Counseling that focuses specifically on fatigue can reduce its symptoms and help cancer patients cope with it during cancer treatment.

The Cochrane Collaboration reviewed randomized clinical trials of psychological interventions aimed at managing cancer fatigue.  Studies included both interventions that included fatigue among other symptoms and those that were directly at fatigue alone. Read the rest of this entry »

Many patients with metastatic disease ask how long we should do chemotherapy. This is astonishing since when we are diagnosed with diabetes or hypertension we usually would not ask the same question. Of course, for patients with metastatic disease we continue as long the chemotherapy works.

A lot of patients ask whether you can take a break from chemotherapy, particularly around the holidays or vacation times. Do you take a break from insulin or your high blood pressure medication? In the last two years, clinical trials have been conducted to answer exactly this question.
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Last week I had a consultation with an older gentleman who is 84 years old. Interestingly, the role of age in the treatment of colon cancer has changed. During my training in Germany in the nineteen eighties when someone came in with metastatic cancer and was older than 65, we rarely gave chemotherapy because we were afraid to make those patients sicker than cancer did.

We have a perception that when someone is old we should be much more gentle and we should adapt treatment not only using less aggressive chemotherapy cocktails but also lower doses.. These perceptions go back to the history of chemotherapy when chemotherapy drugs made most patients very sick and weak. With less toxic chemotherapeutic therapies and much better drugs against nausea and vomiting, our perception needs to be reevaluated. Read the rest of this entry »

Brief Research Reports

• Positive research studies are much more likely to be published than those with negative results.  They are also published sooner.  The Cochrane Collaboration reviewed  five different analyses of potential publication bias and fund that while 73 percent of clinical trials with positive results were published only 41 percent of those with negative or null findings were reported.  Positive studies took about four or five years to get into print, while negative studies took six to eight.  Sources of funding, sex of the principal researcher, or academic rank didn’t make a difference.  S. Hopewell in Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009, Issue 1.

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Patients always ask what they can do. Well, there is a lot they can do to reduce the risk for tumor recurring after successful surgeries.

Recent studies have clearly shown that diet is directly associated with the risk of tumor recurrence. People who eat primarily a Western diet are significantly at higher risk than those patients whose diet has less red meat, processed sugar, desserts, and French fries. You can change your diet and reduce your risk of tumor recurrence. Read the rest of this entry »