Dr. Len's Cancer Blog

A consensus statement issued today on the topic of ovarian cancer symptoms has garnered a good deal of media attention.

The statement, developed by the American Cancer Society, the Gynecologic Cancer Foundation and the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists makes the point that women who have bloating, pelvic or abdominal pain, difficulty eating or feeling full quickly, or urinary symptoms including urgency or frequency should see their doctor (preferably a gynecologist) if the symptoms are new and persistent.

This is a step in the right direction, but we have much further to go if we are to make a significant impact in reducing suffering and death from this disease.

If you had any doubts that health insurance makes a difference when it comes to survival from cancer, then articles released today in the medical journal Cancer should erase the question from your mind.

In two research papers and an editorial, investigators from the American Cancer Society and the Society’s President make it very clear that if you don’t have adequate insurance, the odds are considerable that as far as breast and head and neck cancer are concerned, you are more likely to be diagnosed with your cancer at a later stage when treatment options are either more limited or more toxic, and the odds for survival are substantially less.

With more than 46 million Americans uninsured, these reports are certain to add fuel to the growing debate over the state of our health care system in the United States now and in the future.

A report in the current issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition is certain to raise once again the role of vitamin D in preventing cancer.

The researchers, from the Osteoporosis Research Center at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska did a study primarily designed to study the effects of calcium and vitamin D on osteoporosis.

However, when they decided to look at the same study group to determine whether calcium with or without additional vitamin D supplementation had an impact on the incidence of cancer, they found a stunning 78% decrease in the risk of developing cancer in those women who took both calcium and 1000 units of vitamin D3 daily for four years.

I did something the other day that has bothered me for the past 72 hours: I decided not to publish a comment in my blog because of fear of retribution or possibly retaliation.

Today, I decided to correct that decision and discuss my concerns.

Although it may not be a momentous piece of information, it nonetheless made me think long and hard about why I made the decision I did at that time, and what the implications were for providing information to the public about current controversies in oncology.

A presentation this afternoon at ASCO’s annual meeting this afternoon in Chicago  is going to discuss the effectiveness of an oral targeted therapeutic drug called sorafenib (Nexavar) in the treatment of primary liver cancer.

The report is important because up until now there have been no really effective chemotherapeutic agents to treat this form of cancer.  In addition, this treatment is given by mouth, and the side effects were relatively modest.  In fact, the same level of side effects occurred both in the patients who took the drug, and those who took a placebo.

We are now into the third day of the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology here in Chicago.

Trying to determine what research and which issues are going to become most relevant to cancer treatment are becoming a bit clearer.  There is even a little bit of controversy to go along with the scientific presentations.

The annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology has always been one of my favorite medical meetings.

I have been attending this yearly gathering since the early 1970s.  The current meeting underway in Chicago shows how much the practice of oncology has changed, and reflects many of the broader social and demographic changes in our medical universe over the past 35 years.

It has been a very hectic number of weeks of travel, meetings and lectures. .  Cramped spaces on airplane flights haven’t helped matters either. All contribute to the fact that I have not been able to update my blog for a while.

As I write this I am en route to the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago. 

Right now, however, I am reflecting on something unusual that has happened during these past weeks as I traveled around the country.  And that is the number of volunteers who have stopped me to say hello and let me know about their personal relationships with the American Cancer Society.