‘Every Guideline We Write Is Out of Date’: What We Heard This Week

“Every guideline we write is out of date a few days after it’s published.” — Milton Packer, MD, of Baylor University Medical Center, on how the European Society of Cardiology guidelines for heart failure treatment will need to be revised with the release of the EMPEROR-Preserved study.

“Putting yourself at risk of dying to have ‘natural’ immunity is not a great tradeoff.” — Robert Schooley, MD, of University of California San Diego, discussing a pre-print suggesting that people with a past COVID-19 infection were better protected against the Delta variant than vaccinated individuals.

“Too many adults die from lung cancer each year who would not qualify for lung cancer screening under the current recommendations or would be averse to undergoing an imaging test.” — Robert Smith, PhD, of the American Cancer Society, commenting on a promising blood test that could be an effective pre-screening tool for noninvasive detection of lung cancer.

“No one up until this point has really been talking about early-life factors as being important for this disease.” — Caitlin Murphy, PhD, of the University of Texas Health Science Center, discussing her study about how overweight/obesity in mothers during pregnancy increased the risk for colorectal cancer in their children later in life.

“The tests we used are still for research only but hopefully within a few years, some versions will be available clinically.” — Adam Boxer, MD, PhD, of the University of California San Francisco, on how new diagnostic tests could identify blood biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease.