Thermographic Imaging Systems for Breast Cancer Screening: FDA Safety Communication

[Posted 06/02/2011]
AUDIENCE: Consumers, Patients
ISSUE: FDA notified consumers, women who participate in breast cancer screening and healthcare professionals that thermography is not a replacement for screening mammography and should not be used by itself to diagnose breast cancer. Thermographic systems use an infrared camera to produce images (thermograms) that show the patterns of heat and blood flow on or near the surface of the body. The FDA is not aware of any valid scientific data to show that… Continue Reading

May 2, 2011 — Large numbers of  teenage girls are still using tanning beds or sunbathing outdoors despite repeated warnings from doctors that too much exposure to ultraviolet light can lead to skin cancer, a new survey shows.
The American Academy of Dermatology’s poll of about 3,800 white girls and women between 14 and 22 suggests that many thousands are trying to get tans in the sun or turning to tanning booths, or doing both.
Among key findings of the survey:

• 32% of respondents had used a tanning bed

… Continue Reading

April 7, 2011 — Eating freeze-dried strawberries may help prevent esophageal cancer, according to new but preliminary research. ”Eating strawberries may be a way for people at high risk for esophageal cancer to protect themselves from the disease,” says researcher Tong Chen, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbus. She presented the results of her small study at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting in Orlando, Fla. The study was funded by the California Strawberry Commission.
After an animal study… Continue Reading

Regular consumption of green tea may offer protection against Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias and may also slow growth of cancer cells, new research indicates.
Green tea, an ancient Chinese remedy, has been shown to have protective properties in undigested, freshly brewed forms. But a research team at Newcastle University in the U.K. set out to determine whether the protective substances remained active after digestion. And in the study, they did.
“What was really exciting about this study was that we found when green tea is digested by enzymes in the… Continue Reading

Fast spreading and often discovered late, pancreatic cancer is usually deadly. But a digestion remedy used in India’s oldest healing tradition, Ayurveda, shows promise in halting the disease. Triphala, a blend of three herbs (amia, harada and bihara), caused pancreatic cancer cells in mice to die off in a recent University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute research study. Also, triphala “reduced the size of the tumors without causing any toxic side effects”, notes lead investigator Sanjay Srivastava, Ph. D.

GAITHERSBURG, Md. – Federal health advisers said overwhelmingly that the Roche drug Avastin’s approval for breast cancer should be withdrawn after follow-up studies failed to show meaningful benefits for patients.
A Food and Drug Administration panel of experts voted 12-1 in favor of removing the drug’s indication for use in breast cancer patients alongside chemotherapy on Tuesday.
The FDA in 2008 approved Avastin for breast cancer based on a trial showing it significantly lengthened the time until the disease worsened. But two follow-up studies recently completed by Roche failed to show… Continue Reading

Sept. 1, 2010 — Actor Michael Douglas last night stunned a television audience with the announcement that he has “late stage IV throat cancer.”
What is this disease? How is it treated? Based on what he’s revealed, what do we know about Douglas’s treatment and prognosis?
To answer these and other questions, we spoke with two experts:

• Gady Har-El, MD, chairman of the department of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital.
• Ted Teknos, MD, co-director of the head and neck disease committee and professor of

… Continue Reading

Oct. 22, 2010 – Long-term use of low-dose aspirin reduces colon cancer risk, U.K. researchers find.
Low-dose aspirin takers have a 24% lower risk of colon cancer and a 35% lower risk of dying from colon cancer, find University of Oxford researcher Peter Rothwell and colleagues.
“The new findings on the effect of low-dose aspirin should be included in advice given to the public,” Rothwell says in a news release.
The findings are based on analysis of 20-year follow-up data from five clinical trials. All of the studies were performed before sigmoidoscopy and… Continue Reading