Dr. Andrew Smith foresees a day when doctors can look at images of some metastatic melanoma tumors and better show whether that patient is benefiting from a particular treatment or not.

Smith and his colleagues saw their paper outlining the process published by the American Journal of Roentgenology in September, just a few weeks after former President Jimmy Carter announced that he is being treated for metastatic melanoma, or skin cancer that has spread to other places in his body.

Smith, a researcher and associate professor of radiology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, said computed tomography (CT) scans can help show if angiogenesis inhibitors, drugs that can  destroy blood vessel growth to tumors, are working. The drugs used in his study are not the same ones Carter is receiving.

He hopes the findings will add another tool to a limited toolbox for metastatic melanoma. One day the scans may give doctors the ability to predict metastatic disease response after only one cycle of therapy. If the tumor shows a favorable response, this is encouraging to patients and their doctors. If the tumor shows an unfavorable response, doctors and patients may switch to a different therapy.  Long term, that could save the patient the cost of the drug, side effects from it and put them in a therapy that helps slow or destroy their cancer.

Smith said research doctors may also use this information to plan clinical trials and use the tool to bring certain drugs to market faster and at less cost.

 "As we enter the age of personalized medicine, the ability and need to assess a cancer patient's individual response to his treatment becomes critical," said Dr. Timothy McCowan, professor and head of the Radiology Department. "Dr. Smith's research is on the forefront of providing this information."

Money can buy health. It can buy time and a longer life.

If that's the case, the United States should have the fittest, most long-lived population on earth.

But the country that spends more on medical care per person than any other nation in the world ranks last or near the bottom for several signposts of health, including life expectancy. How can this be?

Dr. Paula Braveman posed that question here Thursday before offering a multitude of responses during the second Marian Wright Edelman Distinguished Lectureship Series at the Jackson Medical Mall Thad Cochran Center.

"Health professionals are trained to deal with health effects - not the causes or the sources of those effects," said Braveman, the event's distinguished lecturer, who also directs the Center of Social Disparities in Health at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

"Dealing with the sources is more difficult politically," said Braveman, a UCSF professor of family and community medicine.

A number of interesting events is scheduled for the upcoming week at the Medical Center.