Category: Cancer

MEwens
A Komen fundraising race from the fall.
It hasn’t been a great week for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the breast-cancer advocacy group known for its pink-ribbon fundraising efforts.
Today the group reversed a decision — made public only Tuesday — to end Planned Parenthood’s eligibility for grants. Critics had said Komen planned to […]

MEwens
Medical Device Price Gap: A report from the Government Accountability Office finds that some hospitals pay thousands of dollars more than others for the very same medical device, the WSJ reports. The higher prices could affect Medicare spending, since payments to hospitals are in part based on the institutions’ costs, the paper says.
New […]

MEwens
Some of Komen’s funding to Planned Parenthood affiliates went towards referrals for mammograms.
The controversy over the defunding of Planned Parenthood affiliates by breast-cancer group Susan G. Komen for the Cure is showing no signs of cooling off.
A spokeswoman for Komen, Leslie Aun, told the Associated Press — which broke the story Tuesday — […]

MEwens
Here at Health Blog headquarters, we’ve been intrigued by the career of John Johnson ever since he left a company called Johnson & Johnson.
That was back in 2007, when he became CEO of ImClone Systems, which was eventually acquired by Eli Lilly.
Today, Johnson, who is 53, was named president, chief executive and chairman-elect […]

MEwens
Prostate-Cancer Drug Studies: The results from two trials of experimental drugs for advanced prostate cancer add to recent progress against the disease, the WSJ reports. Medivation’s MDV3100 extended survival by nearly five months in a 1,199-patient study, while Bayer and Algeta’s Alpharadin, which homes in on cancer that has already spread to the […]

MEwens
U.S. cancer-screening rates are falling short of the government’s targets.
According to new stats out today from the CDC, not enough people are following the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s recommendations for getting regular breast, cervical and colorectal cancer screening tests. And the picture looks even worse when you look at specific racial and […]

MEwens
Questioning a Radiation Technique: Accelerated partial-breast irradiation — a treatment used following a lumpectomy for early-stage breast cancer –  is under scrutiny following two recent studies, the WSJ reports. The technique shortens treatment time and reduces total radiation exposure, but one study links it with a higher risk of mastectomy within five years, […]

MEwens
For patients diagnosed with cancer and other serious diseases, a second opinion can make the difference between getting the right and the wrong care, today’s Informed Patient column reports.
Diagnostic error is of increasing concern, studies show. A new report from QuantiaMD, a mobile and  online physician community, found that almost half of 6,400 […]

MEwens
If you were tested for the “breast cancer gene” — mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes that raise the risk of breast, ovarian and other cancers — would you tell your children?
That’s the question researchers posed to 253 parents, almost all of them women, who underwent BRCA gene testing and had at […]

MEwens
A breast cancer cell.
Overall, new stats out today from the American Cancer Society show a slight decline in death rates between 2004 and 2008: a drop of 1.8% per year for U.S. men and 1.6% for women.
Incidence rates are also falling (in men, at least; they were stable in women). But go beyond […]