A Call For More Research On Cancer’s Environmental Triggers
No question about cancer is more contentious than its causes.
Many Breast Cancer Patients Can Safely Skip Chemo, Large Trial Confirms
These results have the potential to reduce overtreatment of breast cancer—stopping patients’ unnecessary exposure to chemotherapy—in a large fraction of cases.
Why All Cancer Patients Should Have Access To Genomic Testing
What’s at issue is the right of all cancer patients—regardless of wealth—to obtain high-quality information about their conditions.
7 Key Cancer Trends For 2018
Few doctors, even oncologists who subspecialize, can keep up with developments in the field.
Actually, Many New Cancer Drugs May Be Helpful And Worth Trying
Perhaps the literature fails to capture the clinical value of oncology drugs. This could happen for several reasons.
Is There A Better Place To Decide What’s Right For Patients?
Who should decide when evidence for a drug sufficient to support a patient’s decision to give it a try?
In Bold Move, FDA Approves Cancer Drug For Any Advanced Tumor With Genetic Changes
The FDA’s accelerated approval of this drug might surprise traditional oncologists. It suggests the agency may be ditching an archaic system for classifying cancers based on body parts—like breast or liver or colon cancer—and instead will focus..
Before Breast Cancer Surgery, A Question Every Patient Should Ask Her Surgeon
Can you perform a sentinel lymph node biopsy, and avoid removing all of the glands from my armpit?
We Need To Tame The Price Of New Cancer Drugs
Are unbridled profits necessary to drive medical innovation and progress?
Team Care Slashes Deaths From Pregnancy In Sickle Cell Anemia
Prior to the program’s start, maternal mortality for women with sickle cell disease exceeded 9% at the teaching hospital. With team-based care, the death rate fell to 1%.
How The 21st Century Cures Act Should Support Public Health
We need and can afford both: to raise the bar so that everyone has access to modern healthcare, and to advance treatments through medical science.
Why Patients Support The 21st Century Cures Act
The Cures Act will keep the U.S. at the forefront of medical progress, a draw for scientists and doctors around the world, a source of pride.
The FDA Did The Right Thing By Approving a Novel Drug For A Disabling Disease
The FDA’s decision reflects a thoughtful, not knee-jerk approach to its mission, which is to protect the public from fraudulent and unsafe substances. What’s at issue is how well eteplirsen works. And that it’s too expensive.
A Modern, Adaptive FDA Should Support Patients’ Right To Try New Medications
The agency’s leadership might accomplish what medicine does best: applying science humanely, so that people can get well if it’s possible, and not wait.
Lip Service To Patients And Caregivers, Or Respect? The Significance Of An FDA Panel’s Review
..as if mothers telling an FDA panel about what’s happening to their kids with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a disabling condition, is the opposite of science.
Five Key Issues For The Future Of Cancer IT
If there’s one thing that’s become clear about precision medicine – and the delivery of optimal care based in science – it will require super technology. This need is especially urgent in oncology.
Why Many Cancer Drugs Don’t Have To Cost So Much
The concept of valuing drugs, at least in part, by how easy it is to reliably produce, distribute and take them, appeals to reason.
Flint’s Lead-Contaminated Water Points To Health Effects Of Ailing Infrastructure
The EPA suggests an action level for lead in water: it should be below 15 parts per billion. Because lead toxicity causes irreversible neurological damage, prevention is crucial.
Patients Shouldn’t Be Used As Hostages, Vulnerable To Sudden Drug Price Increases
Martin Shkreli is not the only bad player in the game of hiking up drug prices.
Precision Medicine Will (Eventually) Lower Cancer Care Costs
Over time, the costs should drop, like for smartphone tech, what my Dad – a chemistry major and retired physician – called “magic.”
Why Women And Doctors Need To Know More About DCIS
DCIS accounts for approximately 1 in 5 breast cancer-ish diagnoses in the United States. The practical problem with DCIS is that most oncologists, surgical and medical, will admit they’re not sure what to do about it.
Logistic Toxicity, An Unmeasured Burden Of Healthcare
Logistic toxicity might be defined as the administrative burden of health care.
How To Avoid Overdiagnosis And Overtreatment Of Breast Cancer
If overtreatment is the problem, the solution is not by avoidance of breast cancer detection, but by better education of physicians and patients.
SCOTUS Saves Obamacare, But More Change Is Needed
What’s needed is greater moral stewardship of health care resources.
Study Highlights Social Factors Affecting Breast Cancer Surgery
A new study sheds light on social and economic factors that influence whether women with breast cancer get lumpectomy or mastectomy.
Cutting Through The Hyped Costs Of Mammograms
The authors’ definition of false positives and assumptions of overdiagnosis undermine calculations of mammography’s costs.
Understanding Angelina Jolie Pitt’s Cancer Risk And Her Decision To Tell About It
By telling her story, she helps break the mystery and stigma that deter honest and needed discussion about cancer-causing, inherited genetic mutations.
Recent Studies Of Mammography Use Shockingly Old Data
Researchers today are analyzing our grandmothers’ mammograms to inform women’s health and screening decisions today.
’60 Minutes’ Is Right To Raise Questions About Lumber Liquidators’ Toxic Floors
Formaldehyde in wood products can cause cancer and other ailments including skin and breathing problems.
All Women Should Have Access To Ultrasound Screening For Breast Cancer
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.
Mandatory Reporting Of Breast Density In Screening Mammograms. Why The Controversy?
Women have every right to know if they have dense breasts and if they’re at increased risk for a hidden tumor.
Can The Mammogram Panel Read A Mammogram?
To issue sound guidelines on breast cancer screening, would the USPSTF benefit by including an oncologist or radiologist on the panel?
Why The FDA Panel’s Nod To Sandoz’s Filgrastim (Zarzio) Is Good News For Patients
The implications extend beyond cancer drugs. Biosimilars have the potential to significantly reduce the costs of modern health care for people with all kinds of illness
Why Yes, We Should Treat Cancer
To deny new cancer treatments that might prolong life in a good way, possibly for cure or a remission, or even just to tame the disease, is a misguided proposition.
A Gift? Health Care Without The Business
A key question, about which we all might agree, is this: Can and should health care be run as a business?
So What About That Acrylamide In Your French Fries?
In 2002, scientists reported that acrylamide forms when seemingly healthy carbohydrate-rich foods like potatoes, other root vegetables and grains are cooked at high temperatures by frying, roasting, broiling, toasting or baking.