May 8th, 2011 by GarySchwitzer in Health Tips
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All over the country in May, hospitals are offering “Free Throat Cancer Screening.” A Google search turned up dozens of results for that specific term or the related “oral, head and neck cancer screening.”
Here’s one example, promoting “Oral, Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Week, May 8-14.”
This promotion uses ominous warnings:
Can you live without your voice?
What about your jaw?
Would you miss it if you couldn’t swallow food?
Throat cancer can take all of those things away, along with your ability to eat, talk and breathe normally. These debilitating problems can be prevented, but you have to catch cancer early.
Some promotions – such as this one – use celebrity pitches such as “If it happened to Michael Douglas, it can happen to you.”
Here’s one that states, “A 10-minute, painless screening could save your life.”
But where’s the evidence for that? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
May 6th, 2011 by StevenWilkinsMPH in True Stories
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I had a WOW experience yesterday when I accompanied my wife to interview a new doctor for her. As some reader may know she is being seen by specialists at MD Anderson Medical Center in Houston for Stage IV lung cancer. She has not had a local oncologist for the past 6 years…but she does now. And we both love this guy!
You need to understand that I have been very underwhelmed by the local oncologists I had met up till now. I am sure they were clinically proficient…but as a group not a one could muster a smile….or any sense of interest or curiosity in my wife’s medical condition. I held out little hope that this new doctor would be any different.
After being ushered into the exam room, a Physician’s Assistant came into the room to get smart about my wife’s history and records (which she brought). Three things surprised me about the PA. 1) She was incredibly thorough actually reading the radiology reports and reflecting with my wife on what she learned, 2) her empathy – as she read the reports she actually used terms like “bummer” when she read how my wife developed pneumonia during her treatment, and 3) she faithfully summarized the results of her review to the doctor before he came in. In other words – the PA listened and heard what my wife shared with her!
Now enters the doctor. He has a warm smile on his face while he extends a hand to my wife and me. He says just enough for us to know that he has talked to the PA. He asks my wife to sit on the exam table and does a physical exam (also a rare event these days). Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Mind The Gap*
May 1st, 2011 by admin in Opinion
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The rise of prophylactic double mastectomy in women with increased risk of breast cancer has been a topic of recent discussion. In particular, this trend has been observed amongst women with the diagnosis of unilateral carcinoma in situ, or pre-invasive breast cancer. While it has been known that in women with genetic cancer syndromes, including BRCA1 and BRCA2, double mastectomy reduces risk, the efficacy of the approach is uncertain in women with other risk profiles, yet more women and surgeons seem to be doing it.
Knowing when to test, treat and act is part of art of medical practice. The ability to convey this information effectively is also an art. Both patients and doctors may have a hard time embracing watchful waiting with respect to many forms of cancer and pre-cancer. In the case of cancer of the cervix, it is known that infection with human papillomavirus (HPV) is causative in cancer development. However, only a small percentage of those infected actually go on to get cancer. Low grade dysplasia, a condition that is early in the cervical cancer development continuum, frequently spontaneously resolves without treatment. Fortunately, in the case of cervical cancer, there is now a vaccine to prevent high risk HPV infection.
“Watchful waiting” has been most discussed as a treatment strategy for prostate cancer. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
April 30th, 2011 by DavedeBronkart in True Stories
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Two years ago we wrote “Let’s hear it for the ‘d-patients’” — doctors who become e-patients themselves. We said “D-patients prove that patient empowerment is anything but anti-doctor. Heck, sometimes it’s a doctor preservation movement.”
A new article in our Journal of Participatory Medicine provides a compelling example: A Physician’s Experience as a Cancer of the Neck Patient: The Importance of Patient Participation. The author, Itzhak Brook MD, makes our point:
I am telling my personal story in the hope that health care providers will realize the difficult challenges faced by a patient diagnosed with cancer and undergoing extensive surgeries. I am also discussing the importance of active participation of the patient and their family members in all phases of care.
JoPM co-editor Charlie Smith adds, in his introductory note: (emphasis added)
You may wonder why a physician’s account of his illness and the frustrations he experienced merit publication in this journal. But, if a doctor has this degree of anxiety, this much difficulty getting information about his care and this degree of struggle making good decisions, then patients can easily understand why they feel so overwhelmed and incapable, at times, of truly “participating” in their own care. What we are advocating for is difficult in the best of circumstances and requires all hands on deck for the task! Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at e-Patients.net*
March 26th, 2011 by David Kroll, Ph.D. in News, Research
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Thunder god vine may not be a useful herbal medicine but the compounds isolated from it are fascinating – if not as medicines, then most certainly as laboratory tools. Nature Chemical Biology recently published an article where a research team from Johns Hopkins, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Drew University in New Jersey, has determined the molecular mechanism of action of triptolide, an unusual triepoxide compound from the plant.
Tripterygium wilfordii Hook F, or thunder god vine, is known as lei gong teng in Chinese traditional medicine and has a history of use as an anti-inflammatory herb. As with many traditional medicines, usage patterns do not necessarily indicate scientific validity. In fact, a Cochrane review published just last month on herbal therapies for rheumatoid arthritis indicated that the efficacy of thunder god vine was mixed. More concerning is that the herb had significant adverse effects in some trials, from hair loss to one case of aplastic anemia.
Nevertheless, the herb’s components have been studied since the 1970s for since they also appears to kill tumor cells in culture with nanomolar potency and have immunosuppresant activity in animal models. The group of the late natural products chemist at the University of Virginia, S. Morris Kupchan, first identified the unusual structures of triptolide and tripdiolide from Tripterygium wilfordii as described in this 1972 paper from the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Cytotoxic activity toward tumor cells in culture was used to guide the chemical fractionation of extracts. The unusual presence of three consecutive epoxides in the structures of both compounds led Kupchan to hypothesize later in Science that they target leukemia cells by covalent binding to cellular targets involved in cellular growth. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
