Under certain conditions, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will now cover transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) using the Edwards Sapien® heart valve replacement system for Medicare patients.

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At 2 years, bevacizumab (Avastin®; Genentech Inc.) and ranibizumab (Lucentis®; Genentech Inc.) injection, two widely used drugs to treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD), are both effective in improving vision. Improvements were seen when administered monthly or on an as-needed basis, although greater improvements were noted with monthly administration. Both drugs are manufactured by Genentech Inc., but Avastin is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for this indication.

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A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that mortality from colorectal cancer (CRC) was significantly lower among patients who had undergone colonoscopy with polyp removal compared with a control group. However, there were very few deaths among either group and the confidence intervals were very wide.

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New guidelines from the American Cancer Society (ACS) recommend that people living with cancer maintain a healthy weight, get enough exercise, and eat a healthy diet. Increasingly, scientific evidence shows that healthy nutrition and physical activity behavior after a diagnosis can lower the chances of the cancer coming back, and can improve the chances of disease-free survival.

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In a proposed rule, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has noted that it expects operating payments to acute care hospitals to increase by approximately 0.9% in 2013.

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Preventive treatment of migraine is the focus of updated guidelines ^1,2 co-published by the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) and the American Headache Society. According to data presented at the 64th Annual Meeting of the AAN, few people with migraine use preventive treatment—although many different preventive strategies are available. The AAN last updated its prevention guidelines in 2000.

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After several years of planning, discussion, and review, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) have published a new position statement for managing elevated blood glucose levels in people with type 2 diabetes. Neither the ADA nor EASD had previously published an official position statement on this topic, instead providing a consensus treatment-based algorithm developed jointly by both groups.

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The Massachusetts Medical Society is spearheading an effort they call “Disclosure, Apology, and Offer.” Rolled out initially by three major hospitals in Massachusetts, the experimental initiative is designed to reduce costly malpractice lawsuits and encourage doctors and nurses to acknowledge medical errors.

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A wide range of medications—some relatively new and others long available—can cause serious side effects and other adverse events in people 65 years of age and older if not prescribed with care, according to the new American Geriatrics Society Updated Beers Criteria for Potentially Inappropriate Medication Use in Older Adults. The criteria, last revised in 2003, is available with additional professional and public education materials www.americangeriatrics.org.

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According to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, kidney cancer patients, who had only their tumor removed, had better survival than patients who had their entire kidney removed.

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