Getting to the Root of the Beast
Isn’t it time already for a consensus on some long debated procedures?
Mammograms made the news again this week. The latest opinion…YES…regular mammography is the way to go. But wait six months, and another group study will suggest something different, or at least that’s the way it seems.
Medical oncologists seem to always agree on colonoscopy as a way to get the jump on possible colon cancer.
It’s hard to point to many ways to ‘prevent’ cancer. That’s going to be one of the big themes in cancer world in the future. Actually, I guess the future is now, because researchers are working on many vaccines in the lab right now.
The big breakthrough in cancer findings is the genetic connection to the disease. Just this month in “The Journal of the American Medical Association,” a new study suggests that doctors and their patients regularly talk about and update the patient’s family history of cancer. That includes breast cancer. That way doctor’s can determine cancer risk and when patients should see a genetic specialist to evaluate their cancer risk.
It’s all great advice. What it says, is that these folks in the lab are beginning to tear off the undercover of this beast to find out where it’s roots are…..The family tree is telling us more than where Aunt Martha and Uncle Bill came from…
Cancer’s beginnings can’t hide forever.
July 25, 2011 @ 6:15 pm
There is a short article in this month’s Oprah magazine and essentially a woman has a recurring dream that ultimately causes her to seek more medical advice after she initially was told that nothing was wrong. She had a mass in her colon and the operation was a success. If only everyone could get that signal in time, just by dreaming.
July 23, 2011 @ 6:53 pm
Genes and what we, the patient and the doctor, should do about them if we have those that indicate the potential for cancer. I’m all for these attempts to identify the genes that are the potential culprits. The next question is…what to do about the genes if you have them? Can the scientists say for certain that if you have the gene for a specific cancer that you will for certain get that cancer…..maybe so, maybe no? I doubt that there will be any specificity associated with a gene’s identification….the cookbook…step one, step two ,etc. Or is the best we can hope for that once a gene is identified in us that predisposes us to this type of cancer….just be alert for its signs or symptoms!!!
Sadly for a lot of us, there are just mixed signals coming from the oncologists and the cancer world. Get a mammo; don’t get a mammo; get a scan; no wait until you have symptoms, etc. The Hippocratic Oath should be ammended..”First do no harm and then don’t be wishy washy about the guiding principles in fighting cancer”. Patients rely upon, perhaps sometimes misplaced, the training and wisdom of their oncologist to guide them not to confuse them or send mixed signals.