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Doctors hail new era for cancer screening as major research shows effectiveness of Galleri test Doctors have told health services to prepare for a new era of cancer screening after a study found a simple blood test could spot multiple cancer types in patients before they develop clear symptoms. The Pathfinder study offered the blood test to more than 6,600 adults aged 50 and over, and detected dozens of new cases of disease. Many cancers were at an early stage and nearly three-quarters were forms not routinely screened for. It is the first time results from the Galleri test, which...

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers developed a single blood test that screens for eight common cancer types and helps identify the location of the cancer, AsiaNet Pakistan reported. The test, called CancerSEEK, is a unique noninvasive, multi-analyte test that simultaneously evaluates levels of eight cancer proteins and the presence of cancer gene mutations from circulating DNA in the blood. The test is aimed at screening for eight common cancer types that account for more than 60 percent of cancer deaths in the US. Five of the cancers covered by the test currently have no screening test. “The...

GPs are being paid millions by the NHS to ration referrals for operations, scans and even cancer tests, an investigation reveals today. Family doctors are being offered the financial incentives in a bid to slash the number of patients they send to hospital for a variety of procedures. The incentives mostly cover non-urgent referrals for hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery, hearing tests and abdomen scans. But two health trusts have included urgent cancer scans in their schemes, and another two covered heart tests. Patient groups said the payments were ‘profoundly wrong’, while one MP likened them to ‘bribes’. Doctors’...

Screening older patients for cancer provided minimal benefit at considerable cost and increased use of invasive procedures, reported investigators in two separate studies. "It is particularly important to question screening strategies for older persons," Gross continued. "Patients with a shorter life expectancy have less time to develop clinically significant cancers after a screening test and are more likely to die from noncancer health problems after a cancer diagnosis."

WASHINGTON -- Certain current or former heavy smokers should start getting yearly scans for lung cancer to cut their risk of death from the nation's top cancer killer, government advisers said Monday — even as they stressed that the tests aren't for everyone. The long-anticipated decision by the influential U.S. Preventive Services Task Force says these CT scans of the lungs should be offered only to people at especially high risk: those who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for 30 years or an equivalent amount, such as two packs a day for 15 years — and who are...

The damning OIG report comes just weeks after VA admitted that six veteran deaths were linked to delayed cancer screenings at a VA facility in South Carolina and a report that appointment delays led to veterans being harmed in Augusta, Ga. VA, which spent more than $3.5 million on furniture on the last day of fiscal year 2013, also awarded a five-figure bonus to the executive who oversaw the Memphis facility, even as it acknowledged that problems were cropping up. “Like other hospital systems, VA isn’t immune from human error — even fatal human error. But what the department does...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - Obama Inc. to Deny Cancer Treatments by Redefining What “Cancer” IsPosted By Daniel Greenfield On September 30, 2013 @ 11:42 am In The Point | 24 Comments The death panels aren’t going to come through the front door. They’re going to sneak up on you from behind with piano wire. On July 29, 2013, a working group for the National Cancer Institute (the main government agency for cancer research) published a paper proposing that the term “cancer” be reserved for lesions with a reasonable likelihood of killing the patient if left untreated. Slower growing...

Optimal screening frequency depends on the cancer's growth rate. If a cancer is fast growing, screening is rarely effective. If a cancer is slow growing but progressive, with a long latency and a precancerous lesion (eg, colonic polyps or cervical intraepithelial neoplasia), screening is ideal and less frequent screening (eg, 10 years for colonoscopy) may be effective. In the case of an indolent tumor, detection is potentially harmful because it can result in overtreatment. These observations provide an opportunity to refocus screening on reducing disease morbidity and mortality and lower the burden of cancer screening and treatments. In March 2012,...

Just listened to Hairy Reid claim that Repubs are throwing WOMEN under the Bus. Not funding Planned Parenthood will mean his Daughter and GrandDaughter will NOT get Cancer Screening, Cholesterol tests? He didn't mention PP, he said Title 10, which is PP funding. But the most pathetic arguement was that the non-essential employees will not get to buy the NEW CAR they have waited 3 years to get. Not one word of sympathy for the 14 million un/underemployed Americans that the DumocRATS have NO sympathy for.

Yesterday's post looked at the issues relevant to health-care reform raised by the fact of the president's recent annual physical, starting with the act of getting an annual physical exam in the first place. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has long recommended that rather than a lock-step, one-size-fits-all approach, periodic health screening be conducted according to individualized factors. "This year's examination focused on evidence-based screening prevention and primary care, targeted to the president as an individual and his occupation," the exam's final report stated. And indeed, the president, who is 48, was too young to warrant much in...

Cancer Screenings - Rational Advice or Rationed Care? It was a breath of fresh air to finally hear the Democrats admit to their health care bill as “a lot of show and tell and razzmatazz,” (see Democrat talking points, in reference to my book). At least now we’re all on the same page when discussing the problems with their monstrous government health care “reform” plan. Now, tonight, more disconcerting news – the New York Times reports of new guidelines to scale back cervical cancer screenings. The recommendation from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists comes on the heels of...

SAN FRANCISCO — Only 21% of Massachusetts women older than age 40 years were not in mammographic screening programs. Yet unscreened women accounted for 75% of the breast cancer deaths in an analysis of data on 6,997 invasive breast cancers diagnosed in 1990-1999 and followed through 2007. “The most effective method for women to avoid death from breast cancer is to have regular mammographic screening,” Dr. Blake Cady said at a breast cancer symposium sponsored by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, where he presented the data. Extrapolation from the study's results suggests that for the projected 192,370 women nationwide...

Controversy over the benefits of screening for breast cancer and prostate cancer hit the headlines and the blogosphere when the New York Times reported that the American Cancer Society is planning to temper its proscreening message for breast and prostate cancers, and a prominent representative of the society denied it on his blog. By the end of the day, the society's chief medical officer, Dr. Otis W. Brawley, posted a firm statement that the ACS stands by its screening guidelines. “The bottom line is that mammography has helped avert deaths from breast cancer, and we can make more progress against...

Health Care: A government task force has decided that women need fewer mammograms and later in life. Shouldn't that be between patient and physician? We have seen the future of health care, and it doesn't work. We have warned repeatedly that the net results of health care bills before Congress will be higher demand, fewer doctors, more cost control, all leading to rationing. New recommendations issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) regarding breast cancer and the necessity for early and frequent mammograms do not convince us otherwise. Just six months ago, the panel, which works under the...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Cancer experts fear new U.S. breast imaging guidelines that recommend against routine screening mammograms for women in their 40s may have their roots in the current drive in Washington to reform healthcare. Critics of the guidelines, issued on Monday by the U.S. Services Task Force, an independent panel sponsored by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Quality, say the new guidelines are a step backward and will lead to more cancer deaths. Here are some of their concerns. * Dr Carol Lee, chairwoman of the American College of Radiology Breast Imaging Commission, said she fears insurers -- both...

The American Cancer Society, which has long been a staunch defender of most cancer screening, is now saying that the benefits of detecting many cancers, especially breast and prostate, have been overstated. It is quietly working on a message, to put on its Web site early next year, to emphasize that screening for breast and prostate cancer and certain other cancers can come with a real risk of overtreating many small cancers while missing cancers that are deadly... --snip-- The new analysis — by Dr. Laura Esserman, a professor of surgery and radiology at the University of California, San Francisco,...

In a move that could lead to significant changes in medical care for older men, a national task force on Monday recommended that doctors stop screening men ages 75 and older for prostate cancer because the search for the disease in this group was causing more harm than good. The guidelines, issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, represent an abrupt policy change by an influential panel that had withheld any advice regarding screening for prostate cancer, citing a lack of reliable evidence. Though the task force still has not taken a stand on the value of screening in...