Josh Lang

Restaging w/ #PSMA Imaging in #mCRPC #ProstateCancer: When Seeing More Is Detrimental to Care

Sadly a year later this remains true & the frequency of this is 📈

@ascocancer.bsky.social @ascopost.bsky.social

ascopubs.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

Patient Perspectives on Prior Authorization for Cancer Care This qualitative study characterizes the perspectives of patients with cancer regarding their experience with prior authorization for cancer care.

🗣️"The system is horribly broken & it hurts patients unnecessarily”
🗣️"They wrote me off as a dead man”
 
Navigating #priorauth requires tech savvy, an understanding of insurance processes, knowledge of personal rights, & time to engage in the process.
 
@ascocancer.bsky.social @astro-org.bsky.social

Shout out to the WSJ journalists who reported on Vought’s impoundment by footnote, causing the White House to walk it back. Impact journalism!!

Such an honor and so much fun to join the Cancer Clear and Simple @uwhealth.bsky.social Carbone Cancer Center Podcast to discuss liquid biopsies in cancer!

cancer.wisc.edu/community-ou...

First-ever financial toxicity tumor board aims to change the standard of care Researchers focus on debt as a side effect of cancer, treatment amid cuts to Medicaid, NCI - The Cancer Letter Nearly half of cancer patients and survivors in the United States face medical debt so crushing that it has sparked a relatively new focus within oncology: financial toxicity. To access this subscribe...

"We cure a lot of diseases, & we create a lot of medical debt. It’s a push/pull; right?

The advances that we have within science & medicine are profound. We have people living longer & better. Yet, the cost of treatment is a side effect like any other."

#financialToxicity @cancerletter.com

THE HEALTH INSURANCE MAZE How Cancer Patients Get Lost in the Red Tape of Utilization Management

Key Report Themes CANCERCATE Over 80 Years ef Help and Hope • Prior authorization is widespread and repetitive • Prior authorization leads to time burdens and care delays • Coverage stoppages surprise patients and interrupt care • Insurance problems affect stress, health, finances, and trust • Self-advocacy barriers include gaps in insurance literacy and system awareness • Employer-sponsored plans carried highest administrative burdens, followed by Medicare Advantage, then Traditional Medicare

Needed At Least One Prior Authorization for Cancer Treatment, Past 12 Months, by Insurance Type

"It is a nightmare waking up every day wondering if some people halfway across the country will approve what my doctors have said is my only chance."

📄 New #PriorAuth in cancer report shows the scope of the problem & the need to #fixpriorAuth @cancercare.bsky.social

www.cancercare.org/redtape

This is how it begins...

Review of 2024 – Palaces and Parliament It’s great to start by celebrating still being alive at the end of another year given that, in May 2017, I was told I might only live 2 years! 2024 saw me enter my 8th year post diagnosis having su…

Better late than never I guess! Every year I try to write a review of the year just past, primarily for my grandkids to read when I’m no longer around and here is 2024 finally! runningintocancer.co.uk/2025/05/29/r...

Memorial Day dub

There we go

#MilwaukeeBrewers#BrewersBaseball #MLB

Grateful to @ascocancer.bsky.social Ed Book 📗@n8pennell.bsky.social for this #MedEd publication

🛣️ How to move forward in #EarlyCareer
🚧 Overcoming barriers
⚙️ Switching gears
⏰ Making time and space

🔗: ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/...

@ericroeland.bsky.social
@ryannipp.bsky.social

YouTube video by GU Cast Radiation cystitis!!! Help!!

Special episode of GU Cast from Guy’s Hospital focused on #RadiationCystitis. Unique clinic dedicated to these unfortunate patients learn from Yasmin and Ramesh and team. Some great insights youtu.be/d4A2_swZOHw?...

US measles total climbs to 800 cases, 10 outbreaks

Latest data on measles in the US. The total number of cases has already reached 800 in the first 4 months of 2025 with 85 hospitalizations and 3 deaths. There were 285 total cases last year. 🧪
www.cidrap.umn.edu/measles/us-m...

Ohio Medicaid got rid of big middlemen. Says it paid pharmacies a lot more — and saved $140M • Ohio Capital Journal The Ohio Department of Medicaid department in 2022 gave powerful prescription drug middlemen the boot and created a new system. The result: Fees paid to pharmacies were boosted more than 1,200% while ...

Ohio Medicaid got rid of big middlemen. Says it paid pharmacies a lot more — and saved $140M ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/04/17/o...

What if we screened smarter, not just more?
In BARCODE1, men with high polygenic risk (top 10%) had MRI + biopsy—
40% had prostate cancer.
Over half needed treatment.
Most would’ve been missed by PSA alone.
Genetics is rewriting the rules.
@nejm.org @myesmo.bsky.social @oncoalert.bsky.social

The act will disenfranchise vets/active/overseas military from voting as well (who often have less access to reams of documents)

LDF Denounces House Passage of SAVE Act, Urges Senate to Reject Bill that Will Disenfranchise Millions of Americans - naacpldf.org/press-release/…

#HellNo #VotesForVets

We have known for years that uninsured and underinsured patients with cancer have the worst clinical outcomes. Medicaid is the only lifeline for many of these patients to get the care they need. As an oncologist, I have personally seen the harm caused lack of coverage. Our patients deserve better.

Whatever fraud there is in Medicaid is largely on the provider side, not beneficiaries. It's health insurance, its not cash.

"Fraud" here means going to a doctor if you are unemployed.

🚨 Hot off the press! 🚨 The @myesmo.bsky.social ESMO Precision Oncology Working Group, has unveiled key "Recommendations for structuring Molecular Tumour Boards (MTBs) in clinical practice", now published in ESMO's flagship journal Annals of Oncology 🧬🏥
www.annalsofoncology.org/article/S092...

Low-dose CT for lung cancer screening in a high-risk population (SUMMIT): a prospective, longitudinal cohort study out on LANCET Oncology

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

These findings support the feasibility and effectiveness of large-scale lung cancer screening in a diverse population.

I understand this concern, but the anti-vaxx arguments are already everywhere on social media. We have to have people refuting this stuff. Can’t let it go completely unchecked.

Just in NIH grants, It looks like beautiful Iowa City, home of the U of Iowa, will lose $71m in funding. That's almost $1k per resident. And that's before all the other cuts to SSA, FDA, etc.

Anyone in Iowa City that can offer more insight?
scienceimpacts.org
H/T to Prathima !

The Trump administration restructures federal health agencies, cuts 20,000 jobs The reduction in force comes along with a reorganization of the Department of Health and Human Services, consolidating 28 divisions to 15.

This is not efficiency, this is abandonment.

Americans deserve health care that works for them — and instead, the Trump administration is wreaking havoc on seniors, people with disabilities, and our most vulnerable.

In Illinois, we will stand up against these attacks.

US Department of Health and Human Services to lay off 10,000 employees Cuts will affect the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health

The NIH is set to lose ~1,200 ppl as part of the HHS restructuring.

An NIH researcher had not yet received news internally about plans to restructure the agency as of Thursday morning, less than an hour after Kennedy's statement published. cen.acs.org/policy/US-De... @cenmag.bsky.social #chemsky

Happy to share our new work with @haognguyen on targeting mRNA translation of oncogenes by RNA structure remodeling with a small molecule zotatifin. Congrats to ⁦@DuyguKuzuoglu⁩ an amazing postdoc and all the authors and collaborators!

cell.com/cancer-cell/fu…

A friend drove two hours today for her breast cancer chemotherapy only to learn it was canceled due to NIH cuts. Clinical trial ended midstream. No treatment, no restart, no plan, no information. Her bro-in-law's chemo was also canceled.

"more transparency throughout [the #priorAuth] process is great, I remain concerned that relying on patients & physicians to recognize & initiate appeals places disproportionate burden on our patients who can least afford it."

@michaelannica.bsky.social
@ascocancer.bsky.social

YouTube video by Dropout Oreo CEO: Stop Making New Oreos

So many Oreo options!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMkY...

Do these clinical trial failures demonstrate a failure of traditional pre-clinical models to reflect the human disease?

In addition to the complete avoidance of biomarker-driven clinical trials to find the subset of patients that would benefit.? @asharpmedonc.bsky.social @pcf-science.bsky.social

Immune Checkpoint Combos in Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer: Where Are We Going, What Are We Doing, and Why?

Dr. Susan Slovin from MSK asks some key questions regarding #ProstateCancer #Immunotherapy

@ascocancer.bsky.social

ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/...

Vaccines work.
Measles, polio, smallpox—once devastating, now nearly gone. This is what science achieves when we trust it. Let’s not turn back.
#VaccinesSaveLives #PublicHealth #ScienceMatters
@statista.bsky.social