Insurance makes a difference for people with rectal cancer.

Rectal cancer patients without insurance or covered by Medicaid are almost twice as likely to die within five years as those privately insured.

Not only are they diagnosed at a later stage, but fewer receive recommended treatments at every stage.

More than half of the difference between patients with private insurance and those without was due to differences in how early they were diagnosed and whether or not they got standard treatment. Read the rest of this entry »

Some colon cancer patients don’t benefit from treatment with 5-FU based chemotherapy and may even have worse outcomes than if they no chemo at all.

Of every 100 people with colon cancer, about 15 will have cancers that arise when mistakes in DNA during cell division are not caught and fixed.  Scientists call this defective mismatch repair or dMMR.

More often, colon cancer occurs when mutations in chromosomes accumulate but DNA repair pathways remain intact and mismatch repair is proficient (pMMR). This is true for about 85 percent of colon cancer.

Both prognosis and the potential benefit from FU-based chemotherapy appear to be very different for these two types of colon cancer. Knowing mismatch repair status of colon tumors can help patients and their doctors make better treatment decisions.

Patients with defective mismatch repair have better disease-free and overall survival and don’t seem to benefit from 5-FU at either stage II or stage III.  Stage II patients with dMMR have significantly poorer overall survival if they get chemo after surgery.

Caution:  These results come from studies of 5-FU plus levamisole or 5-FU plus leucovorin.  They don’t include any information from the current standard treatments of FOLFOX or FLOX which contain oxaliplatin in addition to 5-FU and leucovorin.

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A growing number of foodborne illnesses are tied to salsa and guacamole dips, according to a just-reported CDC study.

The popular dips that combine chopped raw veggies and herbs have been implicated in 1 in 25 outbreaks of food poisoning since 1998.

Most of the problem has been in restaurants and delis where 84 percent of salsa or guacamole-associated (SGA) outbreaks were discovered.  Since the dips are prepared in large batches, many customers may be exposed to dangerous bacteria in them.  Lack of refrigeration is also an issue.

About a third of the outbreaks were traced to poor refrigeration, and one in five to food service staff. Read the rest of this entry »

In 2010, experts predict that 4,400 fewer Americans will be diagnosed with colon and rectal cancer than in 2009.

According to new American Cancer Society statistics for 2010, 142,570 people will hear the difficult words, “You have colorectal cancer”, down from 146,970 in 2009.

Still, 51,370 families will get painful news when loved ones die from colorectal cancer.

Continuing this year, African Americans are more likely to develop colorectal cancer than whites and other races, to die of it, and to have poorer survival at every stage of the disease. Read the rest of this entry »

A treatment for chronic constipation that is now available over-the-counter was more effective that a drug that needs a doctor’s prescription in a review of ten studies comparing the two.

Both polyethylene glycol, which is marketed as Miralax®, and prescription lactulose, sold under a number of brand names including Cholac Syrup®, Kristalose®, and Enulose®, work by drawing water into the colon and softening stools making them easier to pass.

The two osmotic laxatives can help patients whose intestinal activity is slow because of illness or medicines.  Cancer patients who take opiate pain relievers often have problems with this kind of constipation. Read the rest of this entry »