Cancer Patients

AnotherTransportation Security Administration pat-down gone wrong is in the news again. This time the unfortunate pat-downee is Lori Dorn, a New York-based human resources professional who underwent a bilateralmastectomy in April and was traveling throughJohn F.Kennedy International Airport in New York. You can already see where this one is going. According to Dorn's Sept. 30 blog post , aTSA agent wanted to pat down her breast area after seeing something on the body scanner--Dorn said it's probably tissue expanders placed in her chest for reconstruction surgery down the road.

It's Tuesday afternoon, and I'm late for the office, delayed by a hectic morning in the operating room. I discard my scrubs, replace them with office attire, rush down a corridor and deliver the post-op orders from my last case into the hands of an anxiously awaiting recovery room nurse. Then I dart out the door and race to my office building. I open the waiting room door to a standing-room-only crowd that has accumulated due to my tardiness. I apologize, but they do not seem angry; I see only fear.

Dawn broke high in the Colorado Rockies, the enormous blot on the horizon revealing itself slowly, regally against an indigo sky. I dropped my pack on the frozen tundra, overcome by awe and a taut, primal fear. Before me stood cathedral upon cathedral of stone, a mysterious citadel crisscrossed by narrow ledges and vertical walls lashed by fierce winds. This was the sheer eastern face of Longs Peak, a 14,259-foot fortress of rock that had recently killed three climbers and has sent hundreds more scurrying in retreat.

Women who inherit gene mutations that increase their likelihood of getting breast cancer now face an added worry: They may be prone to developing the disease earlier in life than their mothers and aunts did. The discovery, by a team at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, was reported Monday in the journal Cancer. Harmful mutations in the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genes dramatically increase a woman's chance of developing breast and/orovarian cancer, according to this fact sheet from the National Cancer Institute.  About 60% of women with a harmful mutation in BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 will develop breast cancer sometime during their lives.  In the general population, about 12%of women will.  BRCA mutations are responsible for 5% to 10% of breast cancer diagnoses.

Manchester City did the necessary and obvious thing in accepting — or is that forcing? — the resignation Friday of its chief executive Garry Cook, who allegedly sent an email seeming to ridicule a player's mother who has cancer. This may sound like wishful thinking, but the venerable English Premier League football club missed an ideal opportunity to make a point, an out-of-the-box creative statement going beyond the usual safe corporate response. Why couldn't the organization instead announce that Cook was going to be taking his energy, vision and talent to spend this next soccer season, not in the boardroom, but working in the corridors at the Christie?

They're more than man's best friends: They're friends with benefits. Here are a few ways dogs are helping to make our lives healthier, safer and longer. Search and rescue: When disaster strikes, search-and-rescue dogs are never far behind. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, for example, the canine contingent in search-and-rescue efforts at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon numbered more than 350. "A dog needs enough drive to go out on his own and find a person," says long-time dog trainer Pluis Davern.

The longest study yet to examine women who undergo mammography shows that it reduces deaths from breast cancer by at least 30%, a finding that many doctors say may help ease the recent controversy surrounding the procedure. The three-decade study in Sweden showed that one breast cancer death can be prevented for every 414 to 519 women who are screened, a much lower number than the 1,000 to 1,500 that had been projected in previous studies. "What this tells us is that, in the long term, screening for breast cancer is a very good investment," said epidemiologist Robert A. Smith, director of cancer screening at the American Cancer Society and a coauthor of the paper appearing in the journal Radiology.

A supplement promoted for improving sexual dysfunction in women does not do so in cancer patients, but it does improve their quality of life, researchers said Monday. ArginMax for Women is marketed as a sexual enhancement aid, but its benefits for that purpose are not apparent, a team from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., reported at a Chicago meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. ArginMax is made from a patented formula containing a proprietary blend of the amino acid L-arginine, ginseng, gingko and 14 vitamins and minerals noted for boosting energy and circulation and optimizing hormonal balance.

People who have lung cancer are more likely to have antibodies to a high-risk form of human papilloma virus, according to research presented Monday. Certain strains of human papilloma virus -- or HPV -- can cause cervical cancer. Researchers from France ran tests on 1,633 lung cancer patients and 2,729 healthy people and found a low rate of antibodies to high-risk HPV strains in the people without lung cancer -- less than 5% of participants. But the incidence was significantly higher in people with lung cancer, and those rates did not differ based on whether they were current smokers, former smokers or had never smoked.

Patients on higher doses of opioid painkillers are more likely to accidentally overdose than those prescribed lower doses, a new study finds. Those who were prescribed more than 100 milligrams of painkillers a day overdosed more than people limited to 1 to 20 milligrams, researchers at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Ann Arbor, Mich., found. The trend stayed true whether the patient had acute pain, chronic pain, a substance abuse problem or cancer. White, middle-age men were statistically more likely to overdose.