Watchful Waiting

A novel therapeutic showed significant promise in slowing aortic valve calcification, potentially extending time until or eliminating need for transcatheter or surgical intervention for stenosis, researchers reported.

SAN FRANCISCO — For patients with idiopathic adhesive capsulitis or “frozen shoulder,” watchful waiting yielded similar outcomes with lower costs and decreased health care burden vs. physical therapy, according to presented results.

Early surgery or watchful waiting in patients with severe asymptomatic aortic stenosis.

In the AVATAR trial, patients with asymptomatic severe aortic stenosis and normal left ventricular function assigned early surgical aortic valvular replacement, compared with watchful waiting, had a lower incidence of death and CV outcomes.

Metastasis and prostate cancer-specific death appeared rare among men with low-risk and carefully selected intermediate-risk prostate cancer undergoing long-term active surveillance, according to study data published in Journal of Urology.

A nonoperative watch-and-wait strategy appeared comparable to upfront surgery in survival outcomes and could confer a quality-of-life benefit and significant cost savings for certain patients with rectal cancer, according to results of a modeling study published in Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

PHOENIX — Watchful waiting was shown to have possible noninferiority to physical therapy as treatment for patients with adhesive capsulitis of the shoulder, based on results of a study presented at the Orthopaedic Research Society Annual Meeting, here.

Patients with thyroid cancer who opt for maximal vs. minimal surveillance after being declared disease-free consume a greater amount of health care resources without clear evidence of improved outcomes, according to results of a retrospective study published in Cancer.