The Liver Symposium will bring together patients and health care providers at the Palmer House in Chicago on May 15 and 16 in a unique collaboration of contining medical education and cancer survivor input to share the latest information about managing liver tumors.

Sponsored by YES, a grassroots organization of liver tumor survivors dedicated to helping patients learn their options, the Symposium will provide both supportive survivor-led sessions and presentations from medical experts.

Jim Belushi and the Sacred Hearts will perform at a special welcome dinner for survivors on Thursday evening at 7:30.

Scholarship help is available for survivors and patients to attend.  Contact Suzanne Lindley for more information or call Darlene Baum at Wake Radiology: (919) 854-2189.  Read the rest of this entry »

NSABP C-10 needs only six more patients to complete enrollment and prepare to answer the question: Is it safe and effective to leave a primary tumor without symptoms in the colon or rectum and proceed directly to chemotherapy in patients with colon cancer that has spread to distant organs where it cannot be surgically removed,

The trial has already enrolled 84 of the 90 patients with metastatic colon cancer needed.

All patients in the study will be treated with FOLFOX (oxaliplatin, leucovorin, and continuous infusion 5-FU) and Avastin® (bevacizumab) every two weeks for as long as their cancer doesn’t get worse and they are able to tolerate side effects.   Read the rest of this entry »

We had a couple of patients in our clinics which developed ice craving. They loved to crush and chew on ice chips all the time. When they saw their physician for another reason, blood tests showed low level of hemoglobin, known as anemia.

It turned out that these patients had iron deficiency coming from blood loss from colon cancer. These iron deficiencies can lead to a craving to chew or eat ice chips. Iron deficiencies can affect the mucosa in the gut and mouth, and ice chips may relief some of the discomfort caused by iron deficiencies. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: MIT

Graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed tiny gold nanoparticles that can hone in on tumors and kill them when heated with laser-directed light.

The rod-shaped gold particles travel through the blood stream and are snared in the small blood vessels in the tumor.  Near-infrared light passes harmlessly through normal tissues but heats the gold rods, and  heat energy destroys tumor cells.

Mice treated with the gold nanorods and laser infrared light had tumors disappear within 15 days and not recur. Read the rest of this entry »

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX)

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) have authored a Senate Dear Colleague Letter in support of increasing the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) budget to $6 billion in Fiscal Year 2010 and doubling NCI’s budget over the next five years. Read the rest of this entry »