Can your annual visit to your gynecologist save your life?

Every year more than 70,000 women are diagnosed with colorectal cancer.   Many of those women see a gynecologist for an annual check-up.  In fact, the gynecologist may be their primary health care provider with a unique opportunity to help women decide on colorectal cancer screening.

A new Committee Opinion from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says that while colonoscopy is the preferred method for screening, women should also hear about other options.  The Committee Opinion stresses:

Women should be screened using the method that they are most comfortable with and most likely to complete.

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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .

It has been an amazing day here in Orlando at the AACR Annual Meeting.

The cancer research that is going on is breaking new and very important ground. We are unraveling the secrets of cancer from deep within the cell, even to the tiny telomeres that cap the ends of chromosomes.

Thousands of researchers are sharing what they are doing in their labs in talks and posters and there is no doubt that we are on the brink of startling innovation in our understanding of cancer that presents very opportunity for conquering it — for preventing it, treating it, curing it.

As AACR President, Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn says, “We are making it happen.”

Yet, it is the worst of times . . . with severe cutbacks in funding threatened.

There are cuts in the budget for this year being discussed right now, and more cuts for next year.

Young researchers are facing very small chances that their studies will be funded by the NCI — and they are doing the work of the future.

Our members of Congress need to hear from us that Cancer Research Saves Lives, and we want it paid for!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it ws the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…

Having trouble remembering? Does your thinking seem fuzzy? Even years after chemotherapy, does it seem like you can’t focus and are wandering around in a fog?

Learn more about cancer treatments and thinking, memory, and attention during a free CancerCare telephone workshop.

• The Ninth Annual Cancer Survivorship Series: Living With, Through and Beyond Cancer
• Part I: Chemobrain: The Impact of Cancer Treatments on Memory, Thinking and Attention
• April 12, 2011
• 1:30 to 2:30 (Eastern)

Registration is free, but you must sign up. In addition to the telephone, the workshop will be streamed via the Internet.
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Shortages of prescription drugs cost the United States more than $200 million.

In addition, shortages force doctors to delay or cancel treatment.  Patient safety is compromised when doctors have to use different or unfamiliar drugs when they can’t get the right ones.

In the six months from July to December of 2010, 240 drugs were either in short supply or completely unavailable.  More than 400 generics were back-ordered for more than five days.

Most of the medicines with shortages are necessary for emergency care, sedation, or chemotherapy — including leucovorin which is a backbone of most colorectal cancer treatment regimens. Read the rest of this entry »

In 2007, 62 out of every 100,000 black men in the United States were diagnosed with colon or rectal cancer, the highest rate of colorectal cancer of any US group.

Overall, men were more likely to get colorectal cancer than women — almost 53 of every 100,000 American males compared to 40 per 100,000 females.

Reporting colorectal cancer incidence rates for 2007, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged regular colorectal cancer screening for all average risk adults 50 years and older to cut deaths from colorectal cancer.

According to the CDC, 142,672 Americans were diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2007, including 72,755 men and 69,917 women. Read the rest of this entry »