Hot MedFax

It's a sad fact, but true.  Black women are far more likely to die of breast cancer than white women. It's mainly because the cancer is often more advanced when it's found in black women, partly because white women are more likely to have regular check-ups and mammograms. I remember when I was having radiation for cancer and running into a beautiful young black woman who could not have been more than 20, there for the same reason as I. Now a new study has found that black women tend to present with more aggressive forms of cancer, too, or as the study put it, "biologically less favorable subtypes of breast cancer."  “It’s important that research continues to address these issues comprehensively, from the biology of the disease to the development of optimal treatment and access to healthcare," the Web site quotes Raquel Nunes, MD, a medical oncologist at the Washington Cancer Institute, who presented the study. “This work is particularly meaningful...

Not sure I agree with t his but a new study has found that women who get false positives on mammograms only suffer for a short time.  It doesn't affect their overall well-being. As someone who (twice) received positive positives, I suppose I can't really comment on this.  But I can't believe that some women aren't, if not, scarred for life, at least thinking about life a little differently after that.   According to newswise.com, " Dartmouth researchers have found that the anxiety experienced with a false-positive mammogram is temporary and does not negatively impact a woman’s overall well-being." The Web site goes on to note that a nywhere from 40 to 60 percent of women who undergo routine screening mammography during a ten-year period will experience a false-positive mammogram (guess I beat the stats!).  Such mammograms require additional testing, sometimes involving a biopsy, to confirm that cancer is not present. Researchers have suspected that in...

I am that woman. A suspect mammogram led to a biopsy nine years ago, then a lumpectomy, a cancer diagnosis, radiation and hormone therapy. Turned out the cancer was really pre-cancer, ductal carcinoma in-situ (DCIS), which, today, is starting to be treated very differently.  But my cancer – or precancer, as it’s now being called – was high-grade, which means my cells spent a distressing week and a half in the pathology lab where medical professionals carefully and deliberately weighed and studied and pored over them to make absolutely certain mine wasn’t, in the end, a form of invasive cancer. Fortunately, for me, they turned out to be right, but when the disease returned again two years later, even though this time the abnormal cells were low-grade (and most likely never progress to anything that would kill me), it was treated as though it were invasive cancer and I underwent the surgery that all women dread. Imagine my surprise, last year, when doctors came out o...

They're things we do to ourselves voluntarily, and they hurt .  According to abcnews.com, there are a lot of things we do to our bodies that hurt more than getting our breasts squashed between two plates. For one, there's botox.  We love what it does to our wrinkles (maybe not so much our smile or frown), but when doesn't it hurt to have a needle stuck in our face? Second is a bikini wax.  And here I absolutely agree  No more needs to be said! Third is lip wax and eyebrow threading.  Never had either but seven out of 10 women say they hurt more than mammograms, abcnews.com reports. Fourth is high heels , and yes, they do slim and lengthen our legs, but they can do permanent damage to our feet, like corns, cracked heels and bunions.  Not to mention how they make our feet look , after years of wearing them.  I must admit, the new four-inch heels make me cringe a little, when I think of sliding them on my feet. And I'll give you a fifth th...