The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.

Mukherjee writes.

Cancer’s life is a recapitulation of the body’s life, its existence a pathological mirror of our own.Down to their innate molecular core, cancer cells are hyperactive, survival-endowed, scrappy, fecund, inventive copies of ourselves. Read the rest of this entry »

ZALTRAP® (aflibercept) added to survival time when given along with FOLFIRI to colorectal cancer patients who had already progressed on earlier oxaliplatin treatment.

On April 26, 2011, sanofi-aventis and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals announced positive results for the Phase III VELOUR trial, which compared ZALTRAP to a placebo during FOLFIRI chemotherapy.

Detailed results will be available at an upcoming medical conference. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday, April 25th, Fight Colorectal Cancer held a free patient webinar that tackled the somewhat complex but fascinating topic of personalized medicine.

Personalized medicine is what the cancer community calls treatments that are tailored to each patient’s genetic makeup. It is the future of cancer care and in some cases, it is already making a big difference in the ways patients are treated.

You can learn about these cutting edge treatments and about emerging findings in an archive of the webinar below.

Our thanks to Carolyn Grande, CRNP, AOCNP for leading the discussion. She a phenomenal educator on this topic and a member of our Medical Advisory Board. She graciously donated her time to bring this information to patients.

On April 16, Bob Baker and two companions dipped the wheels of their bikes in Long Island Sound near Stamford, Connecticut and set off  to bike 4,000 miles across the United States to Seattle, Washington.

Bob is a survivor of ulcerative colitis and colon cancer and an ostomate.

He’ll be using his three-month ride to raise awareness of ulcerative colitis and colorectal cancer prevention and give hope to people who are terrified of ostomies, letting them know that they can be life-saving and life-giving. Read the rest of this entry »

People who smoked before their diagnosis of colon cancer had a higher risk of dying — both from colon cancer and from other causes.

The risk was considerably higher in patients whose tumor was microsatellite high, but didn’t extend to those with rectal cancer or younger patients under age 50.

Drinking alcohol before diagnosis didn’t affect death rates. Read the rest of this entry »