In studies reported this week  fewer specialists managing colorectal cancer were found in US counties with large African American populations, older adults with cancer had significantly worse physical and mental health, and palliative sedation at the end of life did not hasten death.

In other headlines, colorectal cancer screening for the uninsured will begin on July 1 in Minnesota, and if screening reveals cancer, treatment will be covered under the Minnesota Medical Assistance program.  The FDA warned consumers not to use Zicam nasal gel or swabs to avoid loss of smell, and doctors advised patients on long-term Xeloda therapy to carry a letter from their oncologist explaining possible loss of fingerprints if they travel internationally. Read the rest of this entry »

Throw out that refrigerated Nestles TOLL HOUSE Cookie Dough!  And don’t eat it raw or bake it.

The Food and Drug Administration has announced a voluntary recall of all varieties of Nestle® TOLL HOUSE® refrigerator cookie dough.  While no e. coli bacteria have been actually found in the dough, there have been a number of reports of consumers becoming ill after eating the raw dough.

Baking the cookies may not eliminate the risk of contamination because cooks may get bacteria on their hands or on other kitchen surfaces.

Nestle and the FDA emphasize that people should never eat raw cookie dough or other foods that are intended to be baked or cooked before eating.

The products involved in the voluntary recall include all varieties of Nestlé TOLL HOUSE refrigerated Cookie Bar Dough, Cookie Dough Tub; Cookie Dough Tube; Limited Edition Cookie Dough items; Seasonal Cookie Dough and Ultimates Cookie Bar Dough. A complete list is available from Nestle. It includes all varieties, not just chocolate chip.

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Even after problems were found with how endoscopes were cleaned at three Veterans Administration medical centers earlier this year, surprise inspections found that over half additional VA medical facilities visited could not demonstrate compliance with proper procedures for safely cleaning endoscopes after each use.

A report revealing the extent of problems from the VA Office of the Inspector General was discussed during a hearing of the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation on July 16, 2009.

Congress member Steven Buyer, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, who requested the meeting to review the report said:

I asked for the InspectorGeneral to become involved after the Miami incident, because I suspected the problem was systemic. Now that we know it is, I am deeply concerned that this problem is expansive and it goes well beyond VA. What is happening at HHS and the Department of Defense? What is happening in our greater health system?

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A recent study by Dr. Rubin from the University of Chicago evaluated over 180,000 patients with urological cancers such as renal pelvis and ureteral cancers and over 350,000 with colorectal cancer.

It is known that families with a genetic predisposition to colon cancer known as HNPCC (hereditary colorectal cancers) are at higher risk to develop additional cancers such as upper gastrointestinal cancers, ovarian and endometrium cancers but also renal cancers. This is one of the first and largest studies to connect colorectal and urological cancers. Read the rest of this entry »

Patients who had tumors shrink in response to chemotherapy given before they had surgery for colorectal cancer that had spread to their livers had no better long-term survival than patients whose cancer remained the same or even got worse.

Doctors in New York followed 111 patients who had chemotherapy before surgery to remove liver metastases (neoadjuvant chemotherapy). After five years of follow-up, median overall survival was 62 months.  Overall survival was similar in three different groups:  those who had a complete or partial response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, those whose tumors remained stable, and those whose cancer progressed during chemotherapy. Read the rest of this entry »