A student with advanced cancer addresses his peers: ‘Be gallant, be great, be gracious, and be grateful’

“Be gallant, be great, be gracious, and be grateful.”

That was the message that Jake Bailey, a senior at Christchurch Boys’ High School in New Zealand, told his peers in a recent speech after he was diagnosed with advanced cancer. In fact, Bailey did not know until the last minute whether or not he’d be allowed out of the hospital to attend the ceremonial event in between intense chemotherapy sessions.

Now the student’s words are reaching hundreds of thousands of viewers around the world after his inspirational speech created a sensation online. Bailey spoke at an awards ceremony at Christchurch Boys’ High School, where he serves as “senior monitor,” or senior class leader.

Seated in a wheelchair, Bailey told his peers that he’d written a speech before learning he’d been diagnosed with Burkitt lymphoma, a cancer that grows rapidly in the lymph system.

“They said you’ve got cancer,” Bailey said. “They said if you don’t get any treatment in the next three weeks you’re going to die. And then they told me I wouldn’t be here tonight to deliver that speech. But luckily that speech isn’t about what is to come. It’s about what an amazing year it’s been.”

Headmaster Nic Hill said that Bailey’s speech has motivated countless notes of appreciation and said that despite the grim diagnosis the student’s prognosis is good.

“Jake Bailey is an inspiration,” Hill wrote on the school’s Web site. “I couldn’t have more respect for Jake as a leader and someone who has inspired people throughout the world. Jake’s many attributes will help him through this battle and we’ll be with him every step of the way.”

Bailey told his classmates that he at first was intimidated by the prospect of serving as senior monitor, responsible for leading his peers. But he told them that he found “moral strength” in their friendship.

“Here’s the thing: none of us get out of life alive,” Bailey told them. “So be gallant, be great, be gracious and and be grateful for the opportunities that you have, the opportunity to learn from the men who have walked before you and those who walk beside you.”

After Bailey’s emotional speech, students in the audience spontaneously honored him with a traditional maori haka dance as a sign of respect for the ailing student. Bailey responded by whispering “Thank you.”

Source from :https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2015/11/10/a-student-with-advanced-cancer-addresses-his-peers-be-gallant-be-great-be-gracious-and-be-grateful/

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Diet, exercise can increase odds of beating cancer

It may seem to be cliche, but that apple does apparently keep the doctor away, particularly if you are eating that apple while taking a brisk walk.

Diet and exercise before and after a cancer diagnosis can significantly increase your odds of beating the disease, said Michael Anderson, a board-certified radiologist with Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada.

"Diet and exercise is a very important part to cancer treatment for a lot of reasons," he said. "You can recover faster from the side effects of radiation for one, and some recent studies have linked cancer to obesity and poor diet as a reason for the recurrence rate of breast cancer."

Being in good physical and mental shape is better for a patient's overall well-being and their ability to handle treatments.

"We feel it will be better to tolerate the treatment if they exercise," he said. "A lot of women who do yoga will do better with radiation both physically and mentally than those who do something else, such as aerobics or nothing at all."

The U.S. National Cancer Institute, American Institute of Cancer Research and the American Cancer Society each recommend that cancer patients and survivors get a good amount of exercise while maintaining a healthy diet of natural, not processed, foods.

"Exercise helps cope with stress, fatigue and numerous other side effects and symptoms commonly experienced by our patients during and after cancer treatment," said Brian Lawenda, a radiation oncologist with 21st Century Oncology.

Studies have shown that moderate-intensity physical activity, about 150 minutes per week, may improve cancer outcomes and overall health.

"The sooner you start exercising, the better you'll feel, the fewer medications you're likely to need, and the lower your risk will be for complications," he said. "We recommend implementing an exercise routine before treatment gets underway if possible, especially if you have been inactive."

But proceed with care.

"It is important to discuss with your doctor and care team the type of exercise you are considering to ensure it will be safe," Lawenda said. "If you're cleared for full activity, your goal should be at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity, five days a week or more, which can be broken up throughout the day."

And don't forget to warm up and cool down with at least three to five minutes of gentle stretching.

Diet is also vital to a patient's positive outcome.

"Not getting enough calories or nutrients may increase your risk of treatment-related side effects and reduce your tolerance to your prescribed treatments," Lawenda said.

Going natural with phytonutrients can also improve your success rate while undergoing treatment. Phytonutrients are naturally occurring compounds that are found mainly in plant foods such as vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, herbs, spices and mushrooms.

"Many of these compounds have similar cancer-fighting effects as the drugs used by oncologists to treat cancer and act on various stages of cancer's development," Lawenda said. "These food compounds are thought to halt the development and spread of cancer cells, notably by promoting cancer cells to self-destruct (apoptosis) or by blocking the growth of new blood vessels to feed growing tumors (angiogenesis)."

Eating a wide variety of foods containing the compounds can be more protective than eating a lot of just one food type.

"For instance, although broccoli contains several compounds thought to have anti-cancer actions, eating it every day of the year isn't likely to offer as much protection as, say, eating broccoli one day, peppers the next, tomatoes and onions the day after that," he said.

Different plant foods also reinforce the other's effects.

"The antioxidant lycopene in tomato skins is absorbed better when the tomatoes have been cooked with olive oil and garlic than when eaten on their own," he said. "This is called 'nutrient synergy' and is an important concept to remember when preparing meals."

While he recommends 2 to 3 cups of fruit and 3 to 5 cups of vegetables every day, he does understand it can be a bit difficult for most people. In that case, Lawenda says cancer patients and survivors should consume fewer simple carbohydrates, such as sugar, breads, rice, pastas and baked goods.

"These foods often have a high glycemic load, so they tend to cause a rapid spike in your blood sugar after consuming them," he said. "This can lead to inflammation, oxidation, overconsumption of empty calories, weight gain, insulin resistance and fatty liver disease. All of these have been associated with an increased risk of cancer development, recurrence and death."

Inflammatory foods that contain higher amounts of omega-6 fats and trans fats should also be avoided.

"Omega-6 rich foods are often found in commercially raised meats and poultry, dairy and fast foods, particularly, fried foods," he said. "Trans fats are typically found in processed foods, such as margarine and baked goods."

These unhealthful fats promote oxidation, the production of damaging free radicals and inflammation, a killer.

"The best way to avoid these is to look at the food labels and pick foods that contain zero trans fats," he said.

Instead, try to eat proteins that are from animals that contain higher amounts of omega-3 fatty acids, such as small, cold-water fish like mackerel, sardines, anchovies and wild salmon and grass-fed or pasture-raised meat and poultry.

"Many plants also contain a decent amount of protein, such as legumes, corn, kale, mushrooms, artichokes, broccoli," he said.

And, of course, try to go as green and organic as possible.

"Since organic foods are often more costly, I'd rather my patients consume adequate amounts of commercially grown fruits and vegetables if money is an issue, rather than skimp on these important foods," he said. "Making sure you consume a diet that supports you during and after cancer treatment is essential."
Source from : http://www.reviewjournal.com/life/health/breast-cancer-awareness/diet-exercise-can-increase-odds-beating-cancer

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This Tomato Could Help Battle Cancer, Diabetes, and Alzheimer's

Genetically modified foods have racked up a bad reputation among organic food proponents and conventional grocery shoppers alike. It's become such a hot topic that supermarket chains such as Whole Foods are agreeing to label GMO foods and giant manufacturers like General Mills are boasting their products like Cheerios as non-GMO. But researchers and scientists have developed a genetically modified tomato that could help fight diseases like cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer's.

According to the Mirror, a new group of supercharged GM tomatoes are packed with natural chemicals that battles illness. One variety contains more than 50 times the antioxidant resveratrol as a bottle of wine while another has the same amount of genistein—a soybean compound that could prevent breast cancer—as 5.5 pounds of tofu.

Scientists are bolstering the fruit with medicinal properties by way of the protein AtMYB12, which is typically found in the weed thale cress.​ By adding this protein to tomatoes, its levels of ​phenylpropanoids, a family of organic compounds that increases a range of plant chemicals​, completely spike. ​From there, genes that encode specific enzymes are added to ramp up production of resveratrol and/or genistein.

Researchers believe that these tomatoes are a much more cost- and time-effective method of producing valuable plant chemicals than artificially creating them or tediously extracting them from where they naturally occur, like in grapes and soybeans. In the study, which was published in the journal Nature Communication, ​co-author Dr. Yang Zhang writes, "Medicinal plants with high value are often difficult to grow and manage, and need very long cultivation times to produce the desired compounds. Our research provides a fantastic platform to quickly produce these valuable medicinal compounds in tomatoes."

Source from : http://www.delish.com/food-news/a44558/gmo-tomato-fights-cancer-diabetes-alzheimers/

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How scorpions became an unlikely ally in the fight against cancer

           Jim Olson is a paediatric oncologist whose research is being talked about around the world thanks to some innovative thinking – and scorpions. Based at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, he leads a team whose biggest success is “tumour paint”, a drug that attaches to cancer cells, lighting them up so it is easier for surgeons to operate successfully.

The paint was developed from chlorotoxin found in scorpion venom and is currently being tested in clinical trials. So excited was Olson, 52, by this discovery that he had the knot of bonds at the centre of the chlorotoxin molecule tattooed on his upper arm. Decorating his office are framed photographs of his patients at Seattle Children’s Hospital, who are clearly the motivation for his work: he is driven by a desire to tell more parents their children will survive.

His quiet, unassuming manner belies the passion and energy with which Olson approaches life – both at work and in his leisure time when he cooks, cycles and kayaks (his team won a national title in 2012) with gusto.

He remains close to many of the families he meets and is a tireless campaigner, successfully using social media and crowdfunding to publicise and raise money for his research.

Your biggest success is “tumour paint”, which makes cancer cells easier to spot during brain surgery and is now in five human clinical trials. How was this developed?
We had a patient who had brain tumour surgery in 2004, which left much of her tumour behind because the surgeon thought it was normal brain and didn’t want to paralyse her. When we realised how much was left behind and the problem for the surgeon not being able to easily distinguish cancer from normal brain, we committed to developing a technology that would light up the cancer. We focused on the scorpion toxin chlorotoxin, because what was thought to be the target of that molecule was present on brain tumour cells but not on brain cells. I figured that if there was ever a creature that could get a molecule into the brain, it would be the scorpion because they need to paralyse their prey. So we grew a human tumour on the back of a mouse; we connected the toxin (from the deathstalker scorpion) to a fluorescent tag and injected it into the mouse, and a couple of hours later the cancer was brightly glowing. It was a very exciting day.

As well as lighting them up, can this scorpion molecule also deliver chemotherapy drugs to tumours?
This wouldn’t be the right molecule to do that because a fair amount of it also goes to the liver and the spleen. If we put a toxin on it, it would also wipe out those normal organs. Through our current research we’ve identified a different molecule from a different organism – a grasshopper – that goes to cancer but much less to the liver and spleen. That’s the foundation for our future work.


Does tumour paint work for other cancers?
 
In prior work, the tumour paint molecule, known as BLZ-100, lit up a variety of cancers in dogs. Now scientists at Blaze Bioscience [the spin-off company co-founded by Olson which is running the ongoing human clinical trials] have reported that in skin cancer patients, the BLZ-100 signal was present in nearly all cases of confirmed cancer and was absent in most cases where the pathologist determined that the skin lesion was not cancer.

What is the difference between tumour paint and fluorescent imaging with 5-ALA that is approved for use in Europe but not the United States?
 
With 5-ALA surgeons can often get a better resection and patients a better outcome than without it. It does have some limitations. When there’s a brain tumour and the blood-brain barrier (which keeps nasty things out of our brain) is disrupted, the 5-ALA will get in there and light up that area. The challenge is that sometimes there are parts of the tumour where the blood-brain barrier is not interrupted, it’s intact, and so those don’t light up with 5-ALA. We set out to find a molecule that crosses the blood-brain barrier so it could light up tumours either way, whether the blood-brain barrier is intact or not, and where the drug actually binds to each cancer cell and goes inside the cancer cell and makes them glow so that surgeons can see cell by cell. We hope it will be much more accurate.

What drives your work?
 
Each week when I go to clinic, I ask myself: “What are we going to do today that I don’t want to be doing in 20 years, and how can my lab play a role in changing that?”

Why did you decide to go into paediatric oncology?
 
I took care of a little girl who passed away. Her parents told me that my words with them made her death as beautiful as her birth and that through the conversations we’d had, they’d learned that a life could be seven years long or 70 years long and what mattered was the beauty of what occurred during that time. I thought I had something to offer when the medicine didn’t go the way you wanted it to.

There are many photographs of children you have cared for in your office. How do you cope with the emotional side of your work?
 
I realised early on that I was going to suffer and be in pain when these kids passed away or weren’t doing well whether I chose to compartmentalise it or not. I decided to go all in and fully love each kid and each family and to become part of that family the day we meet. You can take extraordinary ups and downs when you are part of a family. I stay close to many of them.

Do you have children?
 
I’ve got two daughters, 21 and 17. They are both wonderful writers, activists and feminists. My older daughter is head of the animal rights group at the University of Washington so you’d think there’d be a big clash, but she did a TEDx talk last year and she wove our work together. My team tries to minimise the use of animals and importantly we’re very open to using alternatives when the alternatives are useful and accessible. Her point is that similar investments should be put into finding alternatives to animal testing as to continuing the status quo. We have very good and respectful conversations.

Is it frustrating that it takes so long to bring a new drug to market?
 
Well, it is – take tumour paint as an example. My own mother had a cancer that would definitely have benefited from it and it was too early to use it. It started in the skin on her face and went back into her brain. It ended up spreading extensively and that could have been avoided if it had been understood that they hadn’t got it all and had gone a little bit deeper. She’s doing fine now, two years later. I love my patients in the same way, so every week when we have kids, and we can’t use it yet… These things just take time though. The reality is that if things move forward too fast you can have really serious safety problems. I don’t get frustrated because frustration doesn’t help you move forward.

How do you fund your research?
 
Most innovative ideas are really hard to get approved through peer review [and therefore funded by grants] … so the families stepped up by doing chilli cook-offs, golf tournaments and auctions and they’ve raised over $10m since the late 90s. In 2013 we launched Project Violet. We’re well past $5m with that.

Tell me about Project Violet.
 
We decided to build a platform where we could identify other similar molecules [to the tumour paint molecule] that plants and animals use for protection in nature, and find a way to create hundreds of thousands of variations of these that could be used for screening for human diseases. I realised that to do this we were going to need to build a team of experts. We launched Project Violet so we could use social media and the public domain to co-operatively build these libraries of drug candidates. I launched that in my TEDx talk in June 2013 and since then we’ve been able to support, or partially support, 33 scientists. For a year around that, volunteers from Amazon here in Seattle helped us build our website and our social media presence.

Violet was a little girl who had a type of brain tumour that I’ve not yet had a child survive. She knew she was going to die. She decided to donate her tissue when she died to help other children. Also, some of these molecules we’re working on come from the violet plant.

Any other research successes?
 
One day, I realised I was prescribing medicines with no idea whether the cancer would be resistant to that drug. So, I hired two bioengineers and we created a technology where needles are exerted through the skin into a tumour and as the needles are withdrawn they leave behind tracks of different drugs. You let those drugs be present around the tumour cells a day or so, then take out the tumour and cut across-wise to the needles and see which ones work and which don’t. If a drug doesn’t kill any cancer cells when they are bathed in it, it certainly isn’t going to get any better when you give that drug as an IV or by mouth. I think this is going to revolutionise cancer and drug development.

Source from : http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/nov/01/scorpions-cancer-jim-olson-tumour-paint-deathstalker-brain-tumours

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Mother, daughter battle same type of cancer in West Texas

In this photo taken on Monday, 12, 2015, Kristol Veach, left, and her mother Maria Reyes are accompanied by Veach's daughters Ava and Aubrey as they enjoyed an outing to the The Fountains at Farah, in El Paso, Texas. On June 2, Veach was officially diagnosed with HER2-positive invasive ductal carcinoma — the most common form of breast cancer. The El Paso Times reports it is the exact same type of cancer her mother, Reyes, was diagnosed with six years earlier. (Victor Calzada /The El Paso Times via AP) EL DIARIO OUT; JUAREZ MEXICO OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT IF USE ON LAM OR LAT AND EL DIARIO DE EL PASO OU

                   EL PASO, Texas (AP) - On the very day of her youngest daughter’s preschool graduation, Kristol Veach received a call no woman wants to get.

  It was her oncologist requesting her to come in for a visit.

“I knew why they wanted to see me,” Veach said. “I asked them to give me two hours so I could watch her graduate.”

On June 2, Veach was officially diagnosed with HER2-positive invasive ductal carcinoma - the most common form of breast cancer. The El Paso Times reports (http://bit.ly/1O5VgUP ) it is the exact same type of cancer her mother, Maria Reyes, was diagnosed with six years earlier.

Veach, a neonatal intensive care (NICU) nurse at The Hospitals of Providence Memorial campus, knew she had cancer week’s before having a biopsy done.

“I could see on the sonogram that the area looked completely different,” she said. “I was devastated. I stayed in the car for 20 minutes crying. I called my husband and he said, ‘You don’t know how to read an ultrasound.’ He was right, but I could tell something looked different.”

Veach, 32, was scheduled to have a bilateral mastectomy (removal of both breasts) last Wednesday.

“It’s more difficult to see my daughter go through this than when I went through it myself,” Reyes said. “You never want to see your children go through any pain and to see her so sick and swollen, it just kills me. I felt horrible that I could have given it to her.”

In this case, the BRCA gene test - a blood test that uses DNA analysis to identify harmful changes in either one of the two breast cancer susceptibility genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2 - was negative.

“This is a very unique case,” said Dr. Ines Sanchez, the oncologist for both women. “Usually when we have these cases, it’s because they are positive for BRCA but they were not. (The cancer) was not genetically driven.”

Invasive ductal carcinoma refers to cancer that has broken through the wall of the milk duct and begun to invade the tissues of the breast. Over time, invasive ductal carcinoma can spread to the lymph nodes and to other areas of the body.

According to the American Cancer Society, more than 180,000 women in the United States find out they have invasive breast cancer each year. About 80 percent are diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma.

HER2-positive breast cancer is breast cancer that tests positive for a protein called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), which promotes the growth of cancer cells.

“It makes up about 20 percent of all cancers,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez said despite Veach having a more aggressive treatment plan, she seems to have handled it better than her mother.

“She saw what her mother went through and experienced it with her,” Sanchez said. “She was more up beat going through the chemo. She had dance videos with her co-workers and was more upbeat about it even through she was sicker than her mother.”

Veach, her co-workers and family dance before each of her chemotherapy treatments and post them on YouTube.

“Everybody kind of looks forward to my chemo treatments because they want to see the videos,” Veach said with a huge smile.

“The first one was ‘I Will Survive,’” she said. “It was just me jumping around by myself. The second one was with my coworkers, we did the Nae Nae. The third one was the Hokey Pokey with my daughters. We did a dance compilation with my mom and the last one we did ‘Thriller’ with my brothers.”

Reyes, 58, had a mastectomy on her right breast six years ago. She has been in remission for five years.

“I was working so hard that I forget to take my mammograms,” said Reyes, who is an oncology nurse at The Hospitals of Providence Sierra campus. “If I had been doing my check-ups we could have picked it up earlier. I try to encourage everyone to make sure they get their mammograms, get checked and do their exams.”

The only reason Veach went in to get checked was because of a New Year’s resolution she made with her husband.

“Our New Year’s resolution was we were going to start going to the doctor regularly and eat healthier so I went to my OBGYN to have my annual and he wanted to get a baseline mammogram,” she said. “I never thought it was going to come out positive.”

Just as Veach was there for her mother every step of the way, Reyes has been there for her daughter.

“She has been so strong,” she said. “Everybody has been very supportive of her. I just try to give her encouragement. I know some days she feels horrible but I tell her not to worry, it will get better.”

Veach simply laughs.

“I feel like a big wuss,” she said. “My mom was so awesome. Every time I would go and see her, she was awesome. She was still working like if it was nothing, she was amazing. I feel like I just cave in all the time.”

She did say it was nice to know that she has her mother to lean on through these difficult times.

“Even if she hadn’t gone through the experience I know she would be there for me,” Veach said. “My mom is just that type of person. She is always there for anybody whether it’s me or people that she knows.

Source from : http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/2/mother-daughter-battle-same-type-of-cancer-in-west/?page=all#pagebreak

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New Treatment to Target Mutated Cancer Cells

London:  Oxford researchers have found the 'Achilles heel' of certain cancer cells - mutations in a gene which could be targeted with a new drug to kill cancer cells that are resistant to treatment.

It is well known that mutations drive cancer cell growth and resistance to treatment. However, these mutations can also become a weak point for a tumour.

The researchers from University of Oxford in UK found that was the case for cancer cells with mutations in a key cancer gene called SETD2.

"Mutations in SETD2 are frequently found in kidney cancer and some childhood brain tumours, so we were excited when we discovered that a new drug we were studying specifically killed cancer cells with this mutation," said study author Timothy Humphrey from Oxford Institute for Radiation Oncology.

Researchers showed that cancer cells with a mutated SETD2 gene were killed by a drug called AZD1775 that inhibits a protein called WEE1.

The team achieved this by exploiting the concept of 'synthetic lethality', where a combination of two factors kills a cancer cell.

This has the potential to be a less toxic and more effective treatment than more standard approaches because it can specifically target cancer cells.

"When WEE1 was inhibited in cells with a SETD2 mutation, the levels of deoxynucleotides, the components that make DNA, dropped below the critical level needed for replication," said co-author Andy Ryan, from University of Oxford.

"Starved of these building blocks, the cells die. Importantly, normal cells in the body do not have SETD2 mutations, so these effects of WEE1 inhibition are potentially very selective to cancer cells," Mr Ryan said.

The research team have also developed a biomarker test to identify SETD2 mutated tumours, something that can be used immediately in cancer diagnosis.

"This novel and exciting finding provides a new scientific basis for precision targeting of some cancers which are currently very difficult to treat, and we are now taking these findings into clinical trials," said Tim Maughan, Clinical Director of the Cancer Research UK/ Medical Research Council Oxford Institute for Radiation Oncology.

While there is still work to do before a treatment is available, the hope is that these findings will help to target other cancers with similar weak points and provide a step towards personalised cancer therapy, researchers said. 
Source from : http://www.ndtv.com/health/new-treatment-to-target-mutated-cancer-cells-1239128

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‘I’m cancer-free thanks to early detection’

Sandra Lee Photo: FilmMagic

Far from a gold standard, the new American Cancer Society guidelines for breast-cancer care are a cold standard for women.

Last week, the ACS ended its decades-long advisory for women to receive annual mammograms, beginning at age 40. The age is now pushed back to 45, with the recommendation for women over 55 — those with the highest death rates from breast cancer — to only have screenings every other year.

More than 40,000 women in America will die of breast cancer this year, according to the ACS. Which makes its new, relaxed screening guidelines all the more perplexing — and dangerous.

I’m concerned by this seismic shift in women’s health because I’m one of the ACS’s estimated 294,130 women who received a breast cancer diagnosis this year.

And I’m most worried for the women who’ll be hurt most by this: young women, poor women, women of color, women with limited education and women whose access to health care and the means to pay for it are terribly restricted. The American Cancer Society also reported that women from poor areas have the highest rates of death from breast cancer.

Breast cancer remains a leading cause of death in women under 40, taking 12,000 such lives a year. It has an especially savage impact on minority women, particularly in African-American women whose cancer rates at age 35 are double those of white women, with triple the mortality rate.

Only lung cancer kills more African-American and white women than breast cancer. And for Hispanic women, breast cancer is the No. 1 killer.

You may write off my alarm in the assumption that my double mastectomy gives me a warped view of the threat of breast cancer. But the simple fact remains: Screening, wheth­er high-definition ultrasound or mammogram, saves lives.

Each and every doctor I met with, at the most respected hospitals and cancer treatment centers in New York, said that women being diagnosed in their 20s and 30s is no longer an anomaly, but an epidemic. This was also overwhelmingly clear when women flooded my Facebook and other social-media platforms with stories of early detection that saved their lives, years — even decades — before age 45.

So, how, in good conscience, can anyone be expected to look at a daughter, a niece, a sister or a friend and tell them to take their chances until they are 45? Not me — not my family. These new guidelines will almost surely cost some women their lives.

Poring over the rationale to push back testing five years and cut mammograms in half, I’m reminded of economics classes in college filled with marginal efficiency of capital and marginal productivity of labor theories. But this isn’t theoretical economics. This is the survival of women — women who shouldn’t be penalized because they don’t have the premium health care, or they live in rural areas without state-of-the-art testing facilities or high-definition ultrasound detectors.

How can we seemingly write these women off? The American Cancer Society has also reported that women from poor areas have the highest rates of death from breast cancer. Do we write them off too? Who else?

And the myth prevails for women of all ages, races and socio-economic backgrounds that if breast cancer doesn’t hang on your family tree, chances are you don’t need to worry, either. But the American Cancer Society reported just eight weeks ago that 85 percent of breast cancers occur in women like me, with no family history. Why those diagnoses are growing without a hereditary component, no one can answer.

But here’s what I do know: I’m cancer-free — thanks to early detection in a routine annual mammogram, at age 48. Breast-cancer death rates in women have been on the decline since 1989, and the biggest decrease has been in women under 50 — a testament to treatment advances and early detection.

It’s tremendous progress, but it’s not enough — though you wouldn’t know that from listening to the American Cancer Society.

We may never be able to eliminate breast cancer. But we must make every effort to protect women by giving them the information and the medical resources they need for early detection.

Sandra Lee is a philanthropist, author, TV personality and editor-in-chief of Sandra Lee Magazine and sandralee.com.
source from : http://nypost.com/2015/11/01/im-cancer-free-because-of-early-detection/

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