David Steensma, MD

Since the number of #HematologyTweetstory threads has grown (these are about the intersection of history, etymology, science and clinical practice), I made an index so readers can find ones they are interested in: bit.ly/30rHUOa

I was looking forward to reviewing the #EHA2026 #EHA26 EHA Congress abstracts that were just released today, but apparently a lot of other people had the same idea, as the site is down. @EHA_Hematology any ETA on a fix?

@rosslevinemd @dunkindonuts @NHLBruins @celtics @RedSox @Patriots Not as fresh when they’re picked out of season 😉

Spotted a full tray of these Boston “fan favorite” sprinkle donuts at a local Dunkin’. “They’re just not selling for some reason,” said the @dunkindonuts crew when I asked. @NHLBruins, @celtics and @RedSox and @Patriots… much woe in the Boston sports world

👉👉👉Breaking news 📰 | Momentous occasion in our #MPNSM field! 🙌Congratulations to @AjaxThx @rosslevinemd @RossLevineLab @DavidSteensma & team! #JAK2 ||| @jyoti_nangalia @mpdrc @MullallyLab @TheElfLab @mtmdphd @bose_prithviraj | @MPN_RF @RaajitRampal prnewswire.com/news-releases/…

@VincentRK Likely will drive growth of contract labs that can perform replication experiments, but this will cause so many problems.

As an Editor of a medical journal, this is concerning. We are already struggling. Can some AI person tell me how we detect this especially if the image is resaved on another program and loses any AI tags from chat GPT?

@VincentRK It is confidently incorrect, just like much of the US government leadership currently

Open Evidence giving the wrong answer. Again.

I was at a coffee shop in Concord this weekend behind some guys dressed up as Revolutionary War re-enactors. Was disappointing when the barista called out their names as Bob, Steve and Tom instead of something authentic like Josiah, Ebenezer or Jebediah. bostonglobe.com/2026/04/18/met…

Last time I went to Music-Go-Round they had a collection of these rubber chickens for sale. Some rubber chicken musician either upgraded to a better quality chicken set, or retired. @marklewismd

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) - named after the red rhizome & sap - in the woods behind our home today. Sounds like a fitting flower for a hematologist’s garden or ⁦@ASH_hematology mascot⁩🩸but the alkaloids in the sap are nasty - can burn skin and cause an eschar.😳

I am reminded of the time I had a remote meeting with a team from @Microsoft, and they couldn’t get Microsoft Teams to work.

@LiamFennessy_ “Habemus virum tertium basis”

A new third baseman has been chosen

@PearlF Airport shop To their credit, a lot of the hospitals in the Boston area have reorganized dining areas to nudge visitors in a positive direction - putting the healthy food out in front and making junk food and soda harder to find, etc

@DavidSteensma Is this a hospital's vending machine?

This shop’s definition of “Healthy Snacks” varies from the mainstream medical view… pic.twitter.com/gQE86CzSoD

@lane_andy @spectatorindex I’m sure everyone in that program is super, but is it enough to make MIT the 11th best university for “Medicine” in the world? They must be counting all the research at the Whitehead, Koch, Rogan, McGovern and other MIT-affiliated institutes

@DavidSteensma @spectatorindex But they do: hst.mit.edu

Top universities for Medicine, 2025. 1. 🇺🇸 Harvard University 2. 🇬🇧 University of Oxford 3. 🇺🇸 Stanford University 4. 🇺🇸 Johns Hopkins University 5. 🇬🇧 University of Cambridge 6. 🇺🇸 University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) 7. 🇬🇧 Imperial College London 8. 🇬🇧 UCL 9. 🇸🇪 Karolinska Institute 10. 🇺🇸 Yale University 11. 🇺🇸 MIT 12. 🇺🇸 UCLA 13. 🇺🇸 University of Pennsylvania 14. 🇨🇦 University of Toronto 15. 🇬🇧 King’s College London 16. 🇺🇸 Duke University 17. 🇺🇸 Columbia University 18. 🇸🇬 NUS 19. 🇺🇸 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor 20. 🇬🇧 University of Edinburgh (QS – Medicine)

No one should have to suffer pain like this. This @nytimes writer's post-operative nephrectomy pain for renal cancer was mismanaged, a consequence of the opioid crisis and overreaction that now makes it difficult to prescribe adequate pain medication.☹️ nytimes.com/2026/02/02/wel…

@Biohazard3737 My Uber driver last night: “How big is this #JPM conference anyway? And why is everyone so grumpy?” 😝

You raise an important point. The patient education component is probably the most important part of such clinics, and definitely the most time consuming. Patients often came to me in our Precursor Clinic @DanaFarber having been told they had a mutation in their blood that could turn into leukemia, but that was more likely to cause a heart attack or stroke… true, but helping them understand their real (usually very small) risk always felt like priority number one.

@DavidSteensma @EricTopol Including the time to explain to the patient? 🫣

People with TP53 mutations have blood stem cell clones (CHIP) which promote chronic inflammation, aging, and risk of blood cancers. This can be blocked by multiple means (as shown below) to potentially prevent cancer, but CHIP is not assayed in the clinic. jci.org/articles/view/… @jclinicalinvest

@DrSamuelBHume Rituxitug it is I guess 🤪

I just found out we don't use the suffix 'mab' for new monoclonal antibodies anymore — now it's -tug/-bart/-mig/-ment So, for the new amyloid antibody, Remternetug 'Remter–' is a random prefix; '–ne' is for neurology and '–tug' because it's unmodified and monospecific