Brief Report: Annual Meeting of the Metastatic Breast Cancer Network

The Metastatic Breast Cancer Network held its fifth annual meeting in Baltimore over this past weekend. Most of the nearly 300 registrants were women living with MBC. The lively group of women coalesced in the face of unexpected, pre-seasonal wintry weather. At an evening reception they stood, sat, waited for drinks and lined up for […]

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Arizona Cheerleaders Cause Community Stir With Breast Cancer Awareness Shirts

This story, shared today by Debbie Woodbury, warrants ML Annals of Pink inclusion: The Arizona Republic reports on a divided community in Gilbert, AZ. At issue is the high school cheerleading team’s plan to wear pink tee shirts with the slogan: “Feel for lumps – save your bumps” on the back. The group’s intention was […]

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Mammograms Could Save More Lives Than You Might Think

Some of the more understandable discussion comes from women with metastatic disease whose tumors were missed by screening mammography. Notably, neither paper quotes an oncologist.

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Reading About Thinking (on D. Kahneman’s Ideas on Perceptions of Knowledge)

An article appeared in yesterday’s NYT Magazine on the hazards of over-confidence. The Israeli-born psychologist (and epistemologist, I’d dare say), Nobel laureate and author Daniel Kahneman considers how people make decisions based on bits of information that don’t provide an adequate representation of the subject at hand. He recounts how poorly, and firmly, army officers evaluate […]

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Note to Government: Please Don’t Pull Back on Patient Safety Regulations

A few days ago I had a colonoscopy to evaluate some gastrointestinal problems. Subjective summary: Yuck. Downing 3 liters of Nu-Litely, a hyper-osmotic colonic cocktail prep, does not make for a pleasant Sunday afternoon, evening or night. As for the procedure itself, I don’t know how Katie Couric did it on TV. But what made the […]

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3 Differences between Prostate and Breast Cancer Screening

Days ago, the USPSTF issued a new draft for its recommendations on routine PSA measurements in asymptomatic men. The panel’s report is published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The main findings are two: first, the absence of evidence that routine PSA testing prolongs men’s lives, and second, that PSA evaluation may, on balance, cause […]

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What Is a Cancer Metastasis?

A metastasis refers to a lump of cancer cells that’s physically separated from the original tumor. A metastasis can be local, like when colon cancer spreads to a nearby lymph node in the gut, or distant, as when lung cancer cells generate tumors in the adrenal gland, liver, bone or brain. Sometimes metastases cause serious […]

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More on DCIS

More, a magazine “for women of style & substance,” has an unusually thorough, now-available article by Nancy F. Smith in its September issue on A Breast Cancer You May Not Need to Treat. The article’s subject is DCIS (Ductal Carcinoma in Situ). This non-invasive, “Stage O” malignancy of the breast has shot up in reported incidence […]

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A Life-Changing Day

Today marks 9 years, exactly, since Dr. L. gave me the Call. It was a Wednesday afternoon. I was in clinic, caring for patients with blood diseases. In between seeing my patients and supervising the residents and fellows, I checked my voice mail. The message from Dr. L. said I should please contact her. Already, by […]

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Two Faces of Pancreatic Cancer

Early this week I was saddened to hear of a former colleague’s death from pancreatic cancer. Dr. Ralph Steinman, a physician-researcher at the Rockefeller University, received a Nobel Prize for his work on the innate immune system. For many, news of Ralph’s death at 68 years arrived synchronously with word of his award. Yesterday we […]

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