Older men with several kinds of cancer–including colon cancer–do as well or better in the Veterans’ Health Administration as men covered by Medicare, according to a new study published by the Journal of Clinical Oncology in an advanced online release.

The Veterans’ Administration is the nation’s largest integrated health system, providing care for 6 million veterans a year who are eligible because of either service-related disabilities or economic disadvantage. The VHA launched a major reorganization in the mid-1990s to improve its quality of care through electronic records, better care coordination and mistake detection, and improved screening. Read the rest of this entry »

Traditionally, people getting cancer treatments were told to rest and avoid exertion, to save their strength during treatment. But more experts now say that the best way to get through treatment, and possibly the best way to beat cancer, is to stay as physically active as possible.

The American College of Sports Medicine has revised its national recommendations, saying that cancer patients and survivors should strive for the same goal as everyone–about 150 minutes a week of moderate aerobic exercise, along with resistance training and stretching.

The panel does caution that workout plans must be adapted to each person’s condition and treatment. For example, some cancer treatments make bones more brittle, which will require exercise that place less stress on them. And immunosuppressed patients must avoid exercise in groups of people.

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Should cancer care focused on quality of life wait until all treatment ends?  Or can it be integrated with medical treatment as soon as someone is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness?

In a study of 150 advanced lung cancer patients, starting palliative care along with standard life-prolonging treatment when patients were first diagnosed not only improved their mood and quality of life, it actually increased the time they lived.

Although patients who received early palliative care received less aggressive treatment at the end of life, they lived almost 3 months longer than patients who didn’t have such early support. Read the rest of this entry »

Young patients with stage II or III colon cancer get equal benefit from chemotherapy as older patients, and they have similar side effects.

Five years after treatment, 67 percent of patients under the age of fifty hadn’t had their cancer spread beyond the colon (recurrence-free interval), the same percentage that applied to patients who were fifty or over.

Overall survival and disease-free survival were somewhat better for young patients because they had fewer other reasons for dying.  Overall and disease-free survival reflect patients who are alive five years after beginning treatment.  Neither includes people who have died from any cause, including their cancer. Read the rest of this entry »

Briefly

• Hormone replacement therapy reduces risk of colon cancer.
• Smoking before age 30 increases chances that colon cancer will recur.
• Low CEA levels improve both survival and disease-free survival for stage II colon cancer.
• Most patients want videos of their colonoscopies and are willing to pay for them. Read the rest of this entry »