Cancer Patients

A cussing cockatoo has landed a Rhode Island woman in court for allegedly teaching the bird to curse up a storm at her next-door neighbors, who just happen to be her ex-husband and his new girlfriend. The Providence Journal brings us the story that has been squawking up amusement across the Internet today. The Rhode Island newspaper reports that Lynne Taylor, of Warwick, R.I., has allegedly trained her pet cockatoo, Willy, to curse at her next-door neighbors. The Associated Press says the next-door neighbors are Kathleen Melker and Craig Fontaine -- who is Taylor's ex-husband.

Kellie Pickler shaved her head this week in a sign of solidarity with a close childhood friend facing cancer, and to raise awareness about early prevention of the disease. But the country singer might not know how many other cancer patients were moved by her gesture. Cancer patients endure a particular kind of hell when they lose their hair, said Nancy Lumb of Chevy Chase, Md. For many -- especially women -- it's the single hardest part of their battle. Lumb should know. She never cried when she was diagnosed with breast cancer four years ago. She stayed strong when she had to tell her husband, her friends and her family about the diagnosis.

Lance Armstrong decided to rest Sunday, a day after taking second place in a 36-mile mountain bike race and two days removed from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency levying a lifetime ban and stripping the seven-time Tour de France winner of his titles. Armstrong, who announced Thursday that he would no longer fight the doping allegations despite arbitration remaining as an option, was supposed to follow the Power of Four mountain bike race in Aspen, Colo., with an off-road marathon Sunday morning.

The Berlin Patient, the only person considered cured of HIV, may soon have some company. Researchers at the International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C., made presentations Thursday on two HIV-positive men from Boston who developed lymphoma. In both cases, their treatment included a bone marrow transplant, which results in a new immune system. The bone marrow donors did not have HIV. The patients were conditioned for their transplants with a reduced-intensity protocol that allowed them to maintain enough strength to continue taking antiretroviral drugs to keep their HIV in check.

Pancreatic cancer, the most aggressive type of cancer, has claimed the life of astronaut Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. Ride died Monday at age of 61 after a 17-month-long battle against the disease. Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths for people in the United States. It has the lowest survival rate of any type of cancer - according to the American Cancer Society, the one-year survival rate is 20% for all stages of pancreatic cancer combined.

Noting that “children are not just small adults,” researchers at the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and the Washington University have released the complete genomes of 260 St. Jude pediatric cancer patients - as well as the genomes of their tumors - for scientific study. In a statement released Tuesday, the researchers said that the data “more than doubles the volume of … whole genome data from all human genome sources combined.” The hope for this and other cancer genomics projects like the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Genome Atlas is to identify the mutations in genes that cause cancer - and, if possible, figure out how to find exactly the right intervention for a patient's specific tumor.

Barbara Britt has a song in her head, a campfire tune that she learned years ago. I'm a little piece of tin. Its silliness, she knew, would keep her upbeat for the appointment she had with James Lee, the 12-year-old with a tumor in his brain stem. Nobody knows where I have been. James was one of nearly a dozen patients scheduled for today's clinic, and Britt, a nurse care manager at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, has found that songs keep her from becoming overwhelmed by the lives of her patients and their families.

Cancer can kill long before malignant tumors take their toll, new research shows. A study involving more than 6 million Swedes reveals that the risk of suicide and cardiovascular death increases immediately after a cancer diagnosis. Within the first week of being told they had cancer, patients were 12.6 times more likely to commit suicide than people of similar backgrounds who were cancer-free. The newly diagnosed patients were also 5.6 times more likely to die from a heart attack or other cardiovascular complication in those first seven days, according to a study published in Thursday's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

A medication for people with advanced colorectal cancer who have exhausted all other treatment options appears to slow tumor growth and extend life, according to new data. Bayer HealthCare, the makers of regorafenib, said it would seek Food and Drug Administration approval of the medication this year. If approved, regorafenib would be the first new treatment for colorectal cancer in more than five years. Although chemotherapy and other medications can extend life in people with metastatic cancer (cancer that has spread throughout the body)

Doctors and patients eager for better ways to treat advanced ovarian cancer were encouraged by two new studies showing that adding Avastin to traditional chemotherapy drugs allowed women with the disease to live a few months before their cancer returned or worsened. The two large , international studies credited Avastin with providing an additional 3.8 months and 3.6 months of “progression-free survival.” (The reports in Thursday's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine weren't able to say whether the women who took Avastin lived longer overall.)