Orlando Business Journal
Date: Wednesday, June 1, 2011, 3:10pm EDT
Orlando Health launched a lung cancer screening pilot program June 1 targeted at smokers and ex-smokers.
The pilot program at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center-Orlando’s Rod Taylor Thoracic Care Center will focus on current and former smokers age 55 to 74, and will use low-dose radiation and CT scans to look for nodules
that don’t typically show up on X-rays. The hospital expects 20 percent of the people screened to need further testing and 2 percent to need treatment for lung cancer.
More than 18,000 people in Florida are expected to be diagnosed with lung cancer in 2011.
The cost of the test will be discounted from $1,500 to $375.
Read more: Orlando Health launches lung cancer screening program | Orlando Business Journal
Showing posts with label Early Detection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Early Detection. Show all posts
Monday, June 6, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Treatment Shows Promise in Quelling a Type of Lung Cancer
Personalized Medicine Leads One Patient to Ask, "Can I go Scuba Diving?"
By Lisa Marshall of CU Medicine Today
University of Colorado School of Medicine
(May 2, 2011) The words "adenocarcinoma of the lung" required no further explanation. As a physician herself, Gene Burges knew what they meant.
"I told my husband, ‘I’ve had a really wonderful life,’" says Burges, 64, who received her grim diagnosis in April 2009. "I knew it was the end."
But nearly two years later, the dermatologist and associate professor at Medical University of South Carolina has kicked the chronic cough and night sweats, and—according to her grateful sons—has returned to her "energetic self." After watching the glowing orange beacons of cancer disappear from her scans, she went so far as to buy a new house this year.
Read more.
By Lisa Marshall of CU Medicine Today
University of Colorado School of Medicine
(May 2, 2011) The words "adenocarcinoma of the lung" required no further explanation. As a physician herself, Gene Burges knew what they meant.
"I told my husband, ‘I’ve had a really wonderful life,’" says Burges, 64, who received her grim diagnosis in April 2009. "I knew it was the end."
But nearly two years later, the dermatologist and associate professor at Medical University of South Carolina has kicked the chronic cough and night sweats, and—according to her grateful sons—has returned to her "energetic self." After watching the glowing orange beacons of cancer disappear from her scans, she went so far as to buy a new house this year.
Read more.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
USA Today reports: Using CT scans to screen for lung cancer may carry risks
Lung cancer screenings may carry hidden dangers, researchers announced Saturday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Orlando.
The National Institutes of Health is running a large study to find out if screening patients with CT scans can save lives. Some doctors are already offering the screenings in the hopes of finding tumors early, when they might be more curable. Lung cancer kills more people than any other tumor, with 215,000 new cases a year and 162,000 deaths, according to the American Cancer Society.
But the scan's results aren't always clear or easy to interpret, leading to false alarms.
People who are screened have a 21% chance of being unnecessarily frightened by findings that initially seem suspicious, but turn out to be benign, says lead author Jennifer Croswell.
Yet the exams, performed with CT scans, can produce more than just anxiety, according to Croswell's report, a pilot study for the ongoing National Lung Screening Trial, which includes 50,000 patients.
Suspicious findings can lead to invasive follow-up exams, such as biopsies or even surgeries in which doctors crack open the chest to access to the lungs, Croswell says.
Out of 1,600 smokers and ex-smokers in the study who had the CT scans, 40 had real cancer, but eight had unnecessary surgery for non-cancerous conditions.
Yet Croswell can't say whether the screenings actually helped anyone. That's because the larger study hasn't gone on long enough to show whether screening saves lives, she says. And because lung surgeries are risky, she says it's possible for the screenings themselves to cause death.
CT scans also expose people to radiation, which increases the risk of cancer, says Peter Bach, a pulmonologist at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Other research has suggested that tumors found through screening could be much less lethal than lung cancers that are found because they cause symptoms, so that finding these slow-growing cancers may not help anyone. Also, longtime smokers or ex-smokers could die of other causes, such as heart attacks or strokes, long before their cancer becomes a threat.
In fact, people who get CT scans are 100 times more likely to get a false alarm then they are to die of lung cancer, says Bach, the author of a 2007 study on lung cancer screening.
The American Cancer Society does not recommend lung screenings and they are not covered by insurance, Bach says. Insurers do cover follow-up tests and lung cancer treatments.
The National Institutes of Health is running a large study to find out if screening patients with CT scans can save lives. Some doctors are already offering the screenings in the hopes of finding tumors early, when they might be more curable. Lung cancer kills more people than any other tumor, with 215,000 new cases a year and 162,000 deaths, according to the American Cancer Society.
But the scan's results aren't always clear or easy to interpret, leading to false alarms.
People who are screened have a 21% chance of being unnecessarily frightened by findings that initially seem suspicious, but turn out to be benign, says lead author Jennifer Croswell.
Yet the exams, performed with CT scans, can produce more than just anxiety, according to Croswell's report, a pilot study for the ongoing National Lung Screening Trial, which includes 50,000 patients.
Suspicious findings can lead to invasive follow-up exams, such as biopsies or even surgeries in which doctors crack open the chest to access to the lungs, Croswell says.
Out of 1,600 smokers and ex-smokers in the study who had the CT scans, 40 had real cancer, but eight had unnecessary surgery for non-cancerous conditions.
Yet Croswell can't say whether the screenings actually helped anyone. That's because the larger study hasn't gone on long enough to show whether screening saves lives, she says. And because lung surgeries are risky, she says it's possible for the screenings themselves to cause death.
CT scans also expose people to radiation, which increases the risk of cancer, says Peter Bach, a pulmonologist at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Other research has suggested that tumors found through screening could be much less lethal than lung cancers that are found because they cause symptoms, so that finding these slow-growing cancers may not help anyone. Also, longtime smokers or ex-smokers could die of other causes, such as heart attacks or strokes, long before their cancer becomes a threat.
In fact, people who get CT scans are 100 times more likely to get a false alarm then they are to die of lung cancer, says Bach, the author of a 2007 study on lung cancer screening.
The American Cancer Society does not recommend lung screenings and they are not covered by insurance, Bach says. Insurers do cover follow-up tests and lung cancer treatments.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Lung Cancer Alliance Calls American Cancer Society's Claim of Progress Selective
Lung Cancer Alliance (LCA) said that the American Cancer Society's claim of "progress in cancer fight" earlier this week was based on "selective culling of statistics and ignores the dismal truth that we have made very little progress on the most lethal cancers, including lung cancer, which causes one in every two cancer deaths, or in metastatic cancer of any kind."
LCA President & CEO Laurie Fenton Ambrose agreed that progress has been made with certain cancers such as breast, prostate and colon which have widely accepted screening tests for early detection and ACS deserves credit for promulgating information to the public on the importance of these tests.
"But this is not time to be celebrating when half of all cancers still have survival rates of less than 50% and when we are facing a 45% increase in the overall number of new cancer cases by the year 2030," she said, citing a recent report on the upcoming tidal wave in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
"There could be no stronger wake-up call," she said. "We can't continue to tout selected changes in incidence and mortality rates over a limited number of cancers over a limited period of time. We have to step back and look at the big picture and try to figure out why we have not done better and where we have to go from here."
LCA President & CEO Laurie Fenton Ambrose agreed that progress has been made with certain cancers such as breast, prostate and colon which have widely accepted screening tests for early detection and ACS deserves credit for promulgating information to the public on the importance of these tests.
"But this is not time to be celebrating when half of all cancers still have survival rates of less than 50% and when we are facing a 45% increase in the overall number of new cancer cases by the year 2030," she said, citing a recent report on the upcoming tidal wave in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
"There could be no stronger wake-up call," she said. "We can't continue to tout selected changes in incidence and mortality rates over a limited number of cancers over a limited period of time. We have to step back and look at the big picture and try to figure out why we have not done better and where we have to go from here."
Thursday, May 21, 2009
The State reports: Isotope shortage could delay cancer tests
Canadian officials have again shut down a nuclear reactor that produces much of the world's radioactive isotopes used to diagnose cancer patients through medical imaging.
Patients in line for medical tests to diagnose cancer and heart ailments may have a longer wait as hospitals try to conserve a scarce supply of isotopes, doctors say.
The latest shutdown of an Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. nuclear reactor at Chalk River, Ontario - which provides about half the global supply of isotopes used in medical imaging - is expected to last about a month as technicians repair a leak of heavy water.
Government-owned AECL said Tuesday it has enough medical isotopes for the coming week, but will unable to meet demand by Saturday.
The AECL said its NRU reactor was shut down last Thursday after a power outage. The leak was discovered shortly after that.
The 52-year-old reactor was ordered closed by Canada's nuclear regulator in 2007 until mandated safety upgrades had been completed. The nearly monthlong shutdown that resulted sparked a critical global shortage of medical isotopes used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and heart ailments, and only ended when Canada's Parliament voted to bypass the regulator's order.
Another lengthy shortage will force hospitals to delay non-urgent tests, said Dr. Karen Gulenchyn, a nuclear medicine expert who helped advise former Canadian health minister Tony Clement during the last isotope shortage in December 2007.
"It may mean that if you have an elective study booked ... that patient is going to be deferred and have to wait until the situation is resolved," she said.
Patients in line for medical tests to diagnose cancer and heart ailments may have a longer wait as hospitals try to conserve a scarce supply of isotopes, doctors say.
The latest shutdown of an Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. nuclear reactor at Chalk River, Ontario - which provides about half the global supply of isotopes used in medical imaging - is expected to last about a month as technicians repair a leak of heavy water.
Government-owned AECL said Tuesday it has enough medical isotopes for the coming week, but will unable to meet demand by Saturday.
The AECL said its NRU reactor was shut down last Thursday after a power outage. The leak was discovered shortly after that.
The 52-year-old reactor was ordered closed by Canada's nuclear regulator in 2007 until mandated safety upgrades had been completed. The nearly monthlong shutdown that resulted sparked a critical global shortage of medical isotopes used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and heart ailments, and only ended when Canada's Parliament voted to bypass the regulator's order.
Another lengthy shortage will force hospitals to delay non-urgent tests, said Dr. Karen Gulenchyn, a nuclear medicine expert who helped advise former Canadian health minister Tony Clement during the last isotope shortage in December 2007.
"It may mean that if you have an elective study booked ... that patient is going to be deferred and have to wait until the situation is resolved," she said.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Routine Exam May Have Been Life-Saver for Greenville's WYFF Weathercaster Keisha Kirkland
If you're young and healthy, it's easy to think that there's not much reason to worry about your health and that an annual physical is something that other, older people have to think about, not you.
But for WYFF 4 Weathercaster Keisha Kirkland, getting that annual physical may have just saved her life.
Keisha, 36, said that she felt perfectly healthy, but because of a family history of heart disease, she had some tests run several months ago.
Her heart was fine, but doctors found that she had the beginning stages of lung cancer.
"I’ve never smoked. I’m young, you know, in shape, I exercise, eat well," Keisha told WYFF News 4's Jane Robelot. "But, hey, I’m still dealing with this."
Dr. James Stephenson of Greenville Hospital System, Keisha's surgeon, said discovering the cancer was almost as unlikely as her chances of having it.
"She decided to have a calcium scoring test to look for heart disease due to some family history," Stephenson said. "Just by chance this abnormal area in her lung was noted on that scan."
Read Keisha Kirkland's Bio.
But for WYFF 4 Weathercaster Keisha Kirkland, getting that annual physical may have just saved her life.
Keisha, 36, said that she felt perfectly healthy, but because of a family history of heart disease, she had some tests run several months ago.
Her heart was fine, but doctors found that she had the beginning stages of lung cancer.
"I’ve never smoked. I’m young, you know, in shape, I exercise, eat well," Keisha told WYFF News 4's Jane Robelot. "But, hey, I’m still dealing with this."
Dr. James Stephenson of Greenville Hospital System, Keisha's surgeon, said discovering the cancer was almost as unlikely as her chances of having it.
"She decided to have a calcium scoring test to look for heart disease due to some family history," Stephenson said. "Just by chance this abnormal area in her lung was noted on that scan."
Read Keisha Kirkland's Bio.
Spring issue of CR magazine reports: The High Costs of Cancer Mortality
A new analysis helps put research funding into perspective
By Hannah Hoag
...new studies found that at least 25 percent of cancer’s costs could be attributed to lung cancer. In 2008, an estimated 161,840 people died of the disease in the U.S., far more than died of any other cancer. The researchers further calculated that if lung cancer mortality rates declined by 1 percent annually, the value of life lost in 2020 due to lung cancer would drop from a projected $433 billion to $355 billion. A 4 percent annual decline in these mortality rates would put the estimated value of life lost to lung cancer in 2020 at $192 billion.
“The issue with lung cancer is that we are so naive about what we really know,” says Regina Vidaver, the executive director of the National Lung Cancer Partnership. “We need more knowledge in every single aspect, certainly in understanding [cell] signaling pathways and where they go wrong in cancer initiation and drug-resistance development.”
Even so, Laurie Fenton Ambrose, the president and chief executive officer of the Lung Cancer Alliance, is optimistic that a 1 percent annual decline in mortality is possible with additional funding for lung cancer research, including efforts aimed at finding cancers earlier. “Most cancers that have seen improvements are due to a more robust mechanism to detect their cancers early,” she says.
Read more.
By Hannah Hoag
...new studies found that at least 25 percent of cancer’s costs could be attributed to lung cancer. In 2008, an estimated 161,840 people died of the disease in the U.S., far more than died of any other cancer. The researchers further calculated that if lung cancer mortality rates declined by 1 percent annually, the value of life lost in 2020 due to lung cancer would drop from a projected $433 billion to $355 billion. A 4 percent annual decline in these mortality rates would put the estimated value of life lost to lung cancer in 2020 at $192 billion.
“The issue with lung cancer is that we are so naive about what we really know,” says Regina Vidaver, the executive director of the National Lung Cancer Partnership. “We need more knowledge in every single aspect, certainly in understanding [cell] signaling pathways and where they go wrong in cancer initiation and drug-resistance development.”
Even so, Laurie Fenton Ambrose, the president and chief executive officer of the Lung Cancer Alliance, is optimistic that a 1 percent annual decline in mortality is possible with additional funding for lung cancer research, including efforts aimed at finding cancers earlier. “Most cancers that have seen improvements are due to a more robust mechanism to detect their cancers early,” she says.
Read more.
Lung Cancer Alliance to Canadian Medical Association Journal Editorial on Lung Cancer Screening
Monday, April 20, 2009: Last week, the Canadian Medical Association Journal published an editorial discussing lung cancer screening. In the piece, they misrepresented LCA's position on lung cancer screening. In addition, they came to the conclusion that the best use of funding for lung cancer would be in tobacco control and cessation programs. LCA President & CEO, Laurie Fenton Ambrose, sent in a Letter to the Editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal clarifying LCA's position on lung cancer screening and urging those within the community to address the disease in a comprehensive manner with tobacco cessation programs, early detection and treatment research.
Dear Editor,
The editorial in the April 14, 2009 Canadian Medical Association Journal entitled "A Pause for Thought on Lung Cancer Screening", by M.B. Stanbrook and K. Flegel accuses the Lung Cancer Alliance of having "promoted" CT screening for lung cancer. For the record, our position is that those at high risk for lung cancer (those with greater than 20 pack year smoking history, those with a family history of lung cancer, those with exgtensive exposure to asbestos, radon, Agent Orange and other carcinogens) should speak with their doctors about the risks and benefits of a CT scan.
Please note that we emphasize those at high risk, not population based screening. Even before mammograms and psa testing became widely accepted population based screening tests in the US. (The 5-year survival rates for those cancers are now 88% and 99% respectively and whether or not screening played a role in this increase in survival rates you can debate). The 5-year survival rate for lung cancer is still only 15%.
Lung cancer is far more lethal for the individual patient and in its overall public health impact. Nearly one in every three cancer deaths in the United States is due to lung cancer and only 16% of patients are being diagnosed at an early, most curable stage. Advances in CT scanning now present an alternative to late stage diagnosis for those at hight risk and recent papers coming out of ongoing European trials are further refining the process of CT screening.
Certainly we can look forward to a simple biomarker to further refine the optimal population subset for a CT scan, and we have adocated strongly for reseach funding in these areas. But in the meantime are you suggesting that those at high risk should do nothing? Your conclusion is: "In the meantime, given how much we know about the prevention of lung cancer, targeting smoking avoidance and cessation, rather than detection and management of lung cancer, would seem a better investment."
Sadly this statement ignores the fact that over 50% of lung cancer is being diagnosed in people who have already quit, many of them decades ago. Another 15 to 20% have never smoked. Without considering these individuals,any investment analysis in lung cancer in 2009 and the future is incomplete and suspect.
Sincerely,
Laurie Fenton Ambrose
President & CEO
Lung Cancer Alliance
Laurie Fenton Ambrose
President & CEO
Lung Cancer Alliance
Monday, April 20, 2009
HealthDay News reports: Urine Test Could Gauge Smokers' Lung Cancer Risk
Those with higher levels of a compound had nearly 9 times the risk, scientists say
By Randy Dotinga HealthDay Reporter
SUNDAY, April 19 (HealthDay News) -- Someday, a simple urine test might spot smokers at highest risk for lung cancer, scientists report.
The research is still in its preliminary stages, and it may be years before such a test becomes publicly available. But if it works, the urine-based screen could give added motivation to smokers who can't find other reasons to quit, said study author Dr. Jian-Min Yuan, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota.
Read more.
By Randy Dotinga HealthDay Reporter
SUNDAY, April 19 (HealthDay News) -- Someday, a simple urine test might spot smokers at highest risk for lung cancer, scientists report.
The research is still in its preliminary stages, and it may be years before such a test becomes publicly available. But if it works, the urine-based screen could give added motivation to smokers who can't find other reasons to quit, said study author Dr. Jian-Min Yuan, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota.
Read more.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Science Daily reports: Young Women Warned Of Lung Cancer Risks
Seventeen people are still dying from lung cancer each week in Northern Ireland despite a small improvement in survival rates for the disease.
The figures are revealed by a report launched April 3 by the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry (NICR) at Queen's University Belfast.
The NICR is holding a joint launch April 3 with Macmillan Cancer Support which has released its own report on the experience of patients living with lung cancer and their carers in Northern Ireland, highlighting that services are not meeting their needs.
The Queen's report, entitled Monitoring care of patients with lung cancer in Northern Ireland diagnosed 2006, details the facts of the disease from the numbers of people diagnosed, to trends, treatment and survival.
It looked at the experiences of more than 2,200 lung cancer patients over a decade and points to a fall in cases for men under 65 but not for women in this age group. Lung cancer now kills more women than breast cancer in Northern Ireland.
While highlighting the need for continued work to prevent the condition in all sections of the population by addressing smoking, it also acknowledges the commitment of staff who treat patients with the disease.
Read more.
The figures are revealed by a report launched April 3 by the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry (NICR) at Queen's University Belfast.
The NICR is holding a joint launch April 3 with Macmillan Cancer Support which has released its own report on the experience of patients living with lung cancer and their carers in Northern Ireland, highlighting that services are not meeting their needs.
The Queen's report, entitled Monitoring care of patients with lung cancer in Northern Ireland diagnosed 2006, details the facts of the disease from the numbers of people diagnosed, to trends, treatment and survival.
It looked at the experiences of more than 2,200 lung cancer patients over a decade and points to a fall in cases for men under 65 but not for women in this age group. Lung cancer now kills more women than breast cancer in Northern Ireland.
While highlighting the need for continued work to prevent the condition in all sections of the population by addressing smoking, it also acknowledges the commitment of staff who treat patients with the disease.
Read more.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Mesothelioma Cause Reconfirmed
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IRAC) reconfirmed this week that all commercial asbestos fibers cause lung cancer and mesothelioma.
A simple puff may save smokers' lives
Blowing into a tube could help find people at increased risk of getting lung cancer.
The test, called a spirometry, is used to diagnose chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, also known as smoker's lung or emphysema.
A study by Kiwi researchers has found people with COPD are six times more likely to get lung cancer than smokers without the disease.
But project leader associate professor Robert Young of Auckland University said spirometry tests should be given more often, especially as many doctors already had the equipment.
"It's not used all that much. This is not really acceptable, as nearly all patients with lung cancer express feelings of guilt or regret that they smoked and wished they had given up sooner."
Read more.
The test, called a spirometry, is used to diagnose chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, also known as smoker's lung or emphysema.
But project leader associate professor Robert Young of Auckland University said spirometry tests should be given more often, especially as many doctors already had the equipment.
"It's not used all that much. This is not really acceptable, as nearly all patients with lung cancer express feelings of guilt or regret that they smoked and wished they had given up sooner."
Read more.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Reuters reports: Cancer cure rates on the rise in Europe: study
More Europeans are beating cancer, perhaps due to more widespread screening and earlier diagnosis, according to a study published on Tuesday.
The study compared two periods -- 1988 to 1990 and 1997 to 1999 -- and found that the proportion of men and women cured of lung cancer rose from 6 percent to 8 percent, stomach cancer cures from 15 percent to 18 percent and colorectal cancer cure rates went from 42 percent to 49 percent.
Read more.
The study compared two periods -- 1988 to 1990 and 1997 to 1999 -- and found that the proportion of men and women cured of lung cancer rose from 6 percent to 8 percent, stomach cancer cures from 15 percent to 18 percent and colorectal cancer cure rates went from 42 percent to 49 percent.
Read more.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Biomoda Approved To Begin Screening Veterans For Lung Cancer
Biomoda, Inc. (OTCBB: BMOD), a medical diagnostics company based in Albuquerque, received approval from an independent Institutional Review Board (IRB) to begin Phase I clinical trials of its cytology-based screening technology for early detection of cancer.
Citing the IRB's approval of Biomoda's protocol as a significant step forward, Biomoda President and CEO John Cousins said, "This not only launches our Phase I clinical study, but it also puts us in a position to have a meaningful impact on people's lives today. Our initial study is directed at military veterans who are at high risk for developing lung cancer. If our screening reveals early-stage cancer in one of our volunteers, that person's chance of being alive five years from now goes from 15 percent to 80 percent, all because of early diagnosis and treatment." It is our intent in this pilot program to identify five to ten such cases and have a dramatic impact on saving lives here in New Mexico now.
Citing the IRB's approval of Biomoda's protocol as a significant step forward, Biomoda President and CEO John Cousins said, "This not only launches our Phase I clinical study, but it also puts us in a position to have a meaningful impact on people's lives today. Our initial study is directed at military veterans who are at high risk for developing lung cancer. If our screening reveals early-stage cancer in one of our volunteers, that person's chance of being alive five years from now goes from 15 percent to 80 percent, all because of early diagnosis and treatment." It is our intent in this pilot program to identify five to ten such cases and have a dramatic impact on saving lives here in New Mexico now.
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