Word: cancer
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...because doctors have been unable to inform men with any level of precision what their actual risk of death is from prostate cancer, fearful patients have often sought unnecessary surgery and radiation; fewer than 10% of patients who are diagnosed with prostate cancer at age 60 or older choose watchful waiting. "With this new evidence, doctors can give patients some quantifiable information so that together they can decide if it's more appropriate to forgo active treatment for now and just monitor their disease for any new developments," says Brooks, who was not involved in the study...
Many oncologists agree that older men - especially those over age 70 - are prime candidates for a watchful-waiting approach to treatment because prostate cancer is often a slow-growing disease that produces few or no symptoms and does not affect a man's quality of life after diagnosis. It is often referred to as a disease patients die with, rather than of. In Lu-Yao's study, men diagnosed with prostate cancer were up to five times more likely to die within 10 years from a non-prostate-related cause...
Still, prostate cancer remains the second most common cause of cancer death among men in the U.S., striking 1 in 6 men during their lifetime, according to the ACS. What researchers are now striving to determine - through new genetic technologies - is which cancers are aggressive and require invasive treatment, and which can be managed by waiting. Such advances could lead to not only true improvements in patient survival, but also major savings in health-care costs. "We are spending millions and millions of dollars on screening and treatment," says Lu-Yao. "It's not good for the individual...
...nearly 60 years after World War II that the Navy used a portion of the island as a firing range and weapons-testing ground it negligently exposed Vieques' population of 10,000 to dangerous levels of toxins. The community, according to several independent medical studies, has a cancer rate 30 times higher than that of Puerto Rico's main island to the west. The U.S. Justice Department has filed a motion to dismiss the suit, which collectively seeks health and property damages in the billions of dollars, claiming the Federal Government's sovereign immunity. A federal judge in San Juan...
...Today Marrero, at 57, believes he was too poised around those hazardous materials for his own good. In an affidavit filed last month in the U.S. District Court in Puerto Rico, where Marrero now lives, he says he is legally blind, uses a wheelchair, has battled colon cancer and chronic pulmonary illnesses, and was recently diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease, among other ailments. "I've been sick in some form or another since I was 25," says Marrero. He was stationed on Vieques, he adds, "for too long...