writer, health care advocate, physician
The Shower Shirt is made of waterproof parachute material on the outside, with microfiber on the inside of the neck, a water-resistant zipper, flap, and Velcro all the way down in front.
There is no good trial of mammography using current radiology systems in the context of modern pathology and minimalist treatment approaches. And there is none underway. As seen in Forbes.
The panel’s C recommendation lessens the likelihood that women under 50 years will be encouraged to get mammograms and opens up the possibility that insurance will not cover their screening.
The authors’ definition of false positives and assumptions of overdiagnosis undermine calculations of mammography’s costs.
Automated whole breast ultrasound screening has the potential to improve breast cancer screening of women with dense breasts.
Anne Parker’s perspective on cancer care – as a family member, patient and advocate – spans over 50 years.
Researchers today are analyzing our grandmothers’ mammograms to inform women’s health and screening decisions today.
Lisa wasn’t quiet about life or living with a devastating condition.
Radiologists who publish academic papers on breast imaging may be influenced by idiosyncrasies in training, what machines their practices own or hospitals happen to have purchased, anecdotal experiences and personal skills.
The FDA’s decision on palbociclib immediately expands treatment options for a large fraction of people living with metastatic breast cancer. What limits enthusiasm is how much this oral drug will cost.
Women have every right to know if they have dense breasts and if they’re at increased risk for a hidden tumor.
To issue sound guidelines on breast cancer screening, would the USPSTF benefit by including an oncologist or radiologist on the panel?
A low Oncotype DCIS score predicts a low chance that non-invasive breast cancer will recur. The study supports that many women with DCIS can safely forgo radiation.
The IBIS-1 trial shows a dramatic, reductive effect of tamoxifen in preventing breast tumors.
What’s concerning about the preliminary findings is that the median time to response was 18 weeks. For patients to wait four months or longer to see if there’s a benefit seems like a lot; these are women without much time to spare.
First, you need awareness. In many world regions, fatalism is still an obstacle. Second, you need a delivery system. Third…
What this movie gets right is the loneliness of having cancer – the feeling that kicks in when you’re awake and alive in some sort of hyper-sterile place receiving therapy, where there’s no one else.
Too often, people undergo surgery for small, unlikely-to-be-harmful thyroid tumors. But thyroid cancer is not breast cancer.
Many patients living with metastatic breast cancer need more help than they’re receiving, and many are reluctant to ask.
Patients have different preferences and needs; advocates have different styles and priorities. The issue about October is that..
Perjeta extends survival in patients with Her2 positive breast cancer. Might drugs targeting Her2 be effective in other malignancies?
This film touches on tough cancer subjects as few movies do: women’s feelings of physical inadequacy after surgery, issues of sexuality and potential turning off of partners…
BRCA genetic test results inform but don’t dictate an individual woman’s risk of developing cancer.
Chemotherapy treatments for early-stage breast cancer vary widely in their possible side effects. But few newly-diagnosed patients press their oncologists about those differences.
Most women do well, for many years, after the smallest surgery possible to remove an invasive breast tumor. But the decision isn’t easy.
A key question about tomosynthesis is whether it’s worth investing in so many new machines and educating radiologists to interpret 3-D breast images.
This new JAMA article reviews the literature. At a glance, it may add to the growing perception among journalists, primary care physicians and others – including ordinary women – that mammography’s effectiveness has been, again, disproved.
What’s great about this piece, and what’s wrong about it, is that it comes from an individual woman.
Survivor seems a strange term for a patient like me, said by her oncologist to be in remission—meaning that there’s no overt evidence of persistent cancer cells in the body.
Some feel slighted or ignored during awareness month — counter-examples to the common notion of survivorship.
Singing “Rock and Roll,” on top of a piano
In Kansas, legislators recently passed the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. If enacted into law, the bill would require doctors to tell pregnant women of a relationship between abortion and breast cancer.
If a drug helps, keep it going; if it hurts, stop. There are so many algorithms in medicine, and molecular tools, but maybe the bottom line is how the, one, your patient is doing.
Few forms of invasive breast cancer warrant no treatment unless the patient is so old that she is likely to die first of another condition, or the patient prefers to die of the disease….“Mammograms Spot Cancers That May Not Be Dangerous,” said….
The new findings have no bearing on whether or not cancer screening is cost-effective or life-saving. What the study does suggest is that med school math requirements should be upped and rigorous, counter to the trend
Earlier this month, the ACS released its annual report on Cancer Facts and Figures. The document, based largely on analyses of SEER data from the NCI, supports that approximately 229,000 adults in the U.S. will receive a diagnosis of invasive…
