Tag Archives: hispanic

Natural extract shows promise for preventing breast cancer, study suggests

“Doctors, patients and researchers are looking for alternative treatments for triple negative breast cancer, and people are always looking for ways to prevent cancer,” said Patrick Martin, Ph.D., associate professor at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and leader of the study. “How awesome would it be to be able to say: Here, take a daily vitamin tablet from the rose plant to possibly help prevent or treat cancer? It’s a natural product that we found to be effective, with no known side effects.” Triple negative breast cancer draws its name from the fact that the cancer cells in these tumors lack the three growth factor receptors that are normally targeted during breast cancer treatment. …

Certain factors influence whether cancer patients involve family members in treatment decisions

For the study, Gabriella Hobbs, MD, and Nancy Keating, MD, MPH, of Harvard Medical School, and their colleagues surveyed 5284 patients with a new diagnosis of lung or colon cancer, and asked participants how they involved their families in decisions about their care. Only 1.5 percent of patients reported family-controlled decisions. Among the remaining patients, 49.4 percent reported equally sharing decisions with family, 22.1 percent reported some family input, and 28.5 percent reported little or no input from their families. Non-English speaking Asian patients and Spanish-speaking Hispanic patients were more likely to report equally shared decisions with their families than other patients. …

More appropriate use of cardiac stress testing with imaging could reduce health costs, improve patient outcomes

In what is believed to be the first comprehensive examination of trends in cardiac stress testing utilizing imaging, researchers also showed that there are no significant racial or ethnic health disparities in its use. They also made national estimates of the cost of unnecessary cardiac stress testing with imaging and the health burden of this testing, in terms of cancer risk due to radiation exposure. Cardiac stress testing, particularly with imaging, has been the focus of debate about rising health care costs, inappropriate use, and patient safety in the context of radiation exposure…

Minority background, low education, and low income negatively influence HPV vaccine series completion

To better understand why women who initiate HPV vaccination do not complete the series, a team of researchers led by Dr. Abbey Berenson from the University of Texas Medical Branch examined the correlates of vaccine series completion among young women using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a cross-sectional telephone health survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. …

Biomarker linked to aggressive breast cancers, poor outcomes in African-Americans

"Our data indicate that HSET represents a potential new biomarker for poor breast cancer outcome among African-American women with the disease," said Ritu Aneja, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Biology at Georgia State University in Atlanta. "Using this biomarker effectively could give oncologists critical new information and potentially save lives by allowing earlier recognition of more aggressive breast cancers in African-American women, with the subsequent use of more customized treatment regimens to better manage disease." African-American women are often diagnosed with breast cancer at a younger age than non-Hispanic white women and are more likely to have cancers that spread, recur, or result in death. Identification of biomarkers that can help clinicians predict if African-American women will have aggressive cancer is a high priority, according to Aneja. …

Value, limitations of patient assistance programs for women with breast cancer

Most breast cancer patients who had information about patient assistance programs used them to learn more about adjuvant therapy, obtain psychosocial support, and overcome practical/financial obstacles to getting treatment, reported researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Researchers found that, in most cases, patients who were referred to assistance programs did contact organizations running programs, such as Cancer Care Inc., SHARE, and the Mount Sinai Breast Health Resources Program. …