Data Stream
The Fearful Future of Gene Editing
Supporting the Support Team
A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center reveals
that most Americans, while intrigued about the possibilities
of cutting-edge biomedical technologies like gene editing,
are worried about the consequences.
The demands of caregiving can take a large psychological toll on the families of patients with incurable
cancer, and that distress can sometimes match the patients’ own stress levels, according to a report
published in Annals of Oncology.
Respondents were asked for their opinions on the potential
use of three technologies, and whether they were “worried”
or “enthusiastic” about their use. Each was met with more
skepticism than excitement:
21.5% VS. 16.4%
VS.
68
%
FOR DEPRESSION
ENTHUSIASTIC
WORRIED
Among 275 patients and their family caregivers, self-reported levels of depression were similar, and anxiety
levels higher, for patients and their family caregivers:
gene editing to give babies a
lifetime with much reduced
risk of serious disease
49
%
28.4% VS. 42.2%
FOR ANXIETY
Patients’ use of certain coping strategies had a significant effect on caregivers’ emotional distress. The use
of “emotional support” was associated with a 28% higher rate of depression among caregivers than the
use of “acceptance coping.”
“[These results] underscore the importance of targeting these risk factors when seeking to address the
psychological distress experienced by family caregivers,” the authors concluded.
Source: Nipp RD, El-Jawahri A, Fishbein JN, et al. Factors associated with depression and anxiety symptoms in family caregivers of patients
with incurable cancer. Ann Oncol. 2016;27:1607-12.
69%
implanting brain chips to give
people a much improved
ability to concentrate and
process information
34%
Digging Out of the Inbox
63%
transfusing of synthetic blood
to give people much greater
speed, strength, and stamina
36%
Physicians are getting buried under the amount of notifications delivered to their electronic health record
(EHR)–based inboxes, according to a review of the inboxes of 92 primary-care (PCP) and specialty physicians’ (including hematologists and oncologists) inboxes. The sheer information overload makes it difficult
to discern important from irrelevant messages.
Within a six-month period:
PCPs
received
an average of
76.9
notifications
per day.
Specialists
received
an average of
29.1
notifications
per day.
Overall, concern outpaces excitement, with many saying
these “enhancements” could exacerbate the divide between
the haves and have-nots.
Source: Pew Research Center, “U.S. Public Wary of Biomedical Technologies
to ‘Enhance’ Human Abilities,” July 26, 2016.
The most common type of notifications were related to test results: 15.5 per day for PCPs and 10.4 per day
for specialists.
They further estimated that physicians spent 66.8 minutes per day processing these notifications.
Source: Murphy DR, Meyer AN, Russo E, et al. The burden of inbox notifications in commercial electronic health records. JAMA Intern Med.
2016;176:559-60.
14
ASH Clinical News
October 2016