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Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional

Peabody, Massachusetts
I am now retired after spending the last 30 years consulting in ophthalmic and medical lasers and... Full Bio
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The First Ophthalmic Innovation Summit by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine Earlier this year, two venture capitalists, Emmett Cunningham of Clarus Ventures and Bill Link of Versant Ventures, came up with the idea to hold a meeting prior to this year’ ... Read on »
Avastin/Lucentis Update 35: The CMS Does the Full Monty on Code Q2024 for Avastin! by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine According to an email received yesterday by Jack Mitchell of the Senate Committee on Aging, “Effective immediately, CMS is no longer going to recognize code Q2024 for payment ... Read on »
Oraya IRay In-office Stereotactic X-ray Treatment for AMD: A First Report by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine Another new company with a treatment for wet AMD has come out of “stealth mode”, and presented information on how it’s system works and the results of it’s initial clinical tr ... Read on »
Avastin/Lucentis Update 34: More on the Comparative Studies by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine In my constant search for new information about AMD treatments, I happened across a blog devoted to all things retina: The Retina Blog. In one posting, following the recent AA ... Read on »
Avastin/Lucentis Update 33: The Wording of the CMS Order for Repricing of Avastin by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine The following note was received this morning by my contact in Senator Kohl’s office, from the director of CMS’ Office of Legislation, along with the wording, shown below, take ... Read on »
Menu – Part 14: Some Updates and a Few New Posts by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine Since the last menu posting on June 12th, I have added two new updates on the CATT Study; eight updates on Avastin vs. Lucentis; and three new postings. The new postings inclu ... Read on »
Avastin/Lucentis Update 32: More on the CMS Repricing of Avastin by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine During the 2009 AAO Meeting in San Francisco, there was much discussion of the CMS cuts in reimbursement of Avastin beginning at the beginning of October.Crystal Phend of MedP ... Read on »
Avastin/Lucentis Update 31: Problems with Pharmacy Compounding of Avastin? by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine A disturbing report from the 2009 AAO Meeting, as described on the OSN Supersite. Dr. Malik Kahook, speaking at the joint meeting, said that he had seen 16 cases of IOP spikes ... Read on »
CATT Study Update 10 – From the 2009 AAO Meeting by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine According to Dr. J. Kitchens, Tweeting from the Retina SubSpecialty Day Session at the 2009 AAO Meeting, Dan Martin, head of the CATT Study, reported this morning that the stu ... Read on »
Avastin/Lucentis Update 30: A Followup to Update 26 – Sen. Herb Kohl Queries CMS by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine As reported by Alicia Mundy in a Wall Street Journal Health Blog yesterday evening, Senator Herb Kohl wants to know if Genentech had any input into the CMS decision to reduce ... Read on »
Avastin/Lucentis Update 29: Six-Month Results of Controlled Comparison Study Published by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine Apparently, Boston University School of Medicine and the VA Boston, have published the first six-month results of a comparison study of Lucentis vs. Avastin, and found no diff ... Read on »
Avastin/Lucentis Update 28: Sustained Release Lucentis May Eventually Change the Equation by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine In an announcement this morning, Roche and Genentech announced that they had struck a licensing and development deal with Surmodics, Inc., for the latter’s proprietary, biode ... Read on »
Avastin/Lucentis Update 27: Dr. Rosenfeld’s Remarks at Retina Congress 2009 by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine The following abstract of Dr. Rosenfeld’s remarks were reported by OSN Supersite in their continuing coverage of Retina Congress 2009.Search for optimal anti-VEGF dosing strat ... Read on »
Avastin/Lucentis Update 26: CMS Ups the Ante by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine A few days ago, Dr. Philip Rosenfeld told me that Medicare was slashing the reimbursement for Avastin to $7.20 a dose, an unintended consequence of their new Avastin code for ... Read on »
Endoscopy in Ophthalmology: The Latest News and Some History by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine I saw a brief writeup in the current OSN Supersite (September 22, 2009) about Endo Optiks launching a new series of high-resolution micro-endoscopes and it brought to mind the ... Read on »
Avastin/Lucentis Update 25: Comparative Studies Proliferate – France Joins the Fray by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine According to a story just published in APM Health Europe (September 14, 2009), a French study comparing Roche's Avastin (bevacizumab) and Novartis' Lucentis (ranibizumab) in t ... Read on »
A Review of the History of Customized Corneal Ablation (Custom LASIK) by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine With the recent announcement by Technolas Perfect Vision of the FDA approval of its iris-tracking laser to improve LASIK outcomes, it reminded me that I was among the first to ... Read on »
CATT Study Update 9: The CATT Study is On Track by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine I first learned of the possibility of there being a comparative study of Avastin vs. Lucentis in June 2007. I then followed its progress until it finally became a reality in F ... Read on »
Femtosecond Lasers Proposed for Use in Cataract Surgery by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine As readers of this Journal know, I’ve been actively following developments in the use of femtosecond (FS) lasers. An old friend of mine, Larry Haimovitch, who contributes to B ... Read on »
Menu – Part 13: A Few Updates and Some New Posts by Irv Arons Healthy Living Professional Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine Since the last menu posting, I have added two updates for AMD; a new approach for treating myopia with femtosecond lasers; a list of my private client studies while at Arthur ... Read on »