Efficacy of Half-Day Workshops for Internal Medicine Interns in Educating Breaking-Bad-News Discussions.

Adequate end-of-life (EOL) care/breaking-bad-news (BBN) discussions with patients are becoming increasingly essential to adequate patient care. Whether a half-day workshop would lead to improved confidence in EOL/BBN care discussions for internal medicine interns. Internal medicine interns ( = 43) were assigned to participate in a half-day workshop at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease After Pancreaticoduodenectomy for a Cancer Diagnosis.

Current literature reports increased incidence of postpancreaticoduodenectomy (PD) nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a precursor for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and cirrhosis. The incidence of and risk factors (RFs) for NAFLD in the PD population, however, are not well elucidated. A cohort of 421 patients from a single institution who underwent PD for carcinoma and followed for at least 6 months were assessed retrospectively for age, gender, pathology, surgical complications (operative blood loss and length of stay [LOS]), comorbidities (diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, obesity), tobacco use, pre- and postoperative nutritional status (albumin and body mass index [BMI]), use of pancreatic enzyme replacement, and perioperative laboratory values (hemoglobin and liver function test).

Case Report: Concomitant Diagnosis of Plasma Cell Leukemia in Patient With JAK2 Positive Myeloproliferative Neoplasm.

Plasma cell dyscrasias and myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) are hematologic malignancies arising from two distinct hematopoietic cell lineages. They rarely occur concomitantly. Here, we report a case of a patient with a recent diagnosis of a JAK2 V617F positive MPN who presented with a new diagnosis of plasma cell leukemia.

The Role of Inhibition of Apoptosis in Acute Leukemias and Myelodysplastic Syndrome.

Avoidance of apoptosis is a key mechanism that malignancies, including acute leukemias and MDS, utilize in order to proliferate and resist chemotherapy. Recently, venetoclax, an inhibitor of the anti-apoptotic protein BCL-2, has been approved for the treatment of upfront AML in an unfit, elderly population. This paper reviews the pre-clinical and clinical data for apoptosis inhibitors currently in development for the treatment of AML, ALL, and MDS.