Exciting news, friends: A traveling, 8-foot-high, 20-foot-long replica of the human colon is trundling its way toward UC Irvine!
Take a gentle stroll through this inflatable Super Colon, noting features of interest: smooth, healthy tissue over here, a bit of ulcerative colitis over there, as well as polyps and various stages of colorectal cancer spangled hither and thither. Learn more about the exhibit, an educational tool of the nonprofit Prevent Cancer Foundation, right here. I have to say, there's something a little weird about the photo on the website of a cheery bunch of kids posing inside a windsock-like, watermelon-reminiscent giant bowel -- but hey, everyone looks as if they're having fun!
The SoCal colon showing takes place Thursday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at UC Irvine's National Cancer Survivors Day event. Check it out at 101 The City Drive, Orange, on the lawn area in front of Building 55.
And then, if you want still more, why not knit yourself some gut? As Sarah Illenberger did here, and Matie Trewe did here (she even has a pattern).
Americans and their media are discussing, and bemoaning, the announcement that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy has a malignant glioma in his left parietal lobe. Radiation and chemotherapy will likely ensue, neither of which will be pleasant.
But for reality, read the stories of people who have battled brain tumors themselves.
Here's some advice from Steve H. at virtualtrials.com: "Avoid the 'C' word. Saying you have a brain tumor is better than saying you have brain cancer. People will want to treat you like your days are numbered in any event, but cancer sounds worse -- especially to younger people." The site features other survivor accounts too.
Lisa at the American Brain Tumor Assn. reflects: "If my tumor comes back, which it might, I will still cry. However, I won't cry because I am scared, I will cry because I know what is on the other side of the surgery -- the recovery."
Because family and friends face their own trials, the site includes some of their stories as well.
And then there's a blog from Kate, a mom diagnosed with a glioma, who writes of a recent round of chemo: "I take naps daily so it was just in the evenings when I totally faltered in my energy. ... Quiet time has always been enforced in our home. I just am so tired by the time I lay down my head that the enforcement is lacking."
That glimpse of daily life's struggles and compromises while fighting a brain tumor is followed by a recount of her recent -- and idyllic -- Mother's Day.
Remove your clothing, down to and including the unmentionables. Then lie on the bed, but don't dim the lights. In fact, turn them up bright. Then sweetly coo to your significant other: "Honey, would you examine every part of me, especially the parts that I can't see?"
No, it's not a seduction. It's a potentially life-saving medical exam. Couples who can leap this self-conscious hurdle, despite drooping body parts, love handles and cellulite, increase their chances of finding a new melanoma, according to a study in this month's Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
"Melanoma can appear in places where the sun never shined," says Dr. June K. Robinson, dermatologist and lead author of the study. "There's a fear of lying there naked and vulnerable when someone you care about is seeing you in not the most flattering light."
But those who can get over the embarrassment are more likely to find new cancers early, before they spread. Unlike self-exams for breast or testicular cancers, which can be done alone, self-exams for skin cancer benefit from another pair of eyes peering at a backside or at the full globe of a balding head.
Researchers at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine recruited 130 survivors of melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer. All the participants were married or had a life partner, but for half the group, only the patient was trained in skin self-examination. Participants in the second group learned the examination techniques with their partners.
In addition, all the couples were rated on a scale of 32 items that measure relationship satisfaction.
Couples who reported the strongest bonds, and were taught the exam together, were about three times more likely to do skin self-exams than melanoma survivors who did the exam alone. "A couple that is in sync is going to take this new experience and support and reassure each other and get over the modesty issue," says Robinson in a news release. "A couple that isn't in sync ... are going to find it stressful and are going to start to fight. I've seen it happen in front of me."
To avoid a second cancer, those couples who just can't get naked together, the study suggests, might need to recruit a friend or relative to help with the exam. If that isn't possible, melanoma survivors will need more frequent visits to the doctor for skin screenings.
Melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, causes 8,000 deaths a year, and 62,000 new cases are diagnosed each year. Finding it and treating it at earlier stages reduces deaths. This paper studied people who already survived one bout of melanoma. But those who have never had skin cancer -- and their supportive partners -- can see photographs and warning signs of suspicious moles at the Skin Cancer Foundation, so they'll know what to look for in all the hidden places.
Women who exercise regularly between ages 12 and 35 may cut their risk of breast cancer by 23%, according to information gleaned from 65,000 women enrolled in the Nurses Health Study II, a prospective study of registered nurses.
The nurses filled out questionnaires that included inquiries about their level of physical activity from age 12 and up. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Harvard University in Boston found that over six years, rates of invasive breast cancer ranged from 194 cases per 100,000 person-years in the least active women, to 136 cases among the most active. The most active women ran about 3.25 hours a week or walked 13 hours a week.
"We don't have a lot of prevention strategies for pre-menopausal breast cancer, but our findings clearly show that physical activity during adolescence and young adulthood can pay off in the long run by reducing a woman's risk of early breast cancer," says lead investigator Dr. Graham Colditz, associate director of prevention and control at Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Hospital, in a news release.
A news release about the study is available here. The study will appear online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
We all know what we should do at the first sign of blood in the stool, bloating in the belly or a lump just about anywhere. Early detection is one of the key factors in improved survival from most cancers, and we know these signs should send us scurrying to a doctor's office.
But a national survey (PDF) by Tower Cancer Research Foundation of 4,402 people shows we don't do what we know we should do. We stall. We hope the symptom will go away. We worry that our health insurance won't cover the care, and that we won't have enough money to pay for what we need.
The survey covered men and women's attitudes in general about cancer, then asked specific questions of people who had been diagnosed with the disease.
Cancer is the No. 1 health fear of most Americans, the survey found. Nearly 80% of respondents said that they worried that someday they would hear the dreaded diagnosis. Fear of heart disease, HIV and Alzheimer's make up the remaining 20% of most feared diseases.
Yet, of the 32% of respondents who suspected they had cancer before they were diagnosed with the disease, 52% waited two months to check it out medically; 15% waited one to five years before seeing a doctor.
When asked why, 38% said they hoped the symptoms would just go away; 32% said they procrastinated; 13% said they were afraid of what a doctor would find; and 13% said they did not have medical insurance.
"Hope, fear, procrastination and lack of medical insurance were all powerful forces preventing people from going to see a doctor," says Dr. Solomon Hamburg, president and chief executive officer of the foundation. "Those surveyed were cancer survivors but many people who delay going to a doctor for long periods of time for a diagnosis are not as fortunate. Early detection raises the bar considerably on our ability to help those in need.”
Of those who waited and worried, 43% said that if they had known earlier of a place to go for guidance and advice, they would have acted sooner. For starters, here's the National Cancer Institute site that can answer most of your preliminary questions, with links to further support. So now, that's one excuse you don't have.
Cancer, sad to say, is about biology. It’s not about strong will or positive attitude. People who eat well, don’t smoke, exercise and think happy thoughts get cancer. “Sometimes you can play by all the rules and just have bad biological luck,” says Linda Garmon, producer of a 90-minute PBS documentary “The Truth About Cancer.” The show airs Wednesday, April 16, at 9 p.m. EDT and PDT. It’s followed by a 30-minute panel discussion moderated by journalist Linda Ellerbee, a breast cancer survivor. The panelists are all physicians—and all cancer survivors themselves.
The documentary tackles the tough question: Why does anyone still die of cancer? While the news media regularly report on the potential of stem cell research, targeted drug therapies and potential breakthroughs, the grim truth is that fewer than one out of 10 patients will survive five years once cancer has spread to other parts of the body.
In the decades-old war on cancer, there are still some devastating forms of the disease (ovarian, pancreatic) with distressingly low survival rates, treatments that have not significantly changed in decades, and no preventive screening tests to find them before they spread.
The documentary is an important view of the reality of a cancer diagnosis but could be a difficult show to watch for patients or families in the midst of finding out for themselves that the war on cancer is far from won. Garmon documents her own husband’s diagnosis with lung cancer, his decline and, finally, his death. A patient in the documentary, Jamie Kleiman, 38, has pancreatic cancer that has spread to other organs. She has a difficult time convincing her father that there’s no doctor anywhere who holds the secret of her cure. "I don't think there's anyone hiding the secret magic bean," she says. But her father holds the very American attitude that you can control your destiny, and if you fight hard enough, you can beat cancer. That's what Lance Armstrong did, after all.
But Kleiman has discovered the cruel difference between Armstrong's successful testicular cancer treatment and her own pancreatic cancer, unresponsive to chemotherapy. "He had the most sensitive cancer to chemotherapy," she says. "It had nothing to do with the fact that he was an athlete."
Cancer is not one disease. It takes hundreds of forms and once it spreads the war on cancer doesn't go well.
MRI examination before breast cancer surgery appears to pay off, often resulting in an alteration of the treatment plan, according to a new study by researchers at Yale University School of Medicine.
Among 110 breast cancer patients who had an MRI examination before surgery, 28% received a change in surgical treatment. For example, as a result of the MRI findings, 15 of the patients had a mastectomy rather than lumpectomy, six had a more extensive lumpectomy than originally planned, and three had treatment for cancer that was detected in the opposite breast.
On the downside, seven patients made a decision to have a bilateral mastectomy after a suspicious finding in the opposite breast, but before cancer was confirmed by biopsy. All seven were eventually found not to have had cancer in the opposite breast.
"Breast MRI is a very useful tool for assessing extent of tumor in the breast,” Dr. Carol Lee, an author of the study, said in a news release. “However, there are downsides that need to be taken into consideration.”
The full results will be presented Tuesday at the American Roentgen Ray Society’s annual meeting in Washington D.C.
Tami Dennis, who takes the word "skeptic" to previously uncharted territory, is editor of The Times' Health section. She's adamant that pitches promoting awareness days, weeks or months are, by their nature, non-stories. And, because she's an adult, she refuses to use words like "veggies," "tummy" and "yummy."
Rosie Mestel, Health section deputy editor, studied genetics before abandoning flies, fungi and DNA for health/medical writing. Her hero is the biologist Ernst Haeckel, whose jellyfish paintings inspired snazzy chandeliers. Her favorite toast-spread is Marmite, a British delicacy made of yeast extract. Her least-favorite word is "millenniums."
Susan Brink has made health and medicine her beat for 26 of her 28 years in the business. She’s covered a wide range of disease and health policy stories, and is always on the lookout for fresh angles. Few things make her happier than busting through preconceived notions to give readers an accurate view of people behaving as…well, real people.
Melissa Healy is a staff writer for the Health section reporting from Washington D.C. Healy's a veteran of The Times' National staff, having covered the Pentagon, Congress, poverty and social welfare, the environment, and the White House before shifting to Health in 2003. She writes frequently about mental health and human behavior, about federal health policy, prescription medication and ethics in medicine. More wonk than wellness freak, Healy chooses to believe in the health benefits of coffee and wine, and considers water a better work-out medium than beverage.
After a brief stint as a sports writer, Shari Roan turned to health journalism and has covered the topic for The Times for 18 years. She is the author of three books and the mother of two daughters, both teenagers who refer to her as a "health freak." She likes to jog, watch baseball and is very happy that dark chocolate contains some health benefit.
Jeannine Stein writes about fitness, sports medicine and obesity for the Health section. She’s a gym rat from way back and never met an elliptical trainer she didn’t like. Well, maybe one or two. She tempers exercise with a steady diet of reality television because she believes it’s all about balance.
We all know what we should do at the first sign of blood in the stool, bloating in the belly or a lump just about anywhere. Early detection is one of the key factors in improved survival from most cancers, and we know these signs should send us scurrying to a doctor's office.
Cancer, sad to say, is about biology. It’s not about strong will or positive attitude. People who eat well, don’t smoke, exercise and think happy thoughts get cancer. “Sometimes you can play by all the rules and just have bad biological luck,” says Linda Garmon, producer of a 90-minute 
