Breast Cancer Blog

Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

This Sunday, the Patriots will attempt a fourth Super Bowl victory. Former Patriots offensive lineman Joe Andruzzi will not be there to protect Tom Brady. Last May, the then 31 year old Andruzzi was diagnosed with Burkitt lymphoma, an aggressive form of cancer where tumors can double in size in a day. But a story best told is told from the beginning, and often the beginning of a story is not realized until it has already been lived.

“God puts you in certain places for a reason,” is the way Andruzzi explains events that connect us in ways we can not see at the time. Lucy Buckley’s young son was diagnosed with brain cancer. One day at the store, she approached several Patriots team members to ask if there was something they could do to bring joy to her son, as her young son was a devoted Patriots fan. Andruzzi became involved in the boy’s daily life, and after his death, started the C.J. Buckley Brain Cancer Research Fund at Children’s Hospital in Boston.

Andruzzi comes from a family of people who care and give of themselves. His three brothers are New York firefighters. On 9/11, his brothers were first responders. Andruzzi could not save a young boy’s life, but he did make the last year of his life more wonderful by taking the time to spend time with a Patriot’s fan. It is a basic life tenet that states while we might not be able to save the world, we are here to repair the world. You do what you can do when life calls on you to do it. Without knowing what it all means at the time. From the heart, without thought of reward.

Andruzzi could not have known, while spending time with a young cancer patient, that he would one day be diagnosed with cancer. So, it was when Andruzzi became a cancer patient the Buckley family stepped in to help. You see, Lucy Buckley is a children’s cardiologist at Children’s Hospital in Boston. She contacted everyone she knew, and was able to put the Andruzzi family in touch with the very best cancer specialists. An aggressive cancer requires aggressive treatments. Andruzzi talked his way through the grueling treatments by remembering his young cancer friend has endured equally debilitating treatments with courage. Sports Illustrated features Andruzzi’s story in Fight of his life. Today, Andruzzi is cancer free.

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Submitted by Dr.Kattlove’s Cancer Blog

Birth control pills help prevent ovarian cancer. I didn’t know this either until I started working for the American Cancer Society. I always wrote about risk factors – things that increased the risk of cancer. It was rare that anything was proven to reduce the risk of cancer, other than avoiding the risk factors and leading a “healthy” life. But, to my surprise, I kept running across this fact – women who took birth control pills were less likely to develop ovarian cancer.

Ovarian cancer is a serious problem. Most women who are diagnosed with it will die from it. Only about 40% live 5 years after diagnosis. It was estimated that in 2007, around 22,000 women developed ovarian cancer and about 16,000 women were killed by this disease. About a third of these women are younger than 65 so many years of potential life are cut off by this disease. And there is no screening test to detect it early, a time when it is most likely to be cured.

That is why the information about birth control pills is so interesting. This becomes one reason, other than preventing pregnancies, to opt for this form of birth control. Last week’s issue of The British Journal, The Lancet, carried a summary of all the major studies of birth control pills and ovarian cancer. The major finding was that for every 5 years a woman took birth control pills, her chances of developing ovarian cancer dropped by 20 percent. And, although this effect diminished a little with time, it lasted throughout a woman’s life. An accompanying editorial wondered whether doctors should encourage women looking for birth control to turn to the pill so they can lower their risk of ovarian cancer in later years.

No one knows for sure why birth control pills have this effect. One explanation is that the birth control pills rest the ovaries. While a woman is taking them, her ovaries don’t produce eggs on a monthly basis and along with this rest there are fewer dividing cells and less cancer. What is known, according to the researchers, is that these pills have saved many lives. Perhaps as many as 100,000 women haven’t died of ovarian cancer because they took birth control pills. And this number will increase to hundreds of thousands of lives saved as these pregnancy-preventers are rolled out to less developed countries.

Some good news for a change.

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

Biologist and bladder cancer survivor Sandra Steingraber was 20 years old when diagnosed with cancer. At the time, her urologist asked if she had been exposed to several known environmental toxins linked to bladder cancer. Then, when environmental risks went out of fashion, and lifestyle habits became the cause of cancers, Steingraber mused that she had been too young to develop many of the lifestyle habits that might have caused her cancer. She was a vegetarian who ran four miles a day. As time went on, risky lifestyle habits link to cancer were replaced with a new focus on genetic links to cancer. Steingraber gladly answered that she did indeed have quite the family history of cancer.

“I would describe in detail my mother, diagnosed with breast cancer, my various uncles with prostate and colon cancers, and – the crowning point – my aunt who died of the same kind of bladder cancer that I had. The young doctors took furious notes. I would always pause a few beats before adding, Oh yeah. And I’m adopted.”

In a review of the book Secret History of the War On Cancer, Steingraber outlines the good guys, the bad guys, the politics and the fact that depending on the era when diagnosed with cancer, the causes seem to change. We appear to be coming back around to environmental cancer risks, where citizens and not scientists are connecting the dots. Read Steingraber’s fascinating account in Theories of cancer: How paradigms shift and culprits change in the fight against the disease, and what concerned citizens can do about it.

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

ABC Good Morning America anchor and breast cancer survivor Robin Roberts features a segment Men’s Health Eat This, Not That healthy suggestions for the typical Super Bowl Sunday munch fest that allows you to enjoy all the goodness of Super Bowl Sunday foods without all the guilt. Instead of 2 slices of Pepperoni Pizza: 560 calories, 28 fat grams — choose Thin Crust Hawaiian Pizza: 300 calories, 17 fat grams. Instead of Cheese Dip With Chips: 4 tbsp 180 calories, 14 fat grams — choose Spinach Artichoke Dip With Chips: 4 tbsp 110 calories, 8 fat grams. Men’s Health offers additional healthy eating and drinking ideas at Eat This, Not That.

The American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) offers ideas on turning classic sandwiches into healthy sandwiches. Try switching out processed meats with roasted meats and top sandwiches with fresh veggies. Use avocado slices instead of greasy bacon and Dijon mustard instead of mayonnaise. To learn more, read Switch it up for Lunch.

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

Long before she took on America’s embattled health-care system, Nancy Davenport-Ennis was riding high. She was a national speaker for the homebuilding and real estate industry, teaching classes at the University of North Carolina and writing a textbook about selling new homes. (more…)

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

At the highest level, Web 2.0 is all about community and I don’t have a problem with that. What I am tired of is the fact that Web 2.0 entrepreneurs and companies have taken the concept of “community” too far. They’ve put it on some sort of sacred pedestal that I believe is nothing more than feel-good marketing BS. (more…)

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

Announcing the First Annual Central New York Young Adult Cancer Survivors ConferenceThe conference is a FREE full day event addressing the concerns of young adults whose lives have been affected by cancer. The conference will be held Saturday May 3, 2008 at Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, NY and is open to cancer survivors aged 18 - 40 (current and former patients of ALL cancer types) and their caregivers. This event will be a great chance to learn something new that can have a real impact and to network with other local young adult cancer survivors. Come join us! The keynote address will be provided by Matthew Zachary, a 12 year cancer survivor and Founder/Executive Director of I’m Too Young For This! Space is limited so if you would like to attend please register ASAP.

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

“I’m a pediatric neurosurgeon. I’ve done that for a long time. But I’ve always felt that my true calling was the stage. The only problem is that I really have virtually no talent whatsoever,” says Chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland and Elvis impersonator Dr Alan Cohen.

According to Dr Cohen, pediatric brain cancer is the number one cause of cancer death for children and it is his job to save lives. But he goes one step further in calming nerves and inspiring hope for his very young and very frightened patients. One of his former patients said, “When I came here I was so scared, like I was probably gonna die and he was able to calm me down and realize I was gonna survive and I was gonna be able to live again.”

Once word got out that Dr Cohen was a fan of the King, people started sending him Elvis memorabilia. Now, each year on the anniversary of Elvis Presley’s birthday, Dr Cohen does his best Elvis impression and gives a concert as Elvis. Video of ABC Good Morning America features Dr Cohen in Surgeon Rocks to Elvis in OR is available online here.

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

Twelve states have made medical marijuana use legal, but it appears the law that protects does not extend to the workplace. The California Supreme Court has ruled a medical marijuana user can be fired from their job for failing a company mandated drug test.

Medical marijuana use is a complicated and contradictory issue. Legal in 12 states. Illegal in other states. Illegal on the federal level, the US Supreme Court has stated the Bush administration can prohibit the backyard cultivation of pot for personal use, because marijuana use has broader social and financial implications, according to CNN. A federal appeals court stand is medical marijuana users can be subject to arrest and marijuana confiscation.

Medical marijuana is prescribed for a number of conditions. The side effects of slash and burn chemotherapy can be debilitating, and some cancer patients report marijuana relieves nausea and the resulting lack of appetite associated with chemotherapy treatment when traditional anti-nausea drugs fail. As with any drug, a compassionate ruling would not make criminals out of those who suffer. Your thoughts?

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

Bless the researchers and doctors, but have you ever gotten the feeling that the medical cancer community modus operandi to treating cancer is to throw everything in the way of treatment at the wall — the wall being you — to see what sticks? As a cancer patient, it becomes abundantly clear at a certain point cancer treatments are far from being an exact science. If you have found yourself mumbling something to the effect, “If they can put a man on the moon you think they could have figured this out…” there is hope to your frustrations over cancer treatments and better yet — cancer prevention.

Personalized cancer treatments are common sense. Imagine if cancer prevention was personalized. Based on an individual’s profile, cancer prevention was designed to match each person’s cancer risks?

Personalized medicine is the future of medical treatment, for both cancer treatments and cancer prevention. In fact, running a test to determine your exact level of selenium might make a difference in cancer prevention and cancer survivorship. Too little or too much puts you at increased cancer risk. A newly-published report, The Art of Casting Nets: Fishing for the Prize of Personalized Cancer Prevention, outlines the need for creating a profile of a patient based on the unique requirements of the individual patient.

“The central tenet of personalized cancer prevention is that average is overrated,” states report co-author Dr David G. Bostwick. “Average may have been a useful concept in the past, but now we are entering a new and exciting era: the era of personalized cancer prevention.” It’s about time.

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

Up to two years before a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, 40 percent of patients are diagnosed with diabetes. Mayo Clinic researchers feel this is an important indicator to study, as pancreatic cancer does not show obvious symptoms associated with pancreatic cancer until the cancer has reached an advanced stage. At this time, researchers believe pancreatic cancer is the cause for the onset of diabetes, not that diabetes leads to pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer is the fourth-leading cause of cancer death in the US primarily due to the fact that it is not normally diagnosed in its earliest stages. If Mayo Clinic researchers are correct, someone newly-diagnosed with diabetes might also be checked for pancreatic cancer. The study will involve older adults but could eventually be significant in understanding how to effectively diagnosis the disease at an earlier stage regardless of age.

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

Video games help boost young cancer patients’ morale (Boston Globe). Using a video game to zap simulated cancer cells won’t by itself make a sick child well. But the morale boost can give young patients an edge in the fight. When 12-year-old Taylor Carol contracted a rare, virulent form of leukemia, it took aggressive medical treatment to save his life. That and a video game. Take that Donkey Kong!

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

Medical philanthropies are encouraging researchers to share data and meet deadlines. Last May, Kathy Giusti was in midtown Manhattan pitching her current venture to an audience of potential investors. Giusti, a forty-eight-year-old Harvard Business School graduate and former pharmaceutical executive, believes that medical breakthroughs shouldn’t be left to chance. In 1998, she created the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, a charitable organization dedicated to the lethal blood cancer, which afflicts more than fifty thousand Americans and has no known cure. Click below for the whole scoop.

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

Researchers are in China investigating ancient Chinese medicine in hopes of discovering new treatments for cancer. Toad venom is the number one drug Chinese doctors have recommended to researchers as the best natural cancer medicines to test, according to University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

“It may sound wild to Americans, but it’s accepted as a standard of care here,” states director of M.D. Anderson’s integrative medicine program Lorenzo Cohen. And toad venom shows some promise. In clinical trials, toad venom has proved to be of benefit for patients with advanced liver, pancreatic and lung cancer.

Side effects were minimal. Dating back to the Song dynasty (960-1279), toad venom has been a remedy used to treat cancer and heart problems. Toad venom in large doses can kill, in much smaller measured doses it stops tumor growth. To learn more, read Cancer fight turns to toxic toad venom.

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

Although earlier reports indicated Denver Nuggets forward Nene Hilario’s tumor was found to be benign, based on a statement published on the basketball player’s website, later reporting has confirmed the tumor is malignant. On January 14, Nene underwent surgery to have a tumor removed from his right testicle.

Cancer was first suspected during a routine league-mandated drug testing. High levels of a female hormone normally present in pregnant women was found in Nene’s system — an early indicator of cancer in men. When facing the future as a cancer survivor, Nene issued a statement saying, “I want to thank my fans, my teammates, the Nuggets organization and everyone that’s been supporting me. My victory will represent their victory as well.” From Brazil, Nene is 25 years old. Full story

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

For Young Adults, Cancer Can Often Go Undiagnosed and Untreated – From back in September of 2007 but definitely worth the mention…

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

Pop Smear concert tour founder and musician Christine Baze speaks about her diagnosis of cervical cancer, cervical cancer survivorship and the creation of the Yellow Umbrella Organization and Pop Smear benefit concerts to raise cervical cancer awareness in a feature story Salem musician fights cervical cancer with quirky tour. After cancer diagnosis, surgery and cancer treatment, Baze thought she had lost the music that defined who she was as an artist. In the article, she talks about finding her muse again

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

Java junkies rejoice! If your brain synapses fail to fire until you have downed a cup or two of coffee, and you are a woman who has never used birth control pills, caffeine appears to reduce the risk of developing ovarian cancer. The more caffeine consumed the lower the ovarian cancer risk, according to Harvard Medical School researchers.

Data was collected from more than 121,000 female registered nurses, 30 to 35 years of age, who took part in the much cited Nurses Health Study. In addition to the caffeine benefit found in reducing ovarian cancer risk, researchers concluded no significant risk between smoking and drinking alcohol and ovarian cancer risk. Smoking cigarettes is linked to one form of rare ovarian cancer. The researchers state more study needs to be conducted to further support these findings.

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

Think everyone in the cancer research community is working in our best interest? Think again. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York biostatistician Andrew Vickers gives us an inside look in Cancer Data? Sorry, Can’t Have It at the frustration felt when cancer researchers refuse to share study data with fellow researchers not on their team. The reasons vary and most cited appear weak at best. “Given the enormous physical, emotional and financial toll of cancer, one might expect researchers to promote the free and open exchange of information. The patients who volunteer for cancer trials often suffer through painful procedures and harsh experimental treatments in the hope of hastening a cure. The data they provide ought to belong to all of us. Yet cancer researchers typically treat it as their personal property,” states Vickers.

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Submitted by Dr.Kattlove’s Cancer Blog

Last week, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article online about genetic testing for prostate cancer. The authors of the study, done in Sweden, found that men with prostate cancer had changes in one or more of 5 different genes, changes that are not found in men without prostate cancer.

It was a great study and found clear-cut differences in the men with the cancer. But what does it mean for those of us who dutifully get our PSA’s checked every year? It doesn’t mean much. First of all, let’s talk about the results. The researchers found that if a man had one gene change, his risk of cancer would increase by 30%. Two gene changes doubled the risk, and 4 or more changes increased the risk 4-5 times. If there was a family history of prostate cancer, these numbers doubled.

So should we all go out and get our genes tested? I don’t think so. Even if the test were available, it isn’t worth the trouble and expense (don’t even think of asking your insurance company to pay for it). Here is my reasoning. If the test were to show you have an increased risk of prostate cancer, what would you do? Check your PSA, of course. And if the test results show you to be free of the genetic changes, then what? Are you not likely to get prostate cancer. It’s less likely but not unlikely. In the study, the researchers estimated that half of men with prostate cancer did not have these genetic changes. Instead of your chances being one in six of getting prostate cancer they would be around one in ten. You’re still not out of the woods and need to check your PSA.

Certainly if you are young (under 60), PSA testing is an important issue. Men do die of prostate cancer although it usually takes 10-20 years from the time it is diagnosed. But if you are over 70, what should you do? Experts aren’t sure. So far, it hasn’t been proven that PSA testing will save any lives of men over 70. It might if they live to 90 or more, but we really don’t know. There are some big studies in progress that are looking at this issue, but don’t expect any results for the next 5-10 years.

Remember, although approximately 1 in 6 men in the United States will eventually be diagnosed with prostate cancer, only 1 in 34 will die from it.

Old age will likely get you first.

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

Consumer attitudes reveal rise of “mutual social responsibility”. A new survey from our friends at Edelman indicates that 85% (Eighty-five percent!!) of consumers around the world are willing to change the brands they buy or their consumption habits to make tomorrow’s world a better place. Take that social stagnation!

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Submitted by Jayne’s Breast Cancer Blog

I read this book last weekend. It was quite good; good enough that I stayed up late twice and took it to my son’s basketball game — to read only during the breaks in the action, of course.

It is a memoir by a young mom (late thirties) with breast cancer. The Middle Place is “that sliver of time when parenthood and childhood overlap.” As much as anything, this is a memoir about growing up as Kelly Corrigan and her current relationships with her parents, especially her father.

I think this is actually the better developed theme, although I might be biased. I’m a different kind of daughter than Kelly Corrigan, and my father died long before I had cancer, but I have still viewed much of my life through the lens of being my father’s daughter. So… I get it.

The other reason that I wanted to read the book was that I thought that Corrigan was from Baltimore (like me). I was wrong Her dad is from Baltimore and my city really doesn’t figure into the book. Oh well.

But I did live in Central California for a long time. Corrigan, a Bay Area resident, mentions that a woman at the hospital “looks like she’s come into the big city from her farm in Central California -they don’t sell shoes like hers in the city.”

Hmmm. OK, to be sure the Central Valley isn’t anything like San Francisco, and Bay Area residents often take little swipes at Central California…but for the record I really loved living in Fresno. It has charms all its own. One thing that I’ve been blessed with is a bloom-where-you’re-planted mentality. It sure came in quite handy during the years that we spent moving all around the country.

But I digress… I really enjoyed The Middle Place as a fast-paced read that is tailor-made for those of us who had to tell both our children and our parents that “I have breast cancer.”

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

Almost half of prostate cancer patients carry five genetic variations and a family history of the disease, says a breakthrough study in the search for a root cause of one of the most common and deadly tumors.

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