Who gets heart cancer?
Over the last quarter of a century, I’ve written about a lot of different aspects of science and medical research. Cancer features a lot, the Big C is prominent in human misery and more common than many other diseases. Often I’ll use a phrase such as “treating liver, bowel, lung, breast, prostate and other cancers”. One phrase I don’t think I’ve ever written, until today is “heart cancer”.
Heart cancer? Do people even get heart cancer? Almost every other organ from skin to brain from gonads to liver, from head and neck to bone and blood, there’s a cancer. Experts repe...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - September 2, 2016 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Science Source Type: blogs
Clinical Updates, Tips on Business and Billing, Draw Attendees to ASHA Connect
Editor’s note: This is the first of two posts from the ongoing ASHA Connect Conference in Minneapolis. This post focuses on the health care side of the conference. The second, to come on Monday, will focus on the schools side.
For speech-language pathologists in private practice and health care, attending ASHA Connect is a slam-dunk: The sessions give them hands-on information they can use right away. The sessions—smaller and more in-depth than those at the ASHA Annual Convention held in November—offer specific clinical strategies and business tips, attendees say.
This is the first year for ASHA Connect, which began...
Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Press Releases - July 8, 2016 Category: Speech Therapy Authors: Carol Polovoy Tags: Events Speech-Language Pathology Uncategorized Health Care Source Type: blogs
Tell Me a Real Story
by Staci Mandrola Charlotte is three and a half years old. She loves stories. I tell real stories. John tells made up stories. The first words we hear when Charlotte walks in the house are “Tell me a story, PaPa!” Stories put me on a path more than 40 years ago. The path to being a doctor and then a hospice and palliative medicine doctor. I listened to my grandmother tell stories about her physician father leaving the house to check on a woman in labor or a dying patient. He might not return for days. His payment ranged from a chicken to a milk cow to a beat up John Deere. I listened to my dermatologist father tell the...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - May 10, 2016 Category: Palliative Care Tags: mandrola narrative physician The profession Source Type: blogs
As If We Don’t Have Enough to Think About
My work recently took me to the Multidisciplinary Symposium on Head and Neck Cancer. Among the proceedings was a discussion of the epidemiology of oropharyngeal cancer—cancer of the throat. Historically, this tumor typically occurred in people with long histories of smoking and drinking. Treatment brings the prospect of disfiguring surgery, although the surgeons do great work these days, and/or a 6-7 week slog of radiation... // Read More » (Source: blog.bioethics.net)
Source: blog.bioethics.net - March 25, 2016 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Jon Holmlund Tags: Health Care bioethics Health Care Practice syndicated Source Type: blogs
Brother, Can You Spare A Dime ($0.10 CAD) For A PET?
The Canadian healthcare system has been touted as the most wonderful thing since sliced bread, the epitome of the Single-Payer model, the Way It Should Be Done, the ultimate, logical manifestation of where we are headed. The Affordable Obama Care Act is, of course, just a brief bus-stop on the highway to Canada.But wait just a moment, eh? All is not perfect in the land of the frozen. How many Americans (or Saudis or potentates of various small nations) go to Canada for esoteric, life-saving surgery? Conversely, how many Canadians cross the border (no wall as yet) for their care? (Answer: Depending on the source and th...
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - February 20, 2016 Category: Radiology Source Type: blogs
ENT Surgical Team Annual Volunteer Trip
Annual Volunteer Trip Takes UM Surgical Team to Fiji to Treat Patients with Head and Neck Conditions
Update (2/21/16): This past weekend, Fiji was devastated by Cyclone Winston. All 12 members of the UM surgical team are OK and awaiting the international flight home.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Fiji as they struggle to rebuild, and we pray for the families who lost loved ones and whose homes were destroyed.
We are exceptionally proud of the courage and dedication of our mission team. They saw over 100 patients over the course of their stay and completed a large number of surgeries. The actions of t...
Source: Life in a Medical Center - January 12, 2016 Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: Chris Lindsley Tags: Doctors surgery ENT Fiji Jeffrey Wolf medical mission Natuvu Creek Rodney Taylor Vanua Levu Source Type: blogs
Are genomic tests ready for prime time?
Genomics and its impact on clinical medicine appear to be the topics du jour. The science is rapidly advancing, but our ability to understand and apply that science may not be keeping pace. The question is whether expectations will meet the promise, and are we wise enough to navigate the maelstrom and bring true benefit to our patients and consumers in general?
Three recent research reports highlight how fast some of this discovery is moving. Two reports focused on the use of cell-free DNA fragments extracted from the blood and saliva to identify cancer-related markers in patients with pancreatic and head and neck cance...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - August 21, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: J. Leonard Lichtenfeld, MD Tags: Conditions Genetics Source Type: blogs
More Salivary Gland Engineering
Here is recent news of another team working to engineer salivary gland tissue, one of many parts of the body typically given little thought until it stops working. This team doesn't seem to be as close to a functional end result as the Japanese group I pointed out last month, but a diversity of approaches is always a good sign:
Saliva is critical to good health. It helps with speaking, swallowing, washing food off teeth, initial food digestion and preventing oral infections. Insufficient saliva can cause chronic bad breath, cavities, gum disease, as well as systemic infections. There is no treatment for low-producing or n...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 28, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
When doctors betray their profession
And now for something completely different…but depressingly the same in some ways. Longtime readers—and I do mean longtime—might remember from several years ago a certain case adjudicated before the Vaccine Court. I’m referring, of course, to the Autism Omnibus. In Autism Omnibus, some 4,800 claimants were bringing action seeking compensation for “vaccine injury” characterized by… (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - July 21, 2015 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Politics expert witness head and neck Kim R. Jones lawsuits Merrill A. Biel otolaryngology Robert K. Jackler shills tobacco Willard E. Fee Source Type: blogs
The ability to diagnose cancer is a necessary evil
I am in my twenties.
I am a student in dental school. My seven classmates and I have gathered, notebooks and pens in hand, for the first day of our ten-day rotation at the Veteran’s Hospital oncology department.
Dr. Steele, a published expert in oral cancer, instructs us to follow him to the outpatient clinic. Some of those he’ll examine are initial consultations; others are follow-up exams. All are U.S. veterans. Many are homeless alcoholics, whose lifestyle, we’re told, predisposes them to oral cancers.
“I want each of you to take a look at this lesion on the right lateral border ventral side of t...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - July 8, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Dominic Donato, DDS Tags: Conditions Cancer Source Type: blogs
The fascinating journey of new immunotherapy drugs to treat cancer
Question: What do all these cancers have in common: melanoma, lung, kidney, bladder, ovarian, head and neck, Hodgkin lymphoma, stomach, breast (and others)?
Answer: They have all shown evidence of meaningful, durable responses when treated with one or more of the new immunotherapy drugs. And that is truly amazing, not to mention very unexpected, even by the experts who know this stuff.
That’s the message that is coming out of the 2015 annual scientific meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, where thousands of doctors, researchers and others from around the world make the annual trek to Chicago to shar...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - June 16, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: J. Leonard Lichtenfeld, MD Tags: Conditions Cancer Source Type: blogs
Designer viruses for killing tumor cells
A major goal of viral oncotherapy – the use of viruses to destroy tumors – is to design viruses that kill tumor cells but not normal cells. Two adenoviruses provide perfect examples of how this specificity can be achieved.
Adenovirus CG0070, designed to treat bladder cancer, and adenovirus Oncorine, for head and neck tumors, replicate only in tumor cells. The selectivity is caused by mutations introduced into the viral genomes.
When adenovirus infects a cell, the first event is synthesis of mRNA that encodes the E1 proteins. These proteins are needed to start cellular DNA synthesis. Most cells in our bodies ...
Source: virology blog - May 8, 2015 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology Information adenovirus E1 region E1A E1b-55k GC0070 oncolysis Oncorine oncotherapy p53 Rb retinoblastoma viral Source Type: blogs
Cancer Treatment Is Over!
I got to ring the brass bell in the lobby of the radiation center last Wednesday. I rang three times as is the custom. Except for that celebratory ritual, the day was a bit anti-climatic. This whole cancer episode has … Continue reading → (Source: Being Cancer Network)
Source: Being Cancer Network - June 10, 2014 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Dennis Pyritz Tags: Journal * Living with Cancer Biotherapy Head and neck cancer Leukemia Radiation Recurrence Side effects Survivorship Source Type: blogs
Radiation Therapy
Yesterday I had my 15th radiation treatment. I am halfway through, definitely the easier half. I confess I am writing this under duress. I have just spent the last hour typing out a clear, seamless narrative of my recent experience … Continue reading → (Source: Being Cancer Network)
Source: Being Cancer Network - May 14, 2014 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Dennis Pyritz Tags: Journal * Living with Cancer Newly diagnosed CT scan Head and neck cancer Radiation Side effects Source Type: blogs
Cancer Pathology Results
There are always two ways of looking at things. Sure I have a new cancer, my third actually, and given my medical history and the state of my immune system, perhaps not the last. After all there was a time … Continue reading → (Source: Being Cancer Network)
Source: Being Cancer Network - April 15, 2014 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Dennis Pyritz Tags: Journal * Living with Cancer Newly diagnosed Rare cancers Head and neck cancer Radiation Sarcoma Surgery Source Type: blogs
