Inflammatory Breast Cancer: Why You Need to Know the Signs of This Deadly Disease
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It’s one of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer, but most women have never heard about it. Inflammatory breast cancer or IBC, is a silent killer because unlike many other cancers, patients often don’t recognize the symptoms.
According to the National Cancer Institute, approximately 200,000 new cases of inflammatory breast cancer will be diagnosed this year and more than 40,000 people will die from the disease. Though it occurs in both men and women, it is largely a disease that affects women.
“Inflammatory breast cancer accounts for one-to-five-percent of all breast cancers diagnosed and because it is uncommon, you don’t necessarily jump to that as a first diagnosis,” says Beth Overmoyer, MD, an IBC expert at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. “In traditional breast cancers, a patient can feel a lump or we can see a mass on a mammogram. Inflammatory breast cancer is often not a lump or mass, but a rash or bruise and can be misdiagnosed as an infection.”
New Surgical Procedure Improves Quality of Life for Breast Cancer Patients
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Toronto Western Hospital has pioneered a new procedure - minimally invasive, outpatient spine surgery for cancer that has spread to the spine. Approximately, 40-50 percent of metastic cancers end up in the spine. The most common primary cancers to spread to the bones of the spine are breast and lung cancer. Spinal tumours can drastically affect a patient’s quality of life and result in pain and reduced mobility. A spinal tumour or a growth of any kind can impinge on nerves, leading to pain, neurological problems and sometimes paralysis.
Unhealthy habits alter thinking, memory skills
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If you’re having trouble remembering where you left your keys or recalling a word, mull over the number of times and how many years you’ve continued unhealthy behaviors.
Previous research has linked declining thinking and memory skills with unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, abstaining completely from alcohol, not getting enough physical activity, and not eating enough fruits and vegetables daily.
In the current study, Dr. Severine Sabia and colleagues found the more each of the 5,123 adult participants reported these behaviors the greater their “risk of cognitive deficit,” Sabia told Reuters Health in an email.
SNPs linked with prostate cancer confirmed in Japanese men too
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A third of the previously identified single-nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, associated with prostate cancer in men of European or African ancestry were also associated with prostate cancer in a Japanese population, according to a new study published online September 2 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Genome-wide association studies have primarily been performed in populations of European ancestry, but little is known if the associations discovered in one population are relevant for other populations.
In this study, Matthew L. Freedman, M.D., of the Department of Medical Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and colleagues evaluated 23 SNPs previously reported to be associated with prostate cancer risk and clinical covariates (tumor aggressiveness and age at diagnosis, for example) in almost 1350 Japanese men (311 case subjects and 1035 control subjects).
Nonagenarian researcher petitions FDA to ban trans fats
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“I request to ban trans fats from the American diet.”
Thus begins a 3,000-word petition to the Food and Drug Administration, the work of a man on a dogged, decades-old crusade to eradicate trans fats from food.
Fred Kummerow, a 94-year-old University of Illinois veterinary biosciences professor emeritus who still conducts research on the health effects of trans fats in the diet, filed the petition with the FDA last month. The petition is now posted on the FDA Web site, and public comments are invited. (See below for information on viewing the petition and making a comment.)
“Everybody should read my petition because it will scare the hell out of them,” Kummerow said.
Enzyme injections unlock bent fingers
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Injections of an enzyme that breaks up collagen can unlock permanently curled fingers for people with a common disabling condition known as Dupuytren’s contracture, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.
The Auxilium Pharmaceuticals treatment, which is awaiting approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, avoids the need for hand surgery and the long rehabilitation that follows.
“It’s going to mean they have an option to have this cared for without an operation, and that’s never been available before,” said Dr. Lawrence Hurst of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, whose study appears in the New England Journal of Medicine.
One in 10 binge-drinkers drive afterward: study
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More than 10 percent of U.S. adults who binge-drink admits to getting behind the wheel after doing so, a government study finds.
Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that among more than 14,000 Americans who reported binge-drinking, 12 percent said they drove within two hours of their most recent binge.
In more than half of those cases, the driver had been drinking at a bar, club or restaurant.
Both binge-drinking and drunk driving are well-known public health problems in the U.S., with Americans going on 1.5 billion drinking binges a year. A binge is defined as downing five or more drinks on a single occasion.
