“We are a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” – President Abraham Lincoln

Happy Election Day!

You’ve studied the issues, now the only thing left to do is cast your ballot. While you wait for the returns to come in, pass the time with a fun video on “Why we vote.”

Colon and rectal cancer that is attached to critical body structures like the wall of the pelvis or important large veins has traditionally been considered not surgically treatable.  Patients have been offered palliative treatments designed to extend life or reduce symptoms, but the goal wasn’t cure.

However, Mayo Clinic surgeons are now working together with teams of surgeons, radiologists, and oncologists to treat normally unresectable colon and rectal cancer with a combination of therapies.  Surgery, both external radiation and radiotherapy done during surgery, and chemotherapy have gone beyond palliative care for this group of patients.  Almost half of the patients treated with the multimodality approach were alive and cancer free five years after treatment began.

Writing in the Annals of Surgery, the doctors titled their article, Unresectable Colorectal Cancer Can Be Cured With Multimodality Therapy. Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Raynard Kington

After more than six years as director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Elias Zerhouni stepped down on Friday, October 31st. Dr. Zerhouni presided over the nation’s primary public funding source for biomedical research. Zerhouni tapped Dr. Raynard Kington to temporarily step into this role. Read the rest of this entry »

Patients who had surgery for colon or rectal cancer performed at a National Cancer Institute Designated Center had less risk of death immediately after surgery and better long-term survival.

Looking at nearly 34,000 people who had surgery for colon cancer and 8,600 who had rectal cancer surgery, researchers found a 26 percent increase in long term survival when the operation was done in an NCI-designated cancer center.

Having surgery in an NCI-designated center cut the risk of dying in the hospital or within 30 days after surgery in half for colon cancer patients.  Post surgery deaths were 6.7 percent in non-NCI centers and 3.2 percent in NCI-designated centers.  There was even more difference for rectal cancer where deaths after surgery were 5 percent in non-NCI and 1.9 percent in NCI centers. Read the rest of this entry »