Women Cancer Health Treatment

If you have ever known anyone that has been diagnosed with cancer, you know that it is a horrific disease. To watch someone that you love literally lose every essence of their life as they go through chemotherapy and other, powerful, medicines is something that nobody should experience.

Alternative cancer healing treatments began in the year 1840 with a horse farmer by the name of John Hoxsey. Finding a tumor on his prized stallion, Hoxsey was devastated, but he could not bear to shoot the animal. Instead, he decided to let the animal graze out its days in the pasture until it peacefully passed away. Interestingly, rather than dying the horse grew stronger through munching on plants and herbs that it seemed to be drawn to. Read more!

University of Arkansas surgeon has developed a new procedure to prevent swelling of the arm associated with breast cancer. This is a new procedure to prevent one of the most common side effects associated with breast cancer treatment – lymphedema or swelling of the arms due to faulty drainage of the lymph nodes.
V. Suzanne Klimberg, MD, director of the UAMS breast cancer program, led a study funded by the Tenenbaum Breast Cancer Research Foundation of breast cancer patients at risk for developing lymphedema. Her findings were published in the Annals of Surgical Oncology, and she will present the study March 17 at the Society of Surgical Oncology 60th Annual Cancer Symposium in Washington, DC.

“The removal and analysis of the lymph nodes under the arm remains the most important factor in determining the severity of disease in breast cancer patients,” Klimberg said. Read more!

A new technique has been developed at Singapore’s National University Hospital to detect cancer in its earliest stages by a new non-invasive method, the Channel NewsAsia reported on Friday. The hospital is conducting a trial involving 58 patients, 12 of whom are receiving treatment after the ‘optical biopsy’ diagnosed them with early-stage cervical cancer. The technique detects pre-cancers or collections of a few hundred malignant cells among millions of healthy cells. Using the near-infrared fluorescence imaging, doctors may soon spot cancer risks before any physical signs, causing cancer cells to emit fluorescence.

In announcing the new technique, a researcher told Channel News Asia, “Since we use the near-infrared red light, there’s much better penetration into the tissue. Near-infrared red is a biologically transparent light so it is quite safe for human cells and tissues. Read more!

Passionately Pink for the Cure™ is a new, year-round fundraising and education program kicking off October 1, 2006, in conjunction with National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The program encourages companies, schools and organizations to take that promise, make it their own, and make a difference by supporting breast cancer research, education, screening and treatment. Visit www.komenaustin.org for more details or email Lisa Feller at LFeller@komenaustin.org.
As part of the program, companies, organizations, and individuals nationwide are picking one day in October and urging their associates and friends to demonstrate their support by making a $5 donation and dressing up in pink.

Realizing the fact that 212,920 women and 1,720 men, according to the American Cancer Society, will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006. Anyone can participate! Read more!

Women who take Herceptin, the advanced breast cancer “wonder drug”, could suffer heart problems as a result, research has indicated. The researchers say that 28% of women receiving the novel breast cancer drug Herceptin (trastuzumab) suffered cardiac problems as a result. The affected women had to stop taking the cancer drug temporarily while their heart problems were treated.
The drug Herceptin is thought to reduce the chance of relapse in women with certain types of early stage breast cancer. But at a cost of up to $70,000 per year, it is out of reach for some patients. Previous evidence from clinical trials found that between 10% and 26% of patients experienced cardiac problems, depending on its combination with other drugs. One frequently cited US study found that 18.6% of women had to stop taking the drug because of cardiac problems. Read more!

A U.S. advisory panel recommended that 11- and 12-year-old girls be routinely vaccinated against the virus that causes cervical cancer. They also recommended that the vaccine, called Gardasil, which is made by Merck & Co., be administered to girls as young as 9, at the provider’s discretion, and for women up to age 26 who have not previously been vaccinated against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV).

Clinical studies have shown that the Gardasil vaccine is 100-percent effective — when taken as prescribed in three doses — when given to girls before they become sexually active in preventing infection with HPV types 6, 11, 16 and 18. About 7 percent of children have had sexual intercourse before age 13, and about a quarter of boys and girls have had sex by age 15, according to government surveys. Read more!

Osteosarcoma is a cancer of bone that strikes about 900 people in the US each year. he discovery of a gene called MET may explain the development of osteosarcoma, a bone cancer found mainly in adolescents, according to a team of Italian scientists. Most of these are adolescents. Although patients are potentially curable with surgery, they need additional treatment with chemotherapy to ensure the best outcome. The gene will also provide a target for researchers looking for treatments or a cure for this disease.

In the first part of the study the researchers grew normal bone cells, called osteoblasts, in test tube cultures. After around 40-60 days, they took away cells that looked cancerous and put them in mice to see whether they would form cancers. Then they tried to reverse these changes by blocking the MET-produced receptor. Read more!

Laughter helped Kylie Minogue beat cancer, sister Danii has revealed. The brunette Minogue has revealed how she and her sibling often dressed in silly clothes and watched British comedy ‘Little Britain’ to keep up Kylie’s spirits during her battle with the deadly illness.
She told Cosmopolitan magazine: “We’d love to do what we call “daggy dancing”- just really stupid dancing to anything I had on my iPod. And we played name that tune. Kylie is really good at it.” Read more!

The artificial sweetener aspartame is not linked to cancer, according to a report just released by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). The report said there was no cancer risk from foods and drinks containing the food sweetener aspartame, rejecting a scientific study that said the additive was hazardous.

The European food watchdog undertook an urgent review of the additive following a study, published in 2005 by an Italian cancer research body which found the sweetener — widely used in diet foods, soft drinks and as a sugar substitute — increased cancers in rats, which suggested aspartame was carcinogenic. But a working party said the incidence of tumours could not be linked to the artificial sweetener. Read more!

Mammography has been known as the gold standard in early detection of breast cancer. Mammograms are X-rays of the breasts to look for suspicious masses or breast tissue changes before they can be seen or felt.
But mammography is not perfect. Accuracy depends on the quality of film, the technique used and the skill of the radiologist examining the films. Dense breast tissue can make abnormalities difficult to see on a mammogram.

The Mayo Clinic Women’s HealthSource issue examines other imaging technology in use or that’s being studied to help doctors detect and diagnose breast cancer. Read more!

The cancer-stopping power of tea does not play favorites; Venus and Mars can both benefit from increasing their intake of green tea. In men, ECG reduces the body’s synthesis of DHT, a potent form of testosterone that causes prostate cancer.
ECG has also been found to be the most potent catechin in inducing cancer cell death in human prostate cancer cells. In women, ECG also helps keep breast cells from turning cancerous. In addition, green tea enhances the effectiveness of chemotherapy and helps protect against radiotherapy damage.
A recent lung cancer study showed that a combination of catechins rather than ECG alone was more effective at producing apoptosis (programmed cell death), and the effect was synergistically increased when catechins were combined with other anti-cancer agents such as the well-known breast cancer drug tamoxifen. Read more!

As the American Academy of Dermatology warns, there is an unrecognized epidemic of skin cancer underway in the United States. One in five Americans will develop skin cancer, and a person’s risk of the disease doubles if he or she has had five or more sunburns, according to a report in the April issue of the Mayo Clinic Health Letter.

Mayo Clinic researchers found that the percentage of women under 40 with the more common type, basal cell, tripled between 1976 and 2003, while the rate of squamous cell cancers increased four-fold. Basal and squamous cell carcinomas, the most common and treatable types of skin cancers, had long been considered a problem only for people over 50, according to the report. Read more!

Women who have had surgery for breast cancer can lift weights to improve quality of life and gain a better sense of well-being, according to researchers here.
In a study of 86 women who were between four and 36 months past their primary treatment, those who were assigned to twice-weekly weight-training sessions had significantly better quality-of-life score and global psychological scores compared with controls, reported Kathryn H. Schmitz, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues at the University of Minnesota.

Previous studies have shown that aerobic exercise improves quality of life for breast cancer survivors, but whether weight training would offer a similar benefit in women who have recently undergone breast cancer therapy was unclear, the investigators wrote. Read more!

Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection– transmitted during sex, is the most important risk factor for cervical cancer. Women sexual life risk factors include having sex at an early age, multiple sexual partners, and sex with uncircumcised males. You must be infected with HPV to get cervical cancer, but most women don’t get the disease.

Researchers from the University of South Carolina School of Medicine found that risk of cervical cancer in Holland is higher during sunny months. Women were twice as likely to be infected with HPV during sunny August than in the darker months of winter. Researchers looked for seasonal differences in HPV infections appearing in nearly one million Pap smears collected from 1983 to 1998. Read more!

California is famous for sunshine, beautiful beaches, a superstar governor, and people with tanned, healthy- looking bodies. The younger generation will be less tanned if some members of the legislature have their way. The State Assembly voted 42-26 to ban teenagers from visiting artificial tanning booths.

The California Society of Dermatology Surgery backs the bill. They blame tanning booths for many of the one million new cases of skin cancer diagnosed every year and 7,400 deaths from melanoma (a deadly form cancer of skin cancer). Read more!