As lawmakers return to Washington to tackle health care reform, AARP is pressing them to improve the country’s long-term care system as a part of comprehensive reform. Millions of older Americans rely on Medicaid for the long-term services and supports they need, but the program’s bias toward institutional care prevents most from getting more affordable care where they want it: their own homes.

“It’s shameful that so many people are forced into nursing homes when we could improve their quality of life and typically spend less money by caring for them at home,” said AARP Executive Vice President Nancy LeaMond. “As we overhaul the health care system, we need to build on win-win solutions that expand choices and could save billions of dollars.”

Under current law, Medicaid-the largest payer of long-term care-has an institutional bias. While states must provide coverage of nursing facility services, they do not have to cover most home and community based services (HCBS). On average, Medicaid can pay for three older people in HCBS for every one person in a nursing home. Despite this, HCBS is often one of the first programs to lose state funding during an economic downturn, often forcing more people into higher cost nursing facilities even if they would prefer to remain at home.

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Many childhood cancer survivors aren’t following recommended guidelines on screenings for second cancers as they reach adulthood.

And some survivors suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder years after beating their disease, two new studies show.

Not following screening guidelines can be costly because childhood cancer survivors are more likely to develop a new cancer, and to die of that new cancer, than the regular population, the researchers noted. The findings were presented during a Monday press conference at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting, in Orlando, Fla.

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Actinic keratoses are sun-damaged rough patches or lesions on the skin - often pink and scaly - that doctors have long believed can turn into a form of skin cancer known as squamous cell carcinoma.

Now researchers at Brown University, the Veterans Administration Medical Centers in Providence and Oklahoma City, and others have determined that actinic keratoses appear responsible for a larger spectrum of skin cancers than previously thought. Their research is highlighted in the current edition of Cancer.

“We found some interesting things,” said Dr. Martin Weinstock, the paper’s lead author. Weinstock, chief of dermatology at the VA Medical Center in Providence, is professor of dermatology and community health at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development funded the study.

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Oculus Innovative Sciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: OCLS), a healthcare company that develops, manufactures and markets a family of products based upon the Microcyn® Technology platform, today announced that it has received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market its Microcyn® Skin and Wound Gel as both a prescription and over-the-counter formulation. The Rx product, under the supervision of a health care professional, is intended for management of exuding wounds such as leg ulcers, pressure ulcers, diabetic ulcers and for the management of mechanically or surgically debrided wounds. This is the first hydrogel product based upon the Microcyn Technology platform and is reimbursable by both Medicare and Medicaid.

The original Microcyn-based solution, branded as Microcyn Wound Care in the United States, Microdacyn60™ in Mexico, Dermacyn™ Wound Care in Europe and China and Oxum in India, has treated over one million patients worldwide without a report of a single serious adverse effect.

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The combination of chemotherapies 5FU and oxaliplatin compared to 5FU alone after surgery for colon cancer decreases colon cancer recurrence and promotes longer survival for patients under 70 — but not for those who are older, according to Mayo Clinic and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists who presented their findings at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s (ASCO) annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.

“By combining information about many patients from a collection of studies, our analysis determined that the more aggressive combination chemotherapy does not benefit older colon cancer patients as it does for those who are younger,” said Nadine Jackson McCleary, MD, PhD, Dana-Farber gastrointestinal oncologist and the lead author on the study. Jackson-McCleary is the recipient of a 2008-2009 ASCO Young Investigator’s Award.

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