‘I Won’t Hold My Breath’: What We Heard This Week

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Quotable quotes heard by MedPage Today‘s reporters

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MedPage Today Staff

June 8, 2src25 • 2 min read

“I won’t hold my breath, because most of my patients do relapse at some point, but I was really excited about this curve when I saw it.” — Krina Patel, MD, MSc, of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, discussing a subset of multiple myeloma patients who had improved long-term survival after CAR T-cell therapy, sparking talk of a potential cure.

“This stark inconsistency shows vividly that the MAHA [Make America Healthy Again] agenda is more about politics than science.” — Lawrence Gostin, JD, of Georgetown Law School in Washington, D.C., on the disconnect between HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. bashing medical journals and then embracing their findings.

“It’s not a matter of whether it’s good or bad. It’s here, and the question is whether we know how to use it optimally in everything we do.” — Larry Norton, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, on AI-powered software that analyzes subtle features in mammograms to predict future breast cancer risk.

“It is comparable, and in some cases exceeds, the magnitude of benefit of many of our very good standard medical therapies in oncology.” — Christopher Booth, MD, of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, discussing the benefit of exercise in a randomized trial of colon cancer patients.

“This was definitely surprising, especially given the growing enthusiasm for GLP-1 receptor agonists for their cardiovascular and metabolic benefits.” — Reut Shor, MD, of the University of Toronto, on data linking semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) with neovascular age-related macular degeneration.

“As you might predict, if you’re injecting a viral vector into the prostate, you might expect some virus-like symptoms.” — Theodore DeWeese, MD, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, discussing an investigational immunotherapy for newly diagnosed localized prostate cancer.

“[Sacred moments] could really help put the heart and soul back into healthcare.” — Jessica Ameling, MPH, of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, discussing brief, powerful experiences that can help physicians mitigate burnout.

“No one in this audience needs a reminder as to what a human tragedy pancreas cancer remains today.” — Vincent Picozzi, MD, of Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, on a trial that found tumor treating fields added to gemcitabine-paclitaxel chemotherapy improved overall survival in unresectable pancreatic cancer.