Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog
Getting cancer is awful at any age, but it has to be especially difficult for young adults. They’re too old for the nurturing and specialized pediatric oncology programs, and too young to fit in with the rest of us with cancer who are middle-aged and older.AdvertisementCayuga Medical Center at IthacaDo you remember when you were beginning to establish yourself in your career and in your adult relationships? It’s a time of transition in which you leave the protective bubble of your parents and begin to forge your own identify. For many of us, this is a time of fun and excitement, but it’s also a time in which we don’t feel especially grounded. Now imagine throwing cancer into the mix.There are practical worries like finances. You don’t have savings and you’re likely paying off student loans. You know that the first job or two establishes the foundation for your career path, but you’re off sick for several weeks and you’re struggling just to stay employed. In a tight economy, you worry that you might be the first to be laid off, and you know that getting a new job will be difficult and complicated. Most 25-year-olds don’t need to read the fine print of a company’s health insurance policy or worry about what, if anything, they should say about their medical history.
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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog
(Note: i[2]y Chairman Dr. Leonard Sender featured in this piece)
Amid Shortage of Volunteers, Some Programs Aim to Boost Education and Recruitment
With growing concern about a shortfall of patients to participate in clinical trials — especially adult cancer patients, minorities and adolescents — a number of new programs are stepping up efforts to match patients to trials and educate patients and their physicians about the benefits of medical research. Large medical centers are developing their own Web sites to help inform and recruit trial patients locally. And nonprofit health organizations are reaching out to community groups to educate residents about clinical trials and help them navigate issues such as getting insurance companies to pay the costs of participation.
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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog
According to the results of a new national survey, “Delayed Cancer Diagnosis: Why?” over half of respondents waited two months to five years to see a doctor for a diagnosis in spite of having symptoms of the disease. In addition, nearly 4/5 respondents were diagnosed with having a form of cancer within one week to two months of seeing a doctor.
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Submitted by Dr.Kattlove’s Cancer Blog
Judah Folkman died suddenly early this year. He was a super creative cancer researcher. His work promised a revolution in cancer treatment but it never happened.
I first encountered him when I was training in Hematology at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx. He presented his work at one of our research seminars. He had found that he could grow cancer cells within the eyes of rabbits. But they had to be planted on the iris. That allowed blood vessels to begin growing into the tiny tumors and once that happened the tumors took off. If the cancer cells were placed in the middle of the eye chamber without attachment to any eye tissue, blood vessels didn’t develop and the cancer didn’t grow.
His theory was that the cancer needed blood vessels to supply it with nutrients and oxygen. A reasonable theory. This allowed the cancer to grow. He also reasoned that the cancer had the special ability to cause these blood vessels to develop. The corollary to this was that if you could block the blood vessel growth, you would prevent the cancer from growing.
Next, he and many others looked for the substance that caused the blood vessel growth. When they found it, they named it vascular endothelial (blood vessel lining) growth factor or VEGF. The next step was to develop a drug that would block VEGF. This would stop blood vessel growth and starve it.
Several drugs were developed. These drugs were labeled anti-angiogenesis agents, drugs that blocked blood vessel growth. This was a hot idea in the 90’s. Scientists touted these as the new wonder drugs, drugs that cancers couldn’t resist. The drugs were terrific in treating implanted cancers in mice. Unfortunately they were much less effective in humans with cancer. When used alone, they rarely shrank tumors or slowed their growth.
Finally, in 2004, one drug seemed effective. This first successful drug, called Avastin, was shown to help patients with advanced colorectal cancer and was blessed by the FDA. But no home run. The drug only worked when given with heavy-duty chemotherapy and prolonged patients’ lives by an average of 4-5 months. And of course there were side effects.
Avastin, although not a blockbuster cancer treatment, has proven very useful in medicine, by saving the vision of thousands of people. It turns out it can block the progression of macular degeneration, a cause of blindness in the elderly caused by leaky blood vessels. A small amount injected directly into the eye seems to do the trick. Go figure.
Other blood vessel blocking drugs have made it into practice, but none have had more than a small benefit. What happened? Well, although Dr. Folkman was disappointed with the lack of blockbuster effect, he pointed out, cancers are complex and had to admit that there won’t be a simple answer to treating them.
There aren’t any miracles in the wings. So take care of yourself, get screened, eat right, exercise, and try to avoid cancer in the first place.
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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog
Just an FYI to everyone –
There’s an email circulating around called “Cancer Update from Johns Hopkins” which makes false claims about how cancer spreads and recommends methods for treating the disease.
This message is a HOAX. See link below.
http://www.snopes.com/medical/disease/cancerupdate.asp
Snopes has been the most reliable online resource for debunking email myths (Bill Gates giving away money, etc…)
If you receive such an email, please debunk it to the thread.
MZ
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Submitted by Dr.Kattlove’s Cancer Blog
Smoking! He gave it up over a year ago.
I hadn’t seen him for a couple of years. I noticed that he stayed in during the party. Usually, he would disappear for a smoke. Not this time. I asked him why and he told me he gave it up.
Jake has every reason not to smoke. He is happily married, retired with lots of money and a big house on the ocean, loves to play golf, and as far as I know and he looked, in good health. So I always puzzled about why he continued this health-robbing habit.
Actually I knew. He was addicted to nicotine. Cigarettes are drug delivery devices and the drug is nicotine. Nicotine is one of the most powerfully addicting substances we know.
When a smoker inhales, the nicotine in the cigarette reaches the brain in 10 seconds. There, it activates chemicals that produce pleasure. So a smoker feels rewarded whenever he or she inhales. This is the same reaction seen with other addicting drugs.
This feeling goes away in a few minutes, so a smoker needs to continue dosing. If not, after a while without cigarettes, the smoker gets irritable, has trouble sleeping and thinking, and dread of all dreads, especially for women, starts to eat too much.
So stopping isn’t easy and I’m sure it was particularly tough on Jake who has been smoking for a long time, probably since he was a teenager.
Why did Jake and most other smokers start so young? First, there is marketing. The cigarette companies use symbols that appeal to teenagers, like Joe Camel and the Marlboro Men (two of whom died of lung cancer, one at age 51). When I was in college the cigarette companies gave us free cigarettes. This helped put one of my good friends through college. You could also get them on airlines at that time – free packs of four.
And the young brain is a wondrous thing. Not only is it endlessly curious, it is also especially susceptible to the addicting effects of nicotine. Over 90% of smokers start before they are 18. Right now, around 20% of European teens and 15% of American teens smoke. European guy smokers lead the girls, but here, the girls have the edge.
It is hard to believe that we allow such a dangerous and addicting drug to be freely sold. Not only is nicotine unhealthy, it is packaged in a killer tube of tobacco. Kind of like selling brownies laced with arsenic. Just takes longer to kill. Think of all the diseases related to tobacco. There is heart disease, lung disease, stroke, many types of cancer – well over a dozens that most people don’t know about in addition to lung cancer – even osteoporosis.
But there it is. Any kid can get cigarettes. And, in our free enterprise system, it is unlikely they will go away. But, I’ve heard that preventing their use in public places does discourage young people from starting and getting them out of movies may also help.
Still, best that cigarettes go away, or at least, get taxed into oblivion.
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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog
Health-care providers have sued California to block a 10% cutback in payments to them for treating the poor who are covered by Medi-Cal, a joint federal and state program
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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog
Courtesy of the Rochester Insider, here’s an awesome gallery of pictures taken at this past weekend’s Stupid Cancer Happy Hour, organized by Leah Shearer and the i[2]y Rochester Chapter.
PERMALINK
Stupid cancer. Survivors rule.
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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog
UNRELATED NON-CANCER STORY…
So while I was up in Rochester, I was forced to go to a Friendly’s at 11:30pm because nothing else was open.
I was with 4 other people.
Turns out, this “high quality” food chain we’ve all come to know and love lives up to it’s reputation.
One bite into my chicken yielded a large semi-melted chunk of plastic baked into the mass.
Ew.
Called the waiter. New plate arrives. No plastic.
Then the bill comes and – lo and behold – to compensate me for PLASTIC IN MY FOOD, they take off $3.00!!!!!!!!!
Of course, I brought this to the manager and they didn’t charge me for my entire meal.
The hilarity ensues when you see the receipt.
(Matthew Zachary)
Matthew
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Submitted by Dr.Kattlove’s Cancer Blog
The controversy that the Reverend Wright is stirring up reminds me of an incident in my practice that remains with me 20 years later. Wright’s outrageous and perhaps paranoiac statements about the United States are especially telling when he questions whether the HIV virus, the cause of AIDS, is a man-made virus, perhaps created by the U.S. Government. Nuts, right? Well, a large number of African-Americans believe this according to a study published by Rand Corporation in 2005.
Many African-Americans just don’t trust white doctors. This was brought home to me in that incident 20 year ago. I was treating a middle aged black woman for breast cancer. She came to me with advanced disease and no matter which drugs I used to treat her, the cancer kept growing. Finally, we ran out of drugs and it was clear that her time was limited. Her lungs were especially affected. They contained multiple cancer deposits.
Finally, she became very short of breath and her family brought her to the hospital where we admitted her for her final days. At that point, my only goal was to keep her comfortable and I told her family that we would give her morphine to relieve her feeling of breathlessness and not do any heroic measures when her heart stopped or she stopped breathing.
I totally expected them to go along with this. We had always had a good relationship, so I was completely taken aback when they insisted that we do everything possible to keep her alive. Off she went to the ICU where a breathing tube was inserted and mechanical ventilation begun to provide her with enough oxygen. Because of the tube, she needed to be sedated. I could then give her enough morphine to keep her comfortable.
This situation lasted only a few days. As her lungs filled with cancer, even the mechanical ventilation wasn’t able to provide enough oxygen for her body. Eventually her heart gave out. At this point there was no further “heroism” like cardiac resuscitation. The family was convinced at this point that everything had been done and she died peacefully.
When I reviewed all this in my mind, it became clear that the reason her family wanted aggressive support was they didn’t trust the white medical establishment that I represented. It wasn’t personal, I think. They just weren’t sure we were treating my patient the same way we might have treated her if she were white. The Reverend Wright and the Rand study confirm this deep suspicion.
Still, my patient had a good death. She was sedated during all this time and didn’t suffer. Because of the morphine, she didn’t feel or know about the breathing tube. Perhaps the only downside to her family’s distrust was that because of the breathing tube and need for extra-heavy sedation, she and her family didn’t get to say goodbye.
Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog
You’re going to get knocked down. It’s whether you stay down or whether you get back up and fight that counts. - Chris Lofton
Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog
Hospitals are adopting a policy to improve their finances: making medical care contingent on upfront payments. The move was prompted by a spike in patients who don’t pay their bills, but the uninsured and underinsured are likely to be hardest hit.
Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog
Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog
(Blogger Note: Not cancer related but this is wayyy cool - the power of social media hard at work)James Karl Buck helped free himself from an Egyptian jail with a one-word blog post from his cell phone.
Submitted by Dr.Kattlove’s Cancer Blog
Yesterday, I read the obituary of Jerome Grossman M.D., a man I knew over 40 years ago. He was my intern on the Medical service at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx. Jerry then left Montefiore for Boston after that year to pursue a career in computers and medicine and became well known, not only for computerizing medical care, but also as an expert in hospital administration. He died of kidney cancer.
I have lost many close friends to cancer, perhaps a sign of my advancing age. Cancer is mainly a disease of older people and the leading cause of death for people under the age of 85. Over half of all cases are diagnosed in people over age 65 and half of all deaths from cancer happen in people over the age of 73. And, we are all living to these ages and past them, because of the cardiologists, who have kept us living longer with their cholesterol-lowering statins, aggressive treatment of our hypertension and quick repairs if our coronary arteries clog.
I just checked out some graphs the National Cancer Institute (http://seer.cancer.gov/csr/1975_2005/sections.html). The cardiologists have been great for those of us older folk, The death rate from heart disease is plummeting. But we haven’t seen much change in our chance of dying of cancer. In younger people, the news is good. Their death rate from cancer is dropping. But, the numbers are small – from 85 per 100,000 to 60 per 100,000. For those of us in the over 65 bracket, there hasn’t been any major change and the numbers are much higher – 1000 per 100,000. This translates into a percentage of one percent per year. So, as the number of old people increase, so will the number of people dying from cancer.
The Susan Komen Foundation, an organization dedicated to fighting breast cancer, has as one of its goals, ending the disease altogether. That isn’t going to happen. As we age, our cells begin to fail us, develop quirks in their DNA, and lose control over their growth regulation. Ever have a stuck accelerator pedal in your car? Cancer is the same thing, but slower. So unless we stop taking our statins and anti-hypertensives and return to eating steak for dinner every night, cancer is going to be our most likely mode of exit from this world.
This isn’t a pleasant thought. Of course having good genes is helpful, but not in our power to change. But, you can help put off cancer by getting your screenings, eating well (and less), and exercising.
Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog
Social media on the Internet are empowering, engaging, and educating health care consumers and providers. While consumers use social media — including social networks, personal blogging, wikis, video-sharing, and other formats — for emotional support, they also heavily rely on them to manage health conditions.The Internet has evolved from the information-retrieval of “Web 1.0” to “Web 2.0,” which allows people who are not necessarily technologically savvy to generate and share content. The collective wisdom harnessed by social media can yield clinical insights well beyond the knowledge of any single patient or physician. The outcome of this development is “Health 2.0” — a new movement that challenges the notion that health care happens only between a single patient and doctor in an exam room.Using examples, this report describes how the Web is becoming a platform for convening people with shared concerns and creating health information that is more relevant to consumers. Social networks, ranging from MySpace to specific disease-oriented sites, are proliferating so rapidly that new services are already under development to knit communities together to enable health consumers to move more efficiently through the networks.The report details how innovative collaborations online are changing the way patients, providers, and researchers learn about therapeutic regimens and disease management. It examines the benefits and concerns regarding Health 2.0 and it also includes an extensive listing of health media resources.According to the report, the growing demand for transparency and openness will drive the evolution of social media in health. A growing array of tools will become available that are increasingly mobile, as well as personal health data storage in commercial products like Microsoft Health Vault, Google Health, and others. The author concludes that the ongoing demands of a consumer-driven health marketplace will inspire innovation in applications that integrate clinical, financial, and ratings information.
Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog
Young adult cancer survivor Tina Jezuit – i[2]y regional co-chair for Eastern Pennsylvania – has had more than her fair share of health problems. The 31-year-old Jessup resident has dealt with a diagnosis of osteo-sarcoma in 1988, which left her with a chemotherapy-damaged heart. After suffering a stroke in February of 2007, she was rendered cognitively impaired and unable to walk. After 14 months of intense therapy, the signs of her past battle are remarkably minimal.In addition to a small leg brace she wears for balance, she proudly sports a slashing red scar on the left side of her upper chest, the insertion point of a defibrillator and pacemaking device implanted just above her heart. She named the device “Charlie,” after the voice of Charlie on the TV show “Charlie’s Angels.”“Every morning I say, ‘Good morning, Charlie,’” she said, “and he says, ‘Good morning, Angel,’ by letting me know that everything’s working OK in there.”When health issues forced her to retire from her job at the Social Security Administration office on Lackawanna Avenue, Ms. Jezuit dedicated herself full time to cancer and heart-health advocacy and awareness. She’s in the process of coordinating numerous local benefits, including “Cancerpalooza,” an event that will benefit several cancer organizations, and a memorial scholarship named after her paternal grandfather, Stanley A. Jezuit Sr.She also serves as a local team leader for the American Heart Association’s Heart Walk.Two seasons.Her year, she joked, is divided into two seasons: “heart season” and “cancer season.”
Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog
i[2]y’er Josef Eliezrie recovers from leukemia after a donation from a very similar Israeli man. Great story! Stupid cancer!.
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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog
Two studies showed no memory impairments as a result of chemotherapy.
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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog
The trend around treating skin care side effects from cancer treatment is growing:
About 64% of all people diagnosed with cancer will be alive 5 years after diagnosis (versus 53% in the 80s and 50% in the 70s).
All types of cancer treatment cause skin side effects, including radiation, chemotherapy, and new “targeted” therapies, like EGFRs:
* “Chemotherapy damages rapidly diving cells, a hallmark of cancer cells. In the process, healthy cells that are also rapidly dividing - such as skin cells - are also damaged.” (Women & Cancer, Spring 2006, “How Your Skin Responds to Cancer Treatment” by Dayna Deuter, p. 35)
* “About two weeks after radiation therapy begins, the skin begins to redden and becomes very dry and itchy. Occasionally, it may peel…” (Informed Decisions: The Complete Book of Cancer Diagnosis, Treatment, and Recovery, 2nd ed., Harmon J. Eyre, MD, et. al., p. 186.)
Since the onset of cancer care, there has never been a skin care line specifically created to ease the effects of chemotherapy and radiation therapy until now…introducing Lindi Skin. Developed by CEO Lindy Snider and a team of doctors and scientists - and with the input of cancer patient focus groups, Lindi Skin has pioneered a new category in skincare. Combining the latest medical information with innovative skin care ingredients, the brand delivers one-of-a-kind superior products aimed at infusing a bit of control back into patients’ lives.
With its mission to meet the overwhelming needs of people in treatment, Lindi Skin develops highly effective products that will help patients go through their most troublesome time. Specifically formulated with a proprietary blend of natural ingredients that calm, cool, pamper and hydrate cancer-compromised skin, Lindi Skin helps to restore skin to a more normal appearance.
The collection of soothing balms, body washes and lotions, face serums, eye hydrators, lip balms and skin coolers was created to help improve patients’ quality of life - both physically and emotionally.
“These products, although great for any skin type, are specifically designed to help those in cancer treatment,” explains Snider. “Patients tell us things like, ‘just because I have cancer, it doesn’t mean I stopped being me!’” Lindy continues, “Patients are in treatment because they believe they will survive. They want to live as normally as possible. We help them do that and give them tools they need to fight back.”
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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog
Everywhere you go, someone asks you for money to help find the cure for some disease. It’s the race for the cure! It’s the telethon for the cure! It’s the walk or run for a cure! At grocery stores, cashiers ask if you want to donate a dollar to help find the cure. Other retailers want to sell you fashion-minded colored bracelets that raise money to find the cure. There’s always someone who wants your money in exchange for the hope that your dollar will somehow help them “find a cure” for some awful disease. I have a very big question to ask about all of this. This has literally been going on for decades. Researchers have been searching for a cure for cancer since the late 1960s, and for other diseases since at least the 1970s. At that time, they said cures were right around the corner; it was just a matter of a few more dollars; then they would have the cures available. Well, here we are, 30 or 40 years later, with still no cures. We’ve been running this race for decades, funding it with literally billions of dollars. If all this money has gone to the race to find cures for these diseases, then where are the cures?
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Submitted by Dr.Kattlove’s Cancer Blog
When I was starting out in medicine, I often heard people say about someone who developed cancer that she was a nice person and that’s why she was struck by this devastating disease. I’ve also heard other factors invoked as contributing, such as stress, anger, pessimism, or some other personality factor that could lead to cancer.
In my experience, none of this held true. My practice consisted of nice people, rotten people (rare, I admit), passive people, aggressive people, optimists, pessimists – you get the picture. But I admit this isn’t a very scientific survey. Still I remained convinced that personality played no role in whether a person developed cancer and her survival from this disease.
I distinctly remember a young man, a dentist with a cancer of the pancreas. This wasn’t your typical pancreatic cancer, but a less aggressive type called islet cell cancer. But, it was rather large, and after all, cancer is cancer. His wife and he were sure his positive attitude and fighting spirit would carry him through his battle with the cancer, and that he would live to see his children grow up. I wasn’t so optimistic. It was a big cancer and seemed to have grown quickly. Unfortunately, I was right. Aggressive surgery and chemotherapy along with his fighting spirit were no match for the cancer and after several months, he succumbed.
I am reminded of this by an elaborate study just published by some Dutch researchers. They wanted to see if a woman’s personality affected her chances of getting breast cancer. In 1989 and 1990, they sent out personality questionnaires to 25,000 women living in Nijmegen, Holland. Nearly 10,000 of them answered the questionnaires about traits such as anger, anxiety, optimism, pessimism, depression, etc. Then they followed the women until 2003.
During that period, 217 of the women developed breast cancer. When the researchers looked at the personality profiles of these women compared to those that didn’t develop cancer, they found no difference. Their personality profiles were identical. No difference in pessimism, optimism, anger, depression, whatever.
This is good news. If you get breast cancer, it’s not because of your personality. Nothing you need to change.
On the other hand, if you want to lower your risk, it would help to keep your weight down - even if it makes you a little grumpy.
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