M. Alexander Otto began his reporting career early in 1999 covering the pharmaceutical industry for a national pharmacists' magazine and freelancing for the Washington Post and other newspapers. He then joined BNA, now part of Bloomberg News, covering health law and the protection of people and animals in medical research. Alex next worked for the McClatchy Company. Based on his work, Alex won a year-long Knight Science Journalism Fellowship to MIT in 2008-2009. He joined the company shortly thereafter. Alex has a newspaper journalism degree from Syracuse (N.Y.) University and a master's degree in medical science -- a physician assistant degree -- from George Washington University. Alex is based in Seattle.
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Tool predicts severe toxicity from chemo in older breast cancer patients
The new scoring system outperformed existing tools.
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Color-imaging endoscopy improves detection of upper GI cancer
Neoplastic lesions were detected in 60 patients (8%) with LCI versus 36 patients (4.8%) with WLI, which translated to a 1.67 times higher rate of...
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Caregiver burden of outpatient ASCT for multiple myeloma comparable with inpatient transplant
But only if caregivers are equipped for outpatient care.
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Cost is the main hurdle to broad use of caplacizumab for TTP
“If we take finances out, I think almost every patient except those with a bleeding risk or bleeding problem should get it,” an investigator said...
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Should CTCs guide treatment choice in HR+, HER2– breast cancer?
Survival outcomes were similar whether treatment choice was guided by circulating tumor cell counts or clinical factors.
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Reduced cancer mortality with Medicaid expansion
There was a significant reduction in breast, colon, and lung cancer mortality.
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Study supports genetic testing in older women with breast cancer
Variants in BRCA1/2, CHEK2, and PALB2 were significantly associated with increased breast cancer risk in women older than 65 years.
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Pembrolizumab plus axitinib continues to outshine sunitinib for advanced RCC
The combination produced a survival benefit in the overall population but not among patients with favorable-risk disease.
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Early results ‘encouraging’ for CAR NKT cells in neuroblastoma
The CAR NKT cells localized to tumors, and one of three patients treated achieved a response.
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Intensive surveillance after CRC resection does not improve survival
There was no significant difference in recurrence-free or overall survival.