Are you done — or almost done — with your treatment for colon cancer?

Will you help answer a question about how to help colon cancer survivors  increase their physical activity?

You’ll learn more about colon cancer and may be randomly assigned to a special interactive program that is designed to help recovering colon cancer patients develop a healthy lifestyle.

The Survivorship Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (CHESS) study is available in centers in Wisconsin, Texas, North Carolina, and Connecticut.  To be part of the research, you need to have completed treatment for stage I, II, or III colon cancer within the past 12 months.  Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Edith Mitchell

Last night, Dr. Edith Mitchell of Thomas Jefferson University Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA, updated colorectal cancer patients on the latest research and treatment news in an online webinar.

Dr. Mitchell highlighted the most important news for colon and rectal cancer patients to come from the 2011 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium held in San Francisco last month. She answer such questions as…

“Can doctors determine the chances that my cancer may return?”

“Can my doctors determine if I need chemotherapy?”

“Does Avastin or Erbitux benefit my stage III cancer treatment?”

“Are there any promising new treatments on the horizon?”

Read the rest of this entry »

Has she held your hand when you were scared, encouraged you when chemo seemed overwhelming?  Did he help you find a way to deal with nausea or bring a blanket when you were cold?

Is there a special oncology nurse in your life, an extraordinary person who helped you heal?

Write about them!

Your essay about an oncology nurse can win a trip to Boston for both of you and your guests during the Oncology Nursing Society’s 36th Annual Congress, on April 28th, 2011. Read the rest of this entry »

This news story is racing around the world this week: A specially trained dog in Japan correctly detected more than 95 percent of people who had colorectal cancer—even early cancers—just by sniffing breath or stool samples.

Not surprising that the media have jumped on it: It’s a cute story and hopeful. But many reports are missing the real point: Rather than replacing colonoscopies with dog-staffed screening clinics, the real goal is to find lab tests that could detect cancer much earlier.

The Japanese study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Gut, in which a dog detected colorectal cancer in breath as well as stools indicates that cancer chemicals might circulate throughout the body. This nudges basic science another step toward identifying one or more organic chemicals present in cancer that might be detectable by simple lab tests.

The dogs are way ahead of humans: They have 220 million olfactory (smell) receptors, compared to our measly 5 million, so they can sniff out mere molecules of certain substances.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today, February 4, 2011 is World Cancer Day.

As many cancers come into control in developed countries with fewer cases and deaths, cancer is ballooning in the rest of the world.

Smoking, changing diets, and increased lifespans are putting more world neighbors at risk for cancer.

This year there will be

• 12.7 million people diagnosed with cancer
• 7.6 million deaths from cancer

If steps aren’t taken to improve prevention, early detection, and treatment there will be 26 million new cases of cancer and 17 million deaths by 2030. Read the rest of this entry »