Healthy Living Oncology Content

• Angelina Jolie's Double Mastectomy: Q&A

  

  Posted 8:45 PM 5/14/2013

  May 14, 2013 -- Actress and activist Angelina Jolie's recent decision to have a preventive double mastectomy highlights the difficult choices facing women who find out they have a high risk for breast cancer because of their genes.

  Although relatively rare, mutations in the BRCA1 and (More)
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• Q&A: Valerie Harper's Cancer

  

  Posted 9:49 PM 3/6/2013

  March 6, 2013 -- Actress Valerie Harper, best known for her role as Rhoda Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda in the 1970s, has learned she has leptomeningeal carcinomatosis.

  The condition happens when cancer spreads to the brain and spinal cord.

  Now 73, Harper told People magazine she received the diagnosis in January.

  The American (More)
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• Q&A: Breast Cancer in Young Women

  

  Posted 9:22 PM 2/28/2013

  Feb. 28, 2013 -- Young women found the news surprising and more than a little scary: Cases of advanced breast cancer have been rising in women 25 to 39 over the past three decades, researchers reported this week.

  From 1976 to 2009, the number of cases of advanced breast (More)
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• Which Cancer Tests Do You Really Need?

  

  Posted 10:21 PM 2/1/2013

  Feb. 1, 2013 -- Not all cancer screening tests are helpful, and some are potentially harmful, according to a new Consumer Reports rating.

  In the new report, Consumer Reports recommends only three of 11 common cancer screening tests, and then only for certain age groups.

  Screenings for cervical, (More)
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• Cancer Death Rates Drop 20% Over 2 Decades

  

  Posted 9:43 PM 1/17/2013

  Jan. 17, 2013 -- Cancer death rates have fallen by 20% from their peak about 20 years ago, according to the latest statistics from the American Cancer Society.

  This means that from 1991 to 2009, 1.2 million lives were spared, including 152,900 lives in 2009 alone.

  "The big picture is that progress is steady, and for the four major cancer sites, progress is even more rapid," (More)
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• Pap Test to Detect Ovarian, Endometrial Cancers?

  

  Posted 8:26 PM 1/9/2013

  Jan. 9, 2013 -- A new test for ovarian and endometrial cancers looks at cervical fluid obtained during a routine Pap test to detect genetic mutations linked with the cancers.

  Although the research is in early stages, the test did well in detecting these cancers, says researcher Yuxuan Wang, a graduate student at the Ludwig Center for Cancer Genetics and Therapeutics at the Johns (More)
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• Most Cancer Deaths Continue to Drop

  

  Posted 9:17 PM 1/7/2013

  Fewer Americans are dying from cancer.

  This is one main take-away from the latest report on cancer death rates and new diagnoses of cancer in the U.S. This decline is seen among men and women across all major racial and ethnic groups, and for 17 of the most common types of cancer including lung, colon, breast, and prostate cancers.

  Still, not all of the news from the new report (More)
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• Pap Tests Often Given When Not Needed

  

  Posted 10:44 PM 1/3/2013

  Dec. 3, 2012 -- Against clinical guidelines, many women are still getting Pap smears (a test that's meant to find cancer of the cervix) even after they've had a total (More)
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• Coffee May Lower Risk of Dying From Oral Cancers

  

  Posted 5:51 PM 12/12/2012

  Dec. 12, 2012 -- Heavy coffee drinkers -- those who drink more than four cups a day -- may cut their risk of dying from cancers of the mouth and throat by nearly half, according to new research.

  "We examined coffee drinking habits in nearly 1 million men and women," says Janet Hildebrand, MPH, an epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society.

  "Those who reported drinking at least four cups per day of caffeinated coffee incurred about half the risk (More)
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• Existing Breast Cancer Drugs May Help More Women

  

  Posted 10:40 PM 12/7/2012

  Dec. 7, 2012 (San Antonio) -- Current screening tests may miss as many as 1 in 50 women with breast cancer who would benefit from treatment with highly effective breast cancer drugs.

  At issue is HER2-positive breast cancer, an aggressive form of the disease that was difficult to treat until the FDA (More)
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