Good morning. We’re starting our day in awe of the satellite images showing the moon's gigantic shadow sweeping across North America during the April 8 total solar eclipse.

 ☕️Postcall’s one-sip markets update:

Stocks finished yesterday lower and government-bond yields rose after the latest inflation reading came in hotter than Wall Street expected. But there’s still lots of optimism in the markets from last week’s US jobs report was strong, with wages still climbing. As long as the big US banks’ earnings reports tomorrow go well, we should see this “long boom” continue.

Now we have some stories fresh out of the Postcall oven (5m read):

How often do cancer drugs that receive accelerated approval actually work?

The American Association for Cancer Research just held its annual meeting last week, and Postcall’s here to give you the scoop. Specifically, we came away with 3 interesting notes:

1. Researchers have struggled for a long time to explain the rising trend in cancer cases among younger people. Now, data from 150K people from the UK Biobank has give us a clue: people born after 1965 might be aging faster. They were 17% more likely to show accelerated aging (based on 9 blood based markers) compared to those born between 1950 and 1954. This then translated to increased risks for lung, stomach, intestinal, and uterine cancers. Read more.

2. Pancreatic cancer — hard to find, harder to treat (due to nonspecific symptoms, and the pancreas is difficult to palpate). But a liquid biopsy might have the answer. Large cohorts from multiple countries tested for a combined liquid biopsy signature with CA19-9 (biomarker) showed a 97% accuracy rate in detecting stage 1-2 pancreatic cancers. Read more.

3. The US FDA created an accelerated approval pathway 30 years ago to support development of HIV treatments, but now 80% of approvals from that pathway is for cancer drugs instead. If that sounds like a good thing, consider this: half of those speedy cancer drugs fail to improve patient survival OR quality of life in subsequent trials after 5+ years of follow-up. Read more.

👨‍💻Heidi’s Tech Bites

1: 👾 Watch out, AI scribes — Google has filed multiple patent applications that indicate it wants to explore the convergence of AI and healthcare. For example, they’re exploring the application of machine learning on doctors’ notes and diagnostic assistants. Nothing we can download and use yet though.

2: 🚗 Tesla is settling a lawsuit over a 2018 crash that killed an Apple engineer when a Model X on Autopilot collided with a highway barrier. Scheduled to begin in the California Superior Court this week, the case would have brought more attention to the safety of Tesla Autopilot and Self-Driving tech.

3: 🧠 Neurovalens, a startup building “noninvasive neurostimulation“ tech, has been given FDA clearance for two devices: one for generalized anxiety disorder and one for insomnia. It’s interesting because it’s not just a fuzzy “wellness” approval - the FDA 510(k) approval means it’s approved for prescription by physicians for specific use cases like GAD. Canadian regulators haven’t approved it yet though.

Want to use AI instead of just reading about it (or waiting for Google)? Try Heidi, the only free AI scribe.

Staying #Up2Date 🚨

1. Inpatient delirium: a path to dementia?

A retrospective cohort study from Australia looked at 55K elderly patients who had been diagnosed with inpatient delirium but no dementia at baseline. These patients were matched 1:1 to patients hospitalized around the same time but without developing delirium. During the 5-year follow-up, both mortality and incident dementia were more common in the delirium group than in the no-delirium group (relative risks of 1.4 and 3.4, respectively). Mortality and incident dementia rose with the number of delirium episodes in the first 12 months of follow-up (by 10% and 20% per episode of delirium, respectively). 

2. Cancer vaccine are becoming possible

Researchers presented data last week from two early-stage clinical trials that show cancer vaccines have some promise in preventing or lowering the risk of relapse after surgery.

1. An early-phase trial of a personalized neoantigen vaccine from the French biotech Transgene for head and neck cancer.

2. Another trial is of a BioNTech and Genentech cancer vaccine for pancreatic cancer patients after surgery.

3. Can we get free genetic testing? 

To further its goal of keeping its members alive longer (probably so they can keep paying premiums), MassMutual is offering many of its 4.2 million policyholders free genetic risk assessments for common conditions, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and breast cancer. The idea is that folks will be inspired to change their lifestyle as a result. But a genetic expert said it's a "head-scratcher" why MM chose to screen for common conditions like high blood pressure and T2D and not ALS and early ALZ.

Notable Numbers 🔢

−2.3%: If you follow the advice of the majority of financial influencers, or finfluencers, that’s how much your investments will likely underperform expectations each month, according to the Swiss Finance Institute.

85%: how much death by prostate cancer is projected to increase from 2020 to 2040, according to the Lancet and the largest study of its kind.

18.9 million: That’s how many tuned in to watch South Carolina beat Iowa on Sunday in the women’s NCAA basketball final. This is the first time in history the women’s tournament had more viewers than the men’s (and even surpassed the games in the NBA Finals last year). Highlights here.

Postcall Picks ✅ 

📱 Message: your patients better. Dr. Ajay Haryani had some very wise words to share with us about how to text properly with patients for the best outcomes.

🛫 Travel: Trying to get 16 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits while travelling? You can with Wilderness Medicine’s upcoming trip to Zimbabwe & Botswana on Jul. 29 - Aug. 8. You can see one of the largest elephant herds in Arica and swim on the edge of Victoria Falls, all while learning about from high altitude physiology expert Robert "Brownie" Schoene, MD. Learn more here.

💳️ Monetize: your friends courtesy of American Express — through May 22, 2024, you can earn an extra 10X rewards or 10% cash back per dollar spent at restaurants worldwide (for three months on up to $25,000) after you refer a friend and they’re approved for a qualifying card. Instructions here.

👀 Watch: Good Work looks into whether politicians should be allowed to trade stocks:

🤣 Laugh: at ortho bro’s rods.

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🤘 PS. If you’re reading this, you know that our readers are America’s best and brightest physicians. Learn about partnering with Postcall if you’d like to reach them.