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Patients with locally advanced adenocarcinoma of the esophagogastric junction have a better prognosis if their cancer shows an early metabolic response to preoperative chemotherapy, as detected by positron emission tomography, new data show.

Surgeons make different choices in how they excise abnormal cells that are an early precursor to a breast cancer called ductal carcinoma, or DCIS. And surgeons make a wide range of recommendations on whether a woman diagnosed with DCIS should receive radiation therapy after surgery.

Those physician differences, says an article published on Monday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, play a pretty significant role in predicting whether a woman who has been treated for DCIS will have a recurrence of the condition or a later diagnosis of invasive breast cancer. A group of researchers from the Rand Corp. concluded that variations in the way surgeons treat DCIS account for as many as one in three recurrences over five years and three in 10 over 10 years. That was the case even after the researchers took account of factors that are already known to make a difference in a woman's risk of recurrence, such as a family history of breast cancer, diagnosis at a young age, and the presence of cells known for their aggressive ways.

Phys Ed: Lifting Weights After Breast Cancer
From The New York Times

Last year, an influential study examined whether breast cancer survivors with lymphedema could safely lift weights. Lymphedema, a painful and even disabling swelling of the arm, is a dreaded complication of breast-cancer surgery, especially if a woman had lymph nodes removed. Experts long thought that hefting weight of almost any kind would contribute to lymphedema in breast-cancer survivors and advised them to avoid picking up or carrying heavy purses, grocery bags, suitcases or their own children and to steer away, by all means, from formal weight training.

But in last year's study, breast-cancer survivors with a history of lymphedema who completed a slow, progressive program of weight training suffered fewer subsequent flare-ups of the condition than women who didn't train, suggesting that weight lifting might actually combat lymphedema, not cause it.

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An interesting article was recently presented at a national research meeting confirming what we at FROG have suspected for years--that using custom-fitted radiation fields via a technique called IMRT (Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy), crafted around information gleaned from PET/CT scans, can help us custom-tailor a radiation treatment program for patients diagnosed with anal canal cancer in such a way as to minimize irritation to surrounding tissues. This in turn allows them to tolerate the treatment much more comfortably. FROG physicians have been using PET/CT planning with IMRT field creation for over 10 years now, with excellent results.

Below is the mentioned article from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute...

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 1 (HealthDay News) -- The risk of developing cancer as a result of radiation exposure from CT scans may be lower than previously thought, new research suggests.

That finding, scheduled to be presented Wednesday at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago, is based on an eight-year analysis of Medicare records covering nearly 11 million patients.

"What we found is that overall between two and four out of every 10,000 patients who undergo a CT scan are at risk for developing secondary cancers as a result of that radiation exposure," said Aabed Meer, an M.D. candidate in the department of radiology at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.

Published in the Palatka Daily News

INTERLACHEN - Nancy Driskell's number is 15.

It's not the number of grandchildren the 71-year-old mother of three has, nor is it the number of years she has lived in the Interlachen community. Instead, the number stands for the years Driskell has been a breast cancer survivor.

"I'm very thankful it was detected early," Driskell said in a recent interview. "It was one centimeter cancer; very small. They took out some lymph nodes and I had a lumpectomy." Driskell's diagnosis was in June 1995 after she had applied to be a part of a women's health initiative through Shands Hospital in Gainesville and one of the first requirements was that she have a mammogram.