Category Archives: Cancer

In-flight emergencies: Not as common as you think

Medical emergencies can occur at any time and that means, even while you’re on vacation or flying to your destination. But don’t be alarmed; you may be surprised as to how rare they are. A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine investigated the outcomes of medical emergencies on commercial flights between 2008 and 2010.   They found that for every 1 million passengers, 16 emergencies occurred – in other words, one emergency for every 600 flights.   The most common emergencies included fainting at 37.4 percent, respiratory symptoms at 12.1 percent and nausea or vomiting at 9.5 percent.  Interestingly, cardiovascular events like cardiac arrest, and obstetric or gynecological issues each accounted for less than or equal to 0.5 percent.   The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) mandates that all aircraft carry an emergency medical kit.  These kits are required to have, among other things, aspirin tablets, nitroglycerine tablets, saline solution and epinephrine. These kits are designed to provide flight crew or on-board medical professionals with resources to treat ill passengers, after consulting a ground-based physician in a medical communication center.   According to the report, flights had to be diverted and land at a different destination in only 7.3 percent of the cases.  Often, the reason flights were able to continue to the original destination is because of the training of the flight crew, the supplies in mandatory medical kits and the presence of medical professionals on board.   Oxygen was the most commonly used treatment almost 50 percent of the time, followed by saline solution at 5.2 percent and aspirin at 5 percent. This study does a nice job quantifying the incidence of in-flight medical emergencies and the resulting treatments and providers.   Keep in mind that such medical emergencies are rare, but do occur daily given the vast amount of airline travel across the world.   Rest assured that traveling physicians and other medical professionals are often on board and able to help ill passengers; at minimum, the flight crew will have contact with a physician at an academic medical communication center to remotely aid in treatment.  Dr. David B. Samadi is the Vice Chairman of the Department of Urology and Chief of Robotics and Minimally Invasive Surgery at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. He is a board-certified urologist, specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of urological disease, with a focus on robotic prostate cancer treatments. To learn more please visit his websites RoboticOncology.com and SMART-surgery.com. Find Dr. Samadi on Facebook.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/05/in-flight-emergencies-not-as-common-as-may-think/

SurvivorLink: Online tool helps child cancer survivors maintain healthy lives

Ansley Riedel was just 10 months old when she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) – a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. She immediately began radiation and chemotherapy, undergoing treatment up until she was a little older than 3-and-a-half years old.  Then, after receiving a second bone marrow transplant from her 4-month-old baby brother in July of 1991, Riedel reached the goal that every cancer patient hopes to achieve: Remission. “We celebrate what we call my second birthday,” Riedel told FoxNews.com, regarding the special occasion. Nearly 21 years later, Riedel is doing better than ever – but she hasn’t forgotten her time spent in the hospital so many years ago.  Though she was only a toddler at the time, her bout with cancer ultimately inspired her to become a nurse in order to help others like herself. “I remember a lot of the clinic visits – the routine of going to the clinic, getting labs, some of my hospital stays,” Riedel said. “I remember my nurses a lot, which is why I chose to become a nurse.  They were really like my first group of friends that I got to know really well.” While Riedel was ultimately able to turn her cancer into a source of inspiration, post-cancer life has still had its fair share of difficulties. The radiation treatment Riedel underwent at such a young age has had a lasting impact on her health. Between the ages of 10 and 14, Riedel had to receive daily shots of growth hormone because her development had been stunted by treatment.  She also takes a daily medication for low thyroid function – something her doctors speculate may have been affected by radiation. “There’s a lot of unknown because I was so young,” Riedel said. “I have to be pretty careful with my teeth.  The radiation kind of damaged my permanent teeth, so I’m more susceptible to cavities.  I see more of a specialist for my regular cleanings. My roots were damaged and I couldn’t have braces because of that.” The health setbacks Riedel has had to face are not uncommon for cancer survivors.  While radiation and chemotherapy are meant to kill fast-growing cancer cells, they can also damage healthy cells in the heart, kidneys, lungs and more in the process. “Obvious problems cancer survivors have are endocrine (issues), growth hormone deficiency, low thyroid, problems beginning puberty and fertility,” Dr. Lillian Meacham, a pediatric endocrinologist and director of the Cancer Survivor Program at the Aflac Cancer Center in Atlanta, told FoxNews.com.  “They can have…problems related to scarring of the lungs or damage to the heart muscle.  We have to be vigilant about almost every organ to be sure that we are looking out for these problems, mainly because we want to preserve quality of life and decrease health care costs.” For children diagnosed in the 1960s with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which is the most common form of childhood cancer, the chance of survival was only 10 percent. Fortunately, chances of survival have increased to 80 percent today. Therefore, finding ways to help cancer survivors maintain a healthy lifestyle post-cancer is an ever increasing necessity. To address this need, Meachem and others at the Aflac Cancer Center have created SurvivorLink, an online tool that aims to improve cancer survivors’ quality of life.  According to its website, SurvivorLink hopes to increase awareness about the long-term health needs of child cancer survivors, as well as create a patient portal, which will provide patients with easy access to all their relevant health information. “When kids come to the survivor clinic, we give them a Survivor Health Care Plan – which details what they need throughout their lives to stay healthy,” Meachem said. “They can upload that into this website, so let’s say they move to North Carolina or Montana, they can share their documents to new health care providers.  It’s like having an electronic chart they carry with them at all times.” Riedel is currently in the process of filling out her patient profile on SurvivorLink, and she said she likes how it is specifically tailored to her own personal needs. “One of the good things about SurvivorLink is it’s based on your diagnosis and based on your protocol.  Depending on how much chemo you had, it will tell you specifically that for this one chemo, these are the big side effects and long term things that can result.” As someone who is still actively involved in health care, Riedel is very passionate about increasing knowledge and communication among cancer survivors and their health care providers.  For her, easy access to information is essential for a long and healthy life. “The main message is just to get informed and get help if you need to – but really be an advocate for yourself,” Riedel said. “If you take care of yourself, then other people are going to be more willing to work with you.” Click for more on SurvivorLink.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/05/survivorlink-online-tool-helps-child-cancer-survivors-maintain-healthy-life/

More research needed on anesthesia’s impact on brain, study shows

Surgical anesthesia’s impact on the brain has long been debated, and even anesthesiologists have admitted the effects of these drugs on humans is not clearly understood. “Anesthetics have been somewhat of an enigma; nobody knows how they really work, and we basically use them in thousands of patients every day,” study author Dr. Andreas Loepke, a physician and researcher in the department of anesthesiology at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, told FoxNews.com. Concerns have been raised among anesthesiologists like Loepke over previous research indicating that exposure to anesthesia may increase the rate of cell death in the brains of young animals. And now, a new study in mice published in Annals of Neurology indicates that anesthesia seems to kill off younger neurons more often than older neurons – regardless of the age of the animal.  Researchers have not yet studied the impact of anesthesia on human brain cells. “You can’t section a human brain,” Loepke said. “…But if it were occurring in humans, we would predict that anesthetics affect neurons in patients of all ages.” Loepke and his colleagues examined the rates of cell death in the brains of mice exposed to anesthesia for six hours. They focused particularly on the dentate gyrus region of the brain, which helps control learning and memory. “We found something very interesting, in that cell death occurred in the spot where the dentate gyrus forms new neurons,” Loepke said. The root cause and impact of anesthesia-related cell death is unknown, and the study’s authors said more research needs to be done.   “During development, (we) form twice as many neurons as we need as an adult. The brain needs to be pruned back to properly function,” Loepke said. “So it’s currently unknown whether anesthesia kills neurons that would have been eliminated anyways from the brain or neurons later needed for vital function.”   Loepke added that human studies of older adults have indicated that some people do experience memory problems after undergoing anesthesia, which can be short-term or long-term.  Whether this is caused by anesthesia or by the body’s reaction to pain or surgery remains unclear. “The need for surgery could be a marker for these problems occurring – (or the) inflammatory response to the body from the surgery. These have all been found to alter neurons,” Loepke said. Loepke and his colleagues hope to go on to study the effect of anesthesia in humans using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. But until more research is done, Loepke urged people not to worry too much. “Patients need to make sure they get the surgery they need, because putting off the surgery could put you at more risk (than the anesthesia),” Loepke said.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/05/more-research-needed-on-anesthesias-impact-on-brain-study-shows/

New screening technique paves the way for protein drugs from bacteria

Using the bacterium E. coli, researchers from the University’s Faculty of Engineering showed it was possible to vastly increase the efficiency of the cells producing specifically modified proteins, as well as improve its performance and stability. The modification is present in over two-thirds of human therapeutic drugs on the market and involves the addition of specific sugar groups to the protein backbone, a process termed glycosylation. Drugs based on proteins are increasingly important in modern medicine to tackle health problems including diabetes, cancer and arthritis. …

Metastatic breast cancer study shows success in finding new treatment

The Side-Out Foundation’s pilot study is part of a cutting-edge approach to personalized medicine that looks beyond genomic analysis alone to combine it with what some say is the next frontier in targeted therapy: proteomics. The pilot study is the first of its kind to utilize novel protein activation mapping technology along with the genomic fingerprint of cancer as a way to find the most effective treatment. The trial was announced at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and is expected to expand into phase two this month. Standard chemotherapy had failed the 25 women who participated in the 2.5-year pilot study, says study co-author Emanuel "Chip" Petricoin, co-director of George Mason’s Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine (CAPMM)…

Energy drinks no better than caffeine, study suggests

Despite the “special blend” of ingredients, energy drinks work no better than ordinary caffeine at helping us pay attention, a new study suggests. In the study, researchers examined participants' brain activity while they performed a task designed to require attention. Specifically, the researchers looked at how fast the brain responded to a change in letters appearing on a computer screen. Before the task, participants consumed 8 ounces of either water, water with caffeine, or water containing the energy drink 5-Hour Energy. The caffeinated drinks were adjusted so that they had the same amount of caffeine per pound of participants' body weight, and all drinks were colored blue. During the task, participants who drank the caffeinated drinks had faster brain responses, compared with those who drank plain water. But there was no difference in brain activity between those who consumed caffeinated water, and those who consumed 5-Hour Energy. More from LiveScience “A lot of people take the energy drinks because they think they have that extra boost over caffeine,” said study researcher Chelsea Benham, a student at Centre College in Danville, Ky. But the study shows “there's really no difference,” Benham said. In terms of boosting attention, a cup of coffee “would do you just as well,” if it had the same amount of caffeine as an energy drink, she said. A 2-ounce bottle of 5-Hour Energy contains about 215 milligrams of caffeine, the equivalent of about two cups of coffee. An advantage of 5-Hour Energy is that it contains a concentrated amount of caffeine — people need to consume a larger volume of coffee to get the same amount of caffeine. However, there has been concern over the safety of energy drinks in general because of their ability to deliver high doses of caffeine in such a concentrated form. Last year, the FDA said it had received reports of health problems linked with 5-Hour Energy, including heart attacks and death, although the reports do not prove that the energy drink was the cause of these problems. Some health experts have been concerned about the combination of compounds in energy drinks, and are calling for more research to determine what amount is safe to consume. Energy drinks can contain chemicals such as guarana, taurine, L-carnitine, ginseng and yohimbine. In the new study, researchers also did not find a difference in participants' physical reaction times (on a test that involved clicking a computer mouse when a particular letter appeared on a screen), regardless of whether they consumed a caffeinated or non- caffeinated drink. Benham said this may have been because the test took only 20 minutes. Over a longer period, she said she suspects there would be a difference. The study was presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science in Washington, D.C., on May 26. Benham conducted the work with her adviser, KatieAnn Skogsberg, an assistant professor of psychology and behavioral neuroscience at Centre College. Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/05/energy-drinks-no-better-than-caffeine-study-suggests/

Woman paralyzed after mosquito bite

A British woman was temporarily paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair for four months after being bitten by a mosquito in Australia, the Sun reported. Days after being bitten, Natasha Porter, a 23-year-old from West Sussex, England, was unable to lift her arms. Soon after that, she was paralyzed from the neck down. Initially, doctors suspected Porter was having an allergic reaction. But Porter was eventually diagnosed with a condition called Guillain-Barré syndrome, which doctors believe was triggered by the mosquito bite, according to Nature World News. The syndrome causes the body’s immune system to attack itself. “I was so scared,” Porters said. “I remember feeling guilty, because I knew I was going to have to call my parents. I was thinking, ‘How do I call them up and say I might be dead in a few hours?’” Gradually, Porter began to regain feeling and has now made a full recovery – and plans to continue travelling the world. “I don't want to waste any time anymore, and I hope I have become a better person. I just want to live as much as I can, spend as much time with my friends and family, just enjoying my life,” Porter said. Click for more from The Sun. Click for more from Nature World News.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/05/woman-paralyzed-after-mosquito-bite/

Genomics and particle physics top the scientific charts

Genomics and particle physics - offering different perspectives on the fundamental nature of life and the cosmos - are the two hottest areas of scientific research. Eight of the 21 most closely followed scientists in 2012 studied genes and their functions, while the single most-cited paper last year covered the hunt for the long-sought Higgs boson particle, according to a Thomson Reuters survey on Wednesday. It was the third year in a row in which genomics researchers topped the rankings, in terms of authoring the most highly cited scientific papers, underscoring the central importance of genetics in biological science and medicine. “Genomics is a perennially hot topic as we learn more about how (DNA) sequences play out in the manifestation of disease,” said Christopher King, editor of Thomson Reuters ScienceWatch, which tracks trends in research. The relevance of the work in genomics was evident this week at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) congress in Chicago, where key advances in cancer medicine on display hinged on understanding the genetic basis of tumors. The world's “hottest” researcher, as measured by the number of citations during 2012 for papers published between 2010 and 2012, was Richard Wilson at the Washington University School of Medicine, the survey showed. Wilson's laboratory was the first to sequence the genome of a cancer patient and discover genetic signatures related the development of disease. Formation of the universe Other hot genomics researchers on the list included Eric Lander of the Broad Institute of MIT at Harvard and Kari Stefansson, the founder of Icelandic biotech company Decode Genetics, which was acquired last December by Amgen. Papers related to the search for the Higgs boson accounted for nearly one fifth of the 51 papers published in the 2012 hottest research list. The boson and its linked energy field are viewed by physicists as vital in the formation of the universe and in giving mass to matter. No single scientists working on the Higgs particle, however, were identified in the rankings because of the highly collaborative nature of the particle physics research, with some papers involving upwards of 3,000 authors. Scientists working on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, outside Geneva received an honorable mention as a group. The survey also highlighted the growing importance of Chinese research in a number of fields, with institutions in the country producing four of the 21 hottest researchers, including Jun Wang from the Beijing Genomics Institute. “When you look at the quantity of papers published by various nations, China has sky-rocketed in the last few years,” said King. “That hasn't necessarily been commensurate with impact in the literature, as measured by citations, but this seems to be starting to change.”source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/05/genomics-and-particle-physics-top-scientific-charts/

How to cheer yourself up

Look on the bright side. Keep your chin up. See the glass as half-full. Feel better yet? If these bumper-sticker mantras fail to do the trick, follow the surprising advice from experts who know all about keeping spirits high. Related: 25 Easy Instant Energy Boosters Do the Chicken Dance “Adults sometimes forget what kids intuitively understand: that moving your body helps release negative emotions. I’m a big believer in doing that myself.  “Once, I had a confrontation with one of my band members before a performance. We resolved the argument, but there were residual hard feelings—I still felt upset. And so I changed the set list to begin with a loud song of ours called “We Are the Dinosaurs.” That way, I was able to roar and stomp around on stage and transform my bad mood into something else.  “Try some variation of this yourself the next time you’re down. If you don’t release your emotions, sadness and helplessness will continue to pile on top of each other.” - Laurie Berkner is a best-selling children’s recording artist and a co-creator of “Sing It, Laurie!” an animated musical series for preschoolers on Sprout. She lives in New York City. Related: 10 Tips for Becoming a Morning Person Look Out the Window “When I’m having a trying moment, I walk over to my office window and gaze outside. Maybe I’ll spot a family of quail enjoying the suet cakes I’ve left them. Or a silly vehicle will drive by:  “One day I was ecstatic to see a bright pink kiddie-amusement-park ride breeze past on a huge flatbed trailer. We tend to view our burdens as more intimidating than they actually are. Taking a moment to stop and simply observe the world in all its beauty and strangeness is one of the best ways I know to get perspective.” - Elizabeth Fournier is the owner and operator of Cornerstone Funeral Services, in Boring, Oregon. Related: Are You Tired All the Time?

Komen breast cancer charity cancels walks in 7 US cities

Breast cancer charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which suffered a publicity backlash last year after it sought to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, said on Tuesday it was canceling fundraising walks next year in seven cities where money goals have not been met. The organization, which says it is the largest non-government funder of breast cancer research, said it was cutting three-day walks for 2014 in Phoenix, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Tampa Bay, San Francisco and Washington. The event will continue in seven other places. “The difficult decision to exit these markets was not made lightly, as we know this bold and empowering event has touched the lives of thousands of participants like you,” the Dallas-based group said in a message on its Facebook page. A Komen spokeswoman said in an email that participation in the three-day walks declined by 37 percent in the past four years, without specifying whether that was the number of participants or dollars raised. The group decided to remove the cities from next year's schedule that have not been meeting fundraising goals, the spokeswoman said. It was unclear what the group's fundraising targets were for the walks. Each participant is required to raise a minimum of $2,300 and walks about 60 miles over the three days. The charity sparked an outcry last year when it said it would cut funding to Planned Parenthood, a provider of birth control, abortion and other women's health services. Komen, which supports Planned Parenthood's efforts to provide access to breast-cancer screening, reversed that decision within days and said it would restore the funding. After the controversy, several of the group's leaders stepped down, and the group's founder, Nancy Brinker, stepped down as CEO, though she continued to hold a management role. Brinker founded the organization in 1982, two years after her sister, Susan G. Komen, died of breast cancer. Komen's signature event is the Race for the Cure, which includes 5 kilometers and marathon races as well as the walks. The group says the events involve more than 1.7 million participants each year. Komen will continue to hold walks in Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth, Michigan, Philadelphia, San Diego, Seattle and Minneapolis-St. Paul.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/05/komen-breast-cancer-charity-cancels-walks-in-7-us-cities/