Cancer-related fatigue was reduced for patients taking high doses of pure American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) over the course of 2 months, a Mayo Clinic–led study found.
Researchers studied 340 patients who had completed cancer treatment or were being treated for cancer at 1 of 40 community medical centers. Of the patients studied, 60% had breast cancer. Participants received either a placebo or capsules containing 2000 mg of pure, ground American ginseng root daily.
In a recent study, the antidepressant drug duloxetine (Cymbalta) helped ease pain from chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy in 59% of patients. For about 30% of patients, this tingling feeling is more than uncomfortable; it’s a painful sensation. This is the first clinical trial to find an effective therapy for this pain.
Early-stage prostate cancer treatment can also produce quality-of-life improvements for a subgroup of men who suffer from lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), according to a Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center–led study. LUTS, which includes problems of recurrent or urgent urination, is a common problem that affects approximately 40% of men.
As new biomarkers are identified to classify disease and customize treatments to individual needs, Supreme Court legal battles are in process to determine whether a private company can own the rights to a particular biomarker.
Recently, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) advised eliminating routine prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening for prostate cancer in healthy men. According to results of a survey by Johns Hopkins researchers, the new recommendations are likely to meet serious resistance from primary care physicians. Study results were published online in the journal Cancer.
After completing treatment, women with breast cancer have considerably impaired cardiopulmonary function that can endure for years, according to a study led by scientists at Duke University Medical Center. Study findings also provide initial indication that poor cardiopulmonary function may be a viable predictor of survival among women with advanced breast cancer. The results were reported online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Overweight and obese postmenopausal women are a group at elevated risk for breast cancer. Now, researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center report that even a moderate amount of weight loss can significantly reduce levels of circulating estrogens that are associated with an increased risk of breast cancer.
The findings of this first randomized, controlled clinical trial on the effects of weight loss on sex hormones in overweight and obese postmenopausal women by Anne McTiernan, MD, PhD, and colleagues are published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Worldwide, there are approximately 500,000 men diagnosed with prostate cancer each year, and in those men prostate cancer is the third most common type of malignancy, surpassed only by cancer of the lung and stomach.1 Other than nonmelanoma skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed male cancer in the United States.2 There is disparity in risk of prostate cancer diagnosis between races. Read More ›
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