Harsh Words, and Women’s Health at Risk
In this new climate of shame, it’s easy to imagine a girl might feel really, really bad about herself simply for being sexually active.
New Studies on Colon Cancer Screening by Colonoscopy and Fecal Blood Testing
My take is that periodic colonoscopy has the potential to halve the number of deaths from colon cancer in the general population…As to how colonoscopy relates to fecal blood testing as a screening method at the population level, and the optimal start and frequency of either test, those remain uncertain.
50-50, A Serious Film About a Young Man With a Rare Cancer
The movie, based in part on the true story of scriptwriter Will Reiser, surprised me by its candor. Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt smoothly portrays Adam Lerner, who soon finds out he has cancer. The opening scene
Counterfeit Drugs, A New Concern for Patients
Counterfeit vials were sold and distributed to more than a dozen offices and medical treatment facilities in the U.S. This event, which seems to have affected a small number of patients and practices, should sound a big alarm.
73 Cents: A Film on Regina Holliday’s Work, and Patient Advocacy Through Art
The unreasonable price of the medical records, combined with the delay in receiving them, exemplifies unnecessary harms patients encounter in an outdated, disjointed health care system.
Oh, No Methotrexate!
Methotrexate has been used in cancer wards for over 50 years. And like other beyond-patent meds, it’s become less profitable to manufacture MTX compared to much costlier new agents.
Do Adults Need Physicians to Tell Them to Exercise?
Whatever the reasons are that most doctors don’t bring up the issue, one might ask this: Why do adults need doctors to tell them about the health benefits of regular exercise? After all, it’s common knowledge –
NIH Sponsors New Website to Help Patients Understand Clinical Trials
This week the NIH launched a new website, NIH Clinical Research Trials and You. In a Feb 6 press release, NIH Director Dr. Francis S. Collins said “The ability to recruit the necessary number of volunteers is vital to carrying out clinical research.” The idea behind the website is to help patients understand how clinical research […]
Thank You, Rachel and Susan
Yesterday morning, two women who were active in the on-line breast cancer community died. Rachel Cheetham Moro (1970 – 2012) was a critical thinker who vigorously supported BCAction and the NBCC’s 2020 deadline. She was a generous and thoughtful on-line friend to many women in the metastatic and more general BC community, where she used the handle @ccchronicles. Her […]
Study Finds Wide Variation in Reoperation Rates after Lumpectomy for Breast Cancer
All of this meshes with my experience – knowing women who’ve had breast-conserving surgery and then got mixed information about the results and what to do next. You’d think lumpectomy would be a standard procedure by now, and that decisions about what to do after the procedure, surgically speaking (let alone decisions about chemo, hormonal treatments and radiation) would be straightforward in most cases.
Komen Update – Future Plans?
As many ML readers are aware, late this morning, the Susan G. Komen Foundation announced it will not cut current grants or funding to Planned Parenthood. This reversal comes as welcome news to those who support the agency and its work. The New York City branch issued this statement. Still, many breast cancer advocates, activists and […]
A Note on the Komen Fiasco
When I first heard the Susan G. Komen Foundation is nixing its financial support of Planned Parenthood, I thought it might be a mistake. Maybe a rogue affiliate or anti-choice officer had acted independently of the group’s core and mission, and the press got the early story wrong. I waited for Nancy G. Brinker, Komen’s […]
Cyberchondria Rising – What is the Term’s Meaning and History?
Yesterday the AMA news informed me that cyberchondria is on the rise. So it’s a good moment to consider the term’s meaning and history. Cyberchondria is an unfounded health concern that develops upon searching the Internet for information about symptoms or a disease. A cyberchondriac is someone who surfs the Web about a medical problem […]
The Iron Lady, a Film About an Aging Woman
Over the weekend I saw the Iron Lady, a movie about Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister of England. I expected a top-notch, accented and nuanced performance by Meryl Streep, and got that. The film surprised me in several respects. It’s really about aging, and how a fiercely independent woman withers. The camera takes you within her […]
Notes on Wendell Potter, and Why Companies Support the Individual Mandate
The current debate about the individual mandate reminded me to post this – About a year ago, I had the opportunity to hear Wendell Potter, author of Deadly Spin – an insider’s sharp critique of the insurance industry, speak at a meeting of the New York Metropolitan Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program. Despite […]
NEJM Reports on 2 New Drugs for Hepatitis C
Last week’s NEJM delivered an intriguing, imperfect article on a new approach to treating hepatitis C (HCV). The paper’s careful title, Preliminary Study of Two Antiviral Agents for Hepatitis C Genotype 1, seems right. The analysis, with 17 authors listed, traces the response of 21 people with hepatitis C (HCV) who got two new anti-viral agents, with or […]
What is the Disease Control Rate in Oncology?
Last week I came upon a new term in the cancer literature: the Disease Control Rate. The DCR refers to the total proportion of patients who demonstrate a response to treatment. In oncology terms: The DCR is the sum of complete responses (CR) + partial responses (PR) + stable disease (SD). Another way of explaining […]
The ‘Journal’ Asks, Should Patients Have Identification Numbers?
Today’s Wall Street Journal includes a special Big Issues health care section. A post on their blog caught my attention: Should Patient Have Electronic Identification Numbers? The idea is that people who use health care would each be assigned a universal patient identifier, or UPI. This unique number would link to a person’s health records. […]
Regorafenib, an Experimental Pill Tested in Colon and Rectal Cancer Patients, on Conference Agenda
Tomorrow the American Society of Clinical Oncology* will host its 9th annual GI Cancers Symposium. Bloomberg and the LA Times have already reported findings of a paper, still in abstract form, to be presented on Saturday. The drug of interest is regorafenib, a pill that loosely inhibits quite a few kinases – enzymes critical in […]
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Narrative of Cancer History and Ideas
This week I finished reading the Emperor of All Maladies, the 2010 “biography” of cancer by Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee. The author, a medical oncologist and researcher now at Columbia University, provides a detailed account of malignancies – and how physicians and scientists have understood and approached a myriad of tumors – through history. The encyclopedic, […]