Clinical features of colon tumors can predict survival, acupressure bands reduce nausea during radiation therapy, and there was no connection between the amount of fish a person ate and risk for colorectal cancer.  Although blacks have an increased risk for colon and breast cancer, hospitals matter.  All patients — white or black — did worse in hospitals that treated a majority of black patients.

Surgical robots are being developed with a light touch that can tell the difference between normal and tumor tissue. Read the rest of this entry »

Patients who wore an acupressure wristband during radiation treatment had less nausea. However, it made no difference if they received a leaflet telling them that previous research showed that the bands reduced nausea or not.

The patients in the study were receiving radiation to the intestinal tract and had already experienced some nausea during treatment.  Wearing the bands reduced nausea scores by about 24 percent.

To test the theory that the reduction was caused by patient expectations or a placebo effect, half of the group who wore wristbands received a positive handout saying that research showed wristbands reduced nausea.  The other half had a neutral handout.  There was no difference between the two groups.  Both had less nausea.

Another group who didn’t have wristbands, had a very small reduction in nausea of about 5 percent.

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