It’s like your dentist always says, brush and floss your teeth! Tooth care is not only about a bright smile and reduced cavities. It is also a way to prevent several chronic diseases, including periodontal disease (PD). Research has found associations between periodontal disease and several chronic illnesses. So what is periodontal...
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As she sat on the paper-lined treatment table, surgery staples in a bag beside her, Caroline Wright learned her brain tumor was the deadliest type — a glioblastoma (GBM). [1] The average length of survival for this tumor is 8 months. [2] At the breakfast table one day, Henry, age 5, asked his mom, “Who will take care of me if you die?” image from...
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You’ve just had an x-ray and are discussing the results with your doctor. The air in the office fills with complicated words after you hear “lung cancer” from your physician. You don’t hear anything else. Not hearing or understanding anything else is part of the shock and a normal reaction. But when you can think or when you have...
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“I think sexual health is at the intersection of mind/body & relationship factors. When sexual health is disrupted, it’s really important to figure out all the pieces…often folks only hear bits and pieces like “use lube” or “use it or lose it” & “we need a holistic approach!”[1] Dr. Sharon L. Bober,...
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Immunotherapy – the “new” treatment for cancers – actually began in 1891 with William B. Coley, a bone sarcoma surgeon. As a young doctor, Coley watched as a 17-year old girl (who had had her forearm amputated because of bone cancer) died of metastatic sarcoma ten weeks after her surgery. This tragedy started Coley on a quest to...
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Peggy Zuckerman has been trying to help others diagnosed with cancer but it’s not easy. “One of the hardest things is when patients get information that is old or might be incorrect. Things look far more grim than they need to be. It is important to get people to the right place quickly before they essentially despair.” When people...
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Something unusual happened when Professor Andrew Sewell and the T-Cell Modulation Group at the University of Cardiff put the blood of a healthy donor in a petri dish with some cancer cells. What grew in the blood was a T-cell that no one had seen before. This T-cell attacked the cancer cells and destroyed them. Sewell and his team did what all bench...
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It’s taken five years but the wait has been worth it with results from one of the “Count Me In” Projects showing breakthrough results. Here’s the story. Remember Corrie Painter? In July 2015, Medivizor introduced our readers to Corrie Painter, her work with angiosarcoma and with the Broad Institute. Being a patient herself, Corrie...
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At a press briefing at the International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference in New York, held October 1 just after receiving notification from the Nobel committee, Dr. James Allison said that the prize “should give patients hope because we’ve got things that we know work. If this didn’t work, there would have been no prize.” This “work”...
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“Always trust your gut. Don’t leave your treatment in the hands of someone that you don’t trust or that does not seem like a team player. Yes, they are all smart—even brilliant—but read, read, read, and question them at every corner and challenge the standard of care. Exercise, healthy eating, learning the ropes of insurance, mediation/prayer...
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Dr. Kelly Shanahan attended the University of Virginia Medical School, graduating in 1987. Her residency at Temple University in obstetrics and gynecology ending as a chief resident in 1991. After practicing for a short time in Pennsylvania, she moved to California spring of 1994 “seeking a more ‘laid back life.'” She set up a private...
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Thirty-eight states in the US have passed “Right To Try” laws. These are laws that are created to give terminally ill patients who have run out of options access to experimental drugs that have not completed the FDA approval process. There is an effort underway to pass this type of legislation on a federal level. On February 8, the #LCSM (Lung...
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