By TARA PARKER-POPE, If someone invented a pill to cut a cancer risk in half, would you take it? Who wouldn’t? Apparently the answer is millions of women — people like Cindy Birkhold of Sarasota, Fla. The pill is tamoxifen, and Ms. Birkhold, now 52, was considered an ideal candidate for it: she tested positive…
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN, The American Cancer Society sounded an alarm Friday about a small change in wording in the Senate health care bill that could have big implications for people with cancer and other chronic diseases that require expensive treatment. And the White House quickly said it would help. Language in earlier versions…
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN, The American Cancer Society sounded an alarm Friday about a small change in wording in the Senate health care bill that could have big implications for people with cancer and other chronic diseases that require expensive treatment. And the White House quickly said it would help. Language in earlier versions…
By CARL BIALIK, Critics of new recommendations to scale back breast-cancer screening complain that cold numbers trumped medical judgment. But despite decades of extensive mammography study, those numbers are inexact and don’t point to a clear course of action. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a 16-doctor, federally funded panel, recommended against routine mammograms…
By CARL BIALIK, Critics of new recommendations to scale back breast-cancer screening complain that cold numbers trumped medical judgment. But despite decades of extensive mammography study, those numbers are inexact and don’t point to a clear course of action. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a 16-doctor, federally funded panel, recommended against routine mammograms…
By Jay Miller, Cancer diagnoses and deaths continued to decline in the U.S., according to the latest available data, helped by efforts to reduce risk, provide early detection and develop therapies. The report, from a group of cancer and health organizations including the National Cancer Institute, trumpets the successes of improved screening and comes amid…
By Jay Miller, Cancer diagnoses and deaths continued to decline in the U.S., according to the latest available data, helped by efforts to reduce risk, provide early detection and develop therapies. The report, from a group of cancer and health organizations including the National Cancer Institute, trumpets the successes of improved screening and comes amid…
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, In its first vote on health care overhaul, the Senate Thursday narrowly approved an amendment to safeguard coverage of mammograms and preventive screening tests for women under a revamped system. The 61-39 vote on an amendment by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, would allow the Health and Human…
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, In its first vote on health care overhaul, the Senate Thursday narrowly approved an amendment to safeguard coverage of mammograms and preventive screening tests for women under a revamped system. The 61-39 vote on an amendment by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, would allow the Health and Human…
By John L. Marshall, In my practice as an oncologist specializing in gastrointestinal tract cancers, a recent week was fairly typical. I saw 50 patients, ranging in age from 32 to 87, equally divided between men and women. Though a couple of them have inherited a gene that may have caused their GI cancers, I…
