Category: A.M. Vitals: Prostate-Cancer Drugs Improve Survival in Trials

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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

MEwens
The folks on the WSJ’s video team have put together a collection of some of the WSJ’s best health stories of 2011. Among the headlines they included:
Amy Dockser Marcus’s fascinating piece on an outbreak of what was eventually identified as chronic fatigue syndrome in upstate New York.
Ron Winslow’s article on the emerging ability […]

MEwens
With more than 900 posts, it’s been a busy year for the Health Blog. We thought we’d close out the year by highlighting a few of our (and our readers’) favorites. As with our “best of” last year, this is a thoroughly unscientifically determined list, with posts chosen by subject matter, quirk factor […]

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Double Duty?: Research published in the journal Cancer finds that among a group of middle-aged men, statin use was associated with a lower risk of dying from prostate cancer, Reuters Health reports. The study, which covered 760 men, most of them white, can’t prove that statin use caused the lower risk of death, […]

MEwens
Waiting to Restock: Wal-Mart, Walgreen and Supervalu are waiting to restock a batch of Enfamil Newborn formula until the federal government completes tests for a potentially harmful bacteria, even though the manufacturer’s own tests have turned up no traces of contamination, the WSJ reports. The FDA and CDC are trying to figure out […]