Pandemic leads doctors to rethink unnecessary treatment
Covid-19 is opening the door for researchers to address a problem that has vexed the medical community for decades: the overtreatment and unnecessary treatment of patients.
On one hand, the pandemic caused major health setbacks for non-covid patients who were forced to, or chose to, avoid tests and treatments for various illnesses. On the other hand, in cases in which no harm was done by delays or cancellations, medical experts can now reevaluate whether those procedures are truly necessary.
But never before, said researcher Allison Oakes, has there been such a large database to compare patients who received a particular test or treatment with those who did not.
Covid-19 forces physician to rethink treatments that are overdone or unnecessary washingtonpost.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from washingtonpost.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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An advisory panel recommended the FDA not revoke the accelerated approval for atezolizumab (Tecentriq) in combination with nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) for treating metastatic, PD-L1-positive triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).
In a 7-2 vote, the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) affirmed the accelerated approval, with members clearly conflicted over the decision. This was a difficult decision in a very difficult disease to treat, said Harold Burstein, MD, PhD, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, who voted yes on the proposition. I have spent decades caring for these patients, and we all wish we had fundamentally better options.
FDA initially granted atezolizumab, a PD-L1 immune checkpoint inhibitor, accelerated approval in 2019 in combination with nab-paclitaxel for patients with untreated metastatic or locally advanced unresectable TNBC whose tumors express PD-L1, based on findings from the IMpassion130 trial, which showed a significant