Word: breast
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...back surgery. But what has brought this issue to the fore is the extraordinary pace of genetic research. In the past few months, scientists have developed experimental tests for several cancer-causing genes that were discovered only last year--including one called BCRA1, which, if mutated, can trigger breast tumors. Tests for newly identified genes that cause melanoma and colon cancer will soon be marketed to doctors...
Trouble is, the tests have been developed so rapidly that not even their creators understand exactly how much faith to put in them. Preliminary studies suggest, for example, that testing positive for the mutated BCRA1 gene does not necessarily doom a woman to breast cancer. At least 15% of the women who carry the gene will never develop the disease. Yet scientists still do not know how to tell which women fall into that category. Nor does testing negative mean that a woman can stop worrying. The BCRA1 gene appears to play a role in only...
...best medical treatment, it was Betsy Lehman. A health columnist who had worked at the Boston Globe since 1982, she had covered everything from leading-edge research to the finer points of a physician's bedside manner. When she learned she had an advanced case of breast cancer, she carefully studied her options and chose to undergo an experimental treatment offered at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a prestigious hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School. Tragically, the 39-year-old mother of two died in December. But as a front-page story in the Globe disclosed last week, her death...
...medical foul-ups that have made headlines in recent weeks. In two Florida incidents, a doctor amputated the wrong foot of a diabetic man, and a hospital worker mistakenly turned off a stroke victim's breathing machine. In Michigan a surgeon doing a mastectomy removed a woman's healthy breast instead of the diseased one. Are these isolated, if horrifying, events? Or could they be harbingers of a deadly trend? Though no statistical evidence shows that malpractice is on the rise, state licensing boards have stepped up their investigations of doctors. According to Public Citizen's Health Research Group...
...five summers during her teens working in the tobacco fields of Southwick, Massachusetts. The tobacco work was tough, but Lobo did it to test her own dedication. Her inner strength has been put to a different challenge over the past two years during her mother RuthAnn's fight with breast cancer. The cancer is now in remission, and when both parents escorted Rebecca out to center court for Senior Night on Feb. 22, the fans cheered as much for RuthAnn as for her daughter...