Are some people getting too much treatment for their cancers? The answer, from the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago, is an emphatic yes.
An experimental therapy seems to have eradicated cancer in a patient with metastatic breast cancer who had failed every other treatment. The goal is to reliably repeat that success in more people.
An aggressive type of breast cancer — a HER2-positive tumor — often shrinks with Herceptin treatment, but side effects can be tough. Researchers say a shorter course of the drug may be a good option.
Nearly half a million English women around age 70 did not get notified that they were due for a mammogram because of a "computer algorithm error," the health secretary says.
When many lymph nodes are removed along with a tumor, some patients develop painful and debilitating swelling — lymphedema. More doctors should recognize and help prevent the problem, surgeons say.
The goal is to customize treatments for cancer and other diseases to a patient's own biology. But something as simple as failing to take care of tissue samples en route to the lab can derail that.
The absolute risk is very low. But low-dose formulations of birth control pills and other hormone-releasing contraceptives pose about the same risk to breasts as older formulations, a big study finds.