Women are women and men are men – for the most part. Ovaries and testes can be removed, and hormones blocked or supplemented but it doesn’t change the genetic makeup of our cells. Well not yet at least. So, people born with an XY chromosome have different potentials and responses to disease and treatments than […]
Category: Cancer
Should women use reproductive hormones? There is growing evidence of higher risk, yet little research is happening to study alternatives to oral contraception or HRT (hormone replacement therapy). Why aren’t researchers and clinicians talking about the risks of continuous use of reproductive hormones by women throughout their life cycle? More than a decade ago, a […]
Despite the best research into cancer, it still remains a generic term describing out-of-control cells, which all look different, from site to site. The diversity of cancer, still perplexes researchers and there are many unanswered questions about how cancer invades bodies, which drugs work and why cures remain elusive. The researchers who are studying A […]
Reaction to my last post revealed that few are ready to let health die with dignity and rest in peace. Fair enough. But despite impassioned attachment it’s not apparent why health, in its dying throes, must attain a semi-hubristic status; or why the jettisoning of health is so threatening to humans; or why we no […]
Determining value in contemporary healthcare has always been a matrix of competing and synergistic forces primarily driven by clinical parameters, costs and patients…until recently. Earlier this year The American Society of Clinical Oncology attempted to unpack and quantify the matrix through the identification of five categories: Clinical benefit (as determined by survival), Toxicity, Palliation (a […]
The noun invasion has its origins in the 12th century Latin word invadere: to walk, to go into, to fall upon. In the 15th century we adopted the Old French term invasion, which is steeped in negative concepts like attack and assault. This definition, ubiquitous across healthcare, remains in use today. It stands to reason […]
In 1898 Würzburg medical student Hermann Rottmann proposed tobacco dust, not smoke, might be causing the elevated incidence of lung tumors among German tobacco workers. In 1912 New York doctor Isaac Adler proposed smoking, not tobacco dust, was to blame for the growing incidence of pulmonary tumours. The intervening years reveal a rocky road on […]
According to WHO the likelihood of death from a non-communicable disease is much greater than dying from cancer. In Italy, more than a quarter of people living with a cancer diagnosis have similar death rates to the general population. Moreover, nearly three quarters will not die as a result of their cancer. And, as with […]
As Daffodil Day approaches our airwaves fill with the usual topics: finding a consistent cause that can be eradicated; identifying a credible carcinogen that can be prevented, or just nailing a cure. But despite the best research into cancer, which is just a generic term describing out-of-control cells in multiple locations, control of the disease remains […]
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