Articles

Results from a large 6-year study of individuals at high risk for basal cell carcinoma (BCC) support the developing belief that BCC is a chronic disease that often repeatedly affects older people. According to researchers, major predictors of BCC include high sun exposure before the age of 30 along with a history of eczema. Study findings were published online July 19 in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.

A recent study of adults aged 50 to 85 years showed that a majority of these patients facing a chronic condition do not embrace healthier behaviors. In fact, only 19% of study participants diagnosed with lung disease quit smoking within 2 years. Study findings are presented in the Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences.

A University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) analysis suggests that early detection and the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test can prevent up to 17,000 cases of metastatic prostate cancer per year. In fact, projecting incidence rates from age-specific pre-PSA era to the present day would result in tripling the number of men whose cancer had already spread at diagnosis.

Job-related burnout among nurses is linked to greater healthcare-associated infection rates (HAIs) and cost hospitals millions of dollars annually, according to a study published in the American Journal of Infection Control.

Afinitor (everolimus) was recently approved by the FDA for use in combination with Aromasin (exemestane). The drug combination is intended to treat some postmenopausal women with advanced hormone-receptor positive, HER2-negative breast cancer who experience cancer recurrence or progression following treatment with Femara (letrozole) or Arimidex (anastrozole).

A woman’s breast cancer risk more than doubles as a result of delivering a high-birth-weight infant, according to research published recently in PLoS ONE. Researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston suggest that a large infant is linked to a hormonal environment during pregnancy that promotes future breast cancer development and progression in the mother.

The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2012, 12,170 women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer and 4220 will die of the disease. With cervical cancer, prognosis is strongly related to disease stage: the 5-year relative survival rate is only 57.8% for patients with regional disease and 17.0% for those with distant disease. Now researchers say one of the strongest predictors of a late-stage cervical cancer diagnosis is lack of insurance, which is second only to age as a factor. Study authors believe the results are likely related to lack of screening.

Current guidelines recommend screening for depression in cancer patients; however, it has been uncertain whether interventions are effective. Now, a recent study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute supports interventions designed to treat depression in patients with cancer. Researchers from the University of Colorado Cancer Center and other institutions performed a meta-analysis of 10 studies encompassing 1362 patients and determined that cognitive behavioral therapy and pharmacologic interventions decrease depressive symptoms in cancer patients.

The novel agent MDV3100 prolonged survival in men with castration- resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) who progressed on treatment with docetaxel, according to results of the large phase 3 AFFIRM trial reported at the 2012 American Society of Clinical Oncology Genitourinary Cancers Symposium held in San Francisco, California.

In the June issue, we published an article, “Let the Truth Be Told About Pain!” A patient currently receiving treatment for cancer told us how a nurse’s straightforward response helped her deal with her anxiety about pain. We asked our online reading community if their patients talked about pain. Clearly, this is an important issue for nurses, as we received more responses for this question than we have for any other question.