Fourteen people no longer have stage 2 or 3 rectal cancer because of an experimental use of immunotherapy. Enrolling in a clinical trial has, for the past 25 months and counting, spared them from surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, which are the standard treatments for colorectal cancer. [1] Fourteen people may not sound like many, but it...
Read More
Each year in the United States, approximately 264,000 women and 2,400 men are diagnosed with breast cancer. Of those people, about 30% will go on to develop metastatic breast cancer (cancer that has spread beyond the breast, often to the brain, lungs, bones, or liver). Biopsies of breast cancer tissue determine if the surface of the cancer cells...
Read More
Looking at other animals, reptiles, and insects with suspicion these days? Despite the fact that the actual origins of the COVID-19 virus are still unknown, bats and the endangered pangolin were maligned as possible sources. We do know that the monkeypox virus originated in laboratory monkeys in 1958. To balance the bad publicity, there is also good...
Read More
CAR-T therapy is a relatively new immunotherapy treatment for advanced B-cell lymphomas, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL). It is usually reserved for patients who have had more than one previous line of treatment but relapsed anyway. The standard course of treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is chemotherapy, which cures about 70% of...
Read More
Diabetes is complex. Many factors influence your risk of developing diabetes, including race. The way race is associated with diabetes risk may change the way physicians screen patients for the disease. Size Being overweight has been identified as a factor in diabetes, and may serve as a cue for screening. The United States Preventive Services...
Read More
Do you take a dose of baby aspirin once a day? Are you doing this under doctor’s orders or just because you heard it prevented heart attack or stroke? There is growing evidence against taking a low-dose aspirin daily for preventing cardiovascular events. But many well-intentioned people still take daily aspirin. A 2019 report by Harvard...
Read More
Welcome to April, which is also Stress Awareness Month. For many of us, every month feels like stress awareness month. You don’t need one more article that says “stress is bad,” and that “you should go for a walk.” Or do you? Ask yourself this question: Do you think that stress is just a feeling? Maybe you think stress is...
Read More
The American Diabetes Association (ADA) published another update to its standards. What’s the ADA Diabetes Standards of Care and why is it important? For over 30 years, this living document has been developed by the ADA. It is important because it looks at research conducted over the last year to learn and share what the best quality of care is...
Read More
Science is starting to validate what some COVID-19 survivors have experienced since their diagnosis: Long-haul COVID, also called long term COVID, is real. If you had COVID and still “don’t feel right,” you are not alone. “I’ve been asking my doctors ‘When am I going to feel better?’ since I left the hospital,” said Doug Cleminshaw, a...
Read More
Two of our most popular previous blog posts described free vacation opportunities for adults with cancer. Given the uncertainty of the past two years, we thought it was time for an update. Here is a short list of organizations that have made it their mission to provide needed respite to those affected by cancer. Each has been verified to have...
Read More
You may have heard the word “comorbidity” before, but do you know what it means? Comorbidity refers to the presence of more than one disease or disease process in the human body. Derived from the word “morbid” the term suggests a seriousness that may not always be considered. Yet as the population ages, comorbidities increase. A study...
Read More
March is National Kidney Month. People don’t think about their kidneys until something goes wrong with them. Several Medivizor blog posts have described the structures in the kidney, the connection between kidneys and blood pressure, and kidney stones and the risk of heart attack or stroke. Chronic Kidney Disease is another kidney problem but it is...
Read More
