Although many studies show that men have more adenomas (pre-cancerous polyps) than women, there is no difference in rates of colorectal cancer between men and women.
Could this be because women have polyps that are harder to detect during screening and so aren’t removed in time to prevent cancer?
That was the question that Dr. Joseph Anderson at the University of Connecticut asked. Read the rest of this entry »
Finding colorectal cancer patients with Lynch syndrome helps both patients and their families to prevent cancer.
Lynch patients are at high risk for a second or third colon cancer, so identifying them before their colorectal surgery may change the operation planned. Surgeons may want to remove the entire colon to prevent another colon cancer, and women may choose to have a hysterectomy during the same surgery to prevent endometrial cancer.
Because young patients are more likely to have Lynch syndrome, pathologists at the Mayo Clinic tested tumors from patients 50 years old or younger for microsatellite instability (MSI) after their surgery if they had not been tested preoperatively. Read the rest of this entry »
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.
