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.

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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

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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.

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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the medical records, combined with the delay in receiving them, exemplifies unnecessary harms patients encounter in an outdated, disjointed health care system.

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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.

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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 –

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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.

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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 […]

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