that's a hard sell.
"I wasn't surprised the FDA said there wasn't enough clinical evidence. A community urologist or university urologist will not have enough patients to recommend this with confidence. So, no, I wasn't surprised at all."
Prior paid malpractice claims linked to increased risk of future claims
February 22nd 2023Based on 5- and 10-year study periods, physicians with single or multiple paid medical malpractice claims “were shown to have a greatly elevated risk of having additional paid claims during a future period,” the authors wrote.
Surprise billing regulation stuns providers, rejects congressional intent
November 17th 2021"The AACU joined 1 effort calling for the administration to remove the directive that arbiters anchor their determination to the qualifying payment amount, and instead let them consider all allowable information submitted by the parties to support their offer," says Ross E. Weber of the AACU.