Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Obesity Poised To Take Spot Of No. 1 Preventable Cause Of Cancer, Kicking Smoking Out Of Top Position
The Washington Post: Obesity Becoming No. 1 Preventable Cancer Cause
Smoking has been the No. 1 preventable cause of cancer for decades and still kills more than 500,000 people a year in the United States. But obesity is poised to take the top spot, as Americans’ waistlines continue to expand while tobacco use plummets. The switch could occur in five or 10 years, said Otis Brawley, a Johns Hopkins oncologist and former chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. The rise in obesity rates could threaten the steady decline in cancer death rates since the early 1990s, he said. (McGinley, 4/14)
The Washington Post: Multiple Primary Cancers Can Afflict One Patient
Noelle Johnson, 42, was diagnosed with her first cancer — a soft tissue sarcoma under her right arm — in 1999 when she was 21. In 2013, her physicians found six different cancers in her breasts. In the years that followed, surgeons discovered and removed numerous masses they deemed “premalignant” from her ovary, her uterus, her leg, arm and chest wall, aiming to get them out before they turned cancerous. Each tumor was distinct, that is, none resulted from the spread of any of the others. For Johnson, having multiple primary tumors diagnosed at an unusually young age was both scary and baffling. “It was crazy,” recalls Johnson, who lives in Windsor, Col., where she operates a day-care center in her home. “My world started to spin. It was a huge red flag.” (Cimons, 4/14)
The Washington Post: Breast Implants And The Link To A Rare Type Of Lymphoma
In 2016, Jennifer Cook, a California schoolteacher who had breast implants in 2010, noticed a change in one of her breasts. So when a school play she attended with her class had a line in it about breast cancer and implants, she got nervous. After a quick online search turned up some scary stories, she got scanned and soon learned she had four masses around the implant — two of which were behind the implant, and therefore not palpable and not visible on a regular mammogram or ultrasound. She was diagnosed with something called breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma, or BIA-ALCL. (Berger, 4/13)
The Washington Post: New Cancer Therapies Offer Great Hope, But Have Complications
When thinking about cancer therapy in recent years, Dorothy’s famous line from “The Wizard of Oz” comes to my mind: “We’re not in Kansas anymore.” Most fellows in oncology — including myself — begin their training by caring for patients with leukemia because they need a lot of monitoring. Patients with leukemia often are diagnosed with severe bleeds or infections and need treatment urgently. For decades, treatment for acute leukemia had been largely the same: seven days of a constant drip of drugs through an IV, followed by weeks in the hospital to monitor for complications — kidney problems, infections and other life-threatening side effects. (Parikh, 4/14)
The Washington Post: Cancer Patients Are Helped By Survivors
Families come in all varieties. Some we’re born into; others we get to choose; still others are accidental. Thirty-five years ago, I unwittingly (and unwillingly) joined the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center family when I became a patient there. On that evening, when I was alone and afraid hours before surgery for metastatic testicular cancer, a young man entered my room in that famous New York hospital wearing a pale blue coat. Alan explained that he was a hospital volunteer, a member of what was then called the “patient-to-patient” program; it took me 30 minutes to realize that meant he was a testicular cancer survivor who had been matched to me. (Petrow, 4/13)
The Washington Post: HPV Vaccine For Older Women Raises Complicated Questions
"Is Gardasil 9 right for me?" my patient asked during a recent office visit. She is 45, recently divorced from her husband of 20 years and crafting her online dating profile. She’s also wondering whether she is a candidate for the vaccine that protects against nine strains of the human papilloma virus (HPV) — a virus that causes most cervical, oral and anal cancer. Ten years ago, L — I’m referring to her by her first initial to protect her privacy — brought her then preteen daughter to a pediatrician to get her immunized against HPV. (Miller, 4/13)
