Today the U.S. Supreme Court will review a case about a company's ownership of human gene sequences. The issue, involving Myriad Genetics and patents related two cancer-linked molecules, BRCA1 and BRCA2, seems straightforward, so much so I considered not writing on it. After all, how could...

This week the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that the incidence of young women presenting to doctors with Stage IV breast cancer has been climbing. For those affected by the disease between the ages of 25 and 39, the number who first learn they have cancer...

Last week, the Annals of Oncology published a new report on bias in reports on breast cancer trials. The investigators analyzed how clearly, or not, academic journals represent clinical findings. They looked at spin -- what you might call "hype" -- about positive results, and how clearly the...

October's fading. This year, it seems like Breast Cancer Awareness Month has taken on a subdued, faded tone. The pink ads and ribbons, so ubiquitous in recent memory, appear smaller and farther between. Last weekend, as marchers in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer passed through my neighborhood,...

Last week delivered some disconcerting news for people with a specific, strong inherited high risk for developing cancer. An analysis published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) found that young women with BRCA mutations are more likely to develop breast cancer if they've had more diagnostic...

My heart leaped upon hearing the SCOTUS decision on Obamacare. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the central components of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This decision, a huge victory for patients, offers a message of hope -- one that's relevant not just to politics...

This weekend, researchers at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology presented new findings on a novel agent that targets some forms of breast cancer. The new drug, called T-DM1, is designed to deliver a toxic chemotherapy directly to tumor cells....

Doctors have understood for decades that breast cancer is not one disease. Still, and with few exceptions, knowledge of breast cancer genetics -- information on cancer-causing mutations in the malignant cells -- has lagged. Here's the paradox: Because effective treatments exist for most patients with this disease, the...

Like most women, physicians and mothers of my generation in the U.S., I've been fortunate to learn of deaths from wire hangers and shady abortionists only indirectly. Last week I realized that I've taken women's health, or what's really at issue -- women's access to needed care --...

Susan Niebur is a 38-year-old mom and astrophysicist who lives near Washington, D.C. In most mornings, lately, she chats with her husband as he drives to a medical center for her near-daily radiation treatments. She has metastatic breast cancer (MBC) that's spread to her spine and other bones.

It's...

In late June, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) held an unusual, open-door and emotionally-packed meeting of its Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC). The topic was Avastin, a costly cancer treatment. The panel listened to testimony from women, including my cousin, about their ongoing cancer treatments. It heard,...

Like many New Yorkers, might-be feminists, hematologists and others, I was saddened to learn of Geraldine Ferraro's death. The Depression-era born mother, public school teacher, attorney, criminal prosecutor, Congresswoman, 1984 Democratic VP-candidate and otherwise accomplished woman from this region, succumbed to complications of multiple myeloma at...

A new report in the Journal of the American Medical Association may influence -- and reduce -- surgical treatment for many women diagnosed with breast cancer. The key finding is that for women with apparently limited disease before lumpectomy and what's called a positive sentinel node,...

Recently, the fraudulent work of Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who with his followers feverishly propounded a notion that childhood vaccines cause autism, fell further down the credibility ladder upon a detailed report published in the British Medical Journal. It turns out that cases reported in the original, retracted and...

This week the Obama administration pulled back on a Medicare provision that would have compensated providers for discussing end-of-life care. This is an unfortunate reversal.

The problem is that many people don't get the kind of care that they would choose for the end of life. This...

I'm looking forward to 2011, which among other steps in a healthy direction will deliver incentives for doctors and other medical care providers to adopt electronic health records (EHR). The push for better health IT (HIT) is long overdue.

A few months ago I had the...

I'll be staying near my home for Thanksgiving. But if I did have plans to travel by airplane for the holiday, I think I'd be apprehensive about the new screening procedures implemented by the Transportation Safety Authority (TSA).

My concern is not with the scanning machines. The level...

Breast Cancer Fatigue Syndrome (BCFS) may be setting into our collective consciousness. This newly named, unofficial and insidious condition afflicts individuals who've become desensitized to all things having to do with breast cancer. The list of topics people shy away from, now, includes breast cancer screening and particularly...

Tired of seeing pink? You're not alone, says Dr. Barron Lerner in a piece on Pink Ribbon Fatigue in the New York Times. While cancer awareness campaigns have heightened awareness about this condition, lessened women's fear of the disease and helped raise needed funds for research and care,...

Last week's medical news centered on a New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) article on breast cancer screening by mammography. The paper, authored by an international group of epidemiologists and biostatisticians, suggests that mammography has only a small influence on survival. The findings, along with an accompanying