Cancer
Chemotherapy Errors Are Not Stamped Out
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Even for critical cancer chemotherapy, even at major cancer institutions, physicians are making mistakes that have the potential for harming patients.
A study of outpatient chemotherapy errors at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute here found an overall medication error rate of 3%, with a serious error rate of 2%, reported Tejal K. Gandhi, M.D., M.P.H., of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and colleagues.
Genetic melanoma risk less than previously thought
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The findings from a new study indicate that carriers of the CDKN2A mutation have a 28-percent lifetime risk of melanoma, much lower than the 58 percent to 91 percent risk previously identified in studies of multiple-case families.
“In studies of multiple-case families, these families could well be linked by other genes that contribute to the risk of melanoma as well as the one you’re looking at,” said lead author Dr. Colin B. Begg, from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. “When you separate out the family history like we did in our study, you tend to see a more representative estimate of the risk.”
Radical Surgery Best Option for Most Ovarian Cancer Patients
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In a retrospective study looking back at a decade of surgeries, Mayo Clinic Cancer Center researchers have determined that surgery to remove metastatic disease from the diaphragm, in conjunction with other procedures to remove the primary diseased tissue in ovarian cancer patients, significantly increases survival rates. Study results were published in Gynecologic Oncology online.
“Surgeons have long believed that removing as much diseased tissue as possible is important for survival of cancer patients,” said William Cliby, M.D., associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Mayo Clinic. “The choice of many surgeons to not resect diaphragm disease in ovarian cancer patients seemed counterintuitive, but it was based on the feeling that it might not improve survival. We sought to address this issue.”
Elevated Blood Levels of a Protein are Linked to Asbestos-Induced Cancers
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Researchers at New York University School of Medicine and Wayne State University have found a molecule that reveals the early stages of pleural mesothelioma, a chest cancer caused by asbestos. The finding opens the way to a blood test for the disease, according to a new study published in the Oct. 13 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.
An estimated 7.5 million workers in the United States have been exposed to asbestos and, according to government statistics, it remains a hazard to some 1.3 million workers in construction and building maintenance.
Smoking: the top preventable cause of cancer deaths
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In the year 2000, about 1.4 million cancer deaths, or more than one in every five cancer deaths worldwide, were caused by smoking, “making it possibly the single largest preventable cause of cancer death,” Dr. Majid Ezzati from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston told Reuters Health.
Smoking is widely recognized as a major cause of cancer; but there is little information on how it contributes to the global and regional burden of cancers in combination with other risk factors that affect background cancer mortality patterns, Ezzati and colleagues point out in the latest issue of the International Journal of Cancer.
Uterine cancer may raise ovarian cancer risk
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As many as one quarter of young women with uterine cancer also have ovarian cancer, new research suggests.
Several groups advocate ovary-sparing treatment to safeguard fertility in young women with uterine cancer, the authors explain, but reports have suggested that these women have ovarian cancer rates ranging from 5 to 29 percent, according to a report in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Home test kits to screen for bowel cancer
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Everyone aged 60 to 69 will be sent a kit to test for bowel cancer as part of a major new screening programme.
Bowel cancer kills 16,000 people every year. It is the second largest cause of cancer deaths in the UK with around 30,000 new cases each year.
Merck cervical cancer vaccine prevents lesions
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An experimental Merck & Co. vaccine completely prevented early-stage cervical cancer and precancerous cervical lesions caused by the two most common forms of a virus linked to such cancers, Merck said on Thursday.
“This trial confirms that a vaccine can give young women a high level of protection from developing precancerous lesions and early cervical cancers,” said Laura Koutsky, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington who led the study.
Increased cancer risk from LA port complex fumes
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Diesel fumes from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach—the busiest U.S. seaport complex—raise the risk of cancer for people living up to 15 miles inland, a new air quality study says.
The report by the California Air Resources Boar
Breast-feeding does not up later cancer risk
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Contrary to an old notion, adults who were breast-fed as infants are not at increased risk for cancer, researchers report.
In the 1930s, researchers hypothesized that by transmitting cancer-causing viruses, breastfeeding could increase the risk of malignancy. Since then, a number of studies have looked at this issue, but have failed to yield conclusive results.
Screening could improve pancreas cancer survival
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Screening patients who have a high risk of developing pancreatic cancer could treble survival rates of the deadly illness, British scientists said on Tuesday.
Pancreatic cancer affects about 216,000 people worldwide each year. Because it is often detected late, only about 2 percent of patients are alive five years after diagnosis.
After first melanoma, a second is quite common
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Some people with melanoma are at increased risk of developing the skin cancer again in the future, especially if they have a family history of the disease, say researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
But second melanomas, if caught early, are easily cured, said Dr. Daniel G. Coit. “The first melanoma is kind of the wake-up call, the second melanoma becomes very much of a curable thing.”
Australians win Nobel for finding ulcer cause
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Two Australians won the Nobel Prize in medicine Monday for a discovery that defied decades of medical dogma and revolutionized the treatment of ulcers. They showed that bacterial infection—not stress—causes ulcers in the stomach and intestine.
The 1982 discovery by Drs. Barry Marshall and Robin Warren eventually transformed peptic ulcer disease from a chronic, frequently disabling condition to one that can be cured by a short regimen of antibiotics and other medicines, said the Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
Family Member Fighting Cancer?
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A new study by family therapists at Brigham Young University found steps family members of cancer patients can take to better cope with the impact of the disease on their lives.
Building on previous research that has shown family support is key to improving patients’ lives, the researchers worked with families throughout the therapy process to identify trends in the ways families react to a disease that afflicts more than 10 million Americans.
Obese women face greater multiple myeloma risk
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The results of a new prospective study provide additional evidence that obesity may increase women’s risk of developing multiple myeloma, a type of bone-marrow cancer.
Results of studies looking into a potential link between excess weight and multiple myeloma have been inconsistent, Cindy K. Blair of the University of Minnesota Cancer Center in Minneapolis and her colleagues note in the medical journal Epidemiology.
