As cardiologists and oncologists swap cross-fire about the conditions they treat and how they do so, here’s hoping that, above all, their female patients end up helped and not harmed, getting vital information about risks and benefits of therapies for two of the leading killers of women: heart disease and breast cancer. What’s behind the….
Continue ReadingRadiation Therapy
As breast cancer patients know, over-testing and over-treatment are big woes
Up to a third of medical spending goes for over-treatment and over-testing, with an estimated $200 billion in the U.S. expended on medical services with little benefit to patients. But getting doctors and hospitals to stop this waste isn’t easy, nor is it a snap to get patients to understand what this problem’s all about….
Continue ReadingPSA test gets a new grade: a gentleman’s C
A burst of bad headlines and not so great news reports may have confused some men. But to put it in lay terms: The use of the common test for routine prostate cancer screening got a dim grade of C for many men, up from a dismal D, in a re-evaluation by independent experts who….
Continue ReadingAs cancer care advances, costs and concerns keep rising, too
Although doctors and hospitals report potentially sunnier news by the day about novel cancer treatments, it’s also worth keeping in mind that difficult obstacles like data misinterpretation still must be worked out to avoid endangering patients. The therapies themselves as well as cancer care overall can be crushing in their costs. And some experts also are….
Continue ReadingTen-year study on prostate cancer suggests “watchful waiting” is a reasonably safe option
A study involving more than 80,000 men followed for 10 years gives some important clues, but no final answers, on what patients with a diagnosis of prostate cancer should do. It’s long been a puzzle because prostate cancer is one of the most common and deadliest cancers for men, yet in many cases it’s so slow to….
Continue ReadingBreast-Sparing Surgery Shows Better Results in Some Cancer Patients
A preliminary report shows that surgery that spares the breast in patients with a certain kind of early-stage breast cancer has better survival rates than mastectomy. The study findings, reported Consumer Affairs, “defy the conventional belief that the two treatment interventions offer equal survival, and show the need to revisit some standards of breast cancer….
Continue ReadingUrologists Who Own Radiation Equipment Use it More … and Probably Unnecessarily
A couple of weeks ago, we wrote about urologists who, according to clinical guidelines, use too much radiation to treat prostate cancer pain. Here’s some related have-you-no-shame prostate cancer news brought to you by your local urologist. According to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, (NEJM) an awful lot of urologists are….
Continue ReadingToo Many Doctors Use Too Much Radiation to Treat Prostate Cancer Pain
Although radiation can be a vital diagnostic tool and a life-saving cancer treatment, its dangers are well-documented (see our backgrounder on radiation overdose injuries). A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) suggests that doctors might be using radiation therapy too often for patients with advanced-stage prostate cancer. That puts….
Continue ReadingRadiation Treatment for Some Breast Cancer Patients Is Outdated
Old habits die hard, and in this regard the medical profession is no different from any other. Researchers at the Yale School of Medicine were surprised, though, at the results of their study showing that despite the fact that radiation has limited benefit for some older women with breast cancer, the treatment is still being….
Continue ReadingAnnual Chest X-Rays Don’t Help Smokers Beat Lung Cancer
A new study might add to the perception that U.S. medical care is uncontrollably expensive thanks in part to unnecessary tests. “Screening by Chest Radiograph and Lung Cancer Mortality” concludes that people who have an annual chest X-ray do not have a significantly lower mortality rate than people who don’t. The study, whose lung data….
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