Cancer CarePoint Blog

Treating Breast Cancer - Five Things to Remember

The Cheerful Oncologist provides some advice for anyone who has just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Source: The Cheerful Oncologist

The consensus recommendations for treating breast cancer, known affectionately as the “standard of care” or “current guidelines”, are rapidly changing due to advances in the efficacy of chemotherapy and targeted therapy. What outcomes are measured, you ask? Here are the biggies:

1. Whether or not the tumor decreased in size substantially with treatment, called the response rate.

2. The percentage of patients who are still alive as time goes by, called the overall survival rate.

3. The length of time it took for the cancer to reappear in the body, called the time to progression.

4. The percentage of patients who are not just alive but also still free from any signs of their cancer, called the relapse-free survival rate.

These are the main outcomes that breast cancer researchers study when trying to determine if a new treatment is superior to the current “standard of care.”

The five things are:

Mesothelioma and Asbestos

Why we should avoid exposure to asbestos.

Source: Protect Against Mesothelioma by Avoiding Asbestos

Mesothelioma has been linked to asbestos exposure. Asbestos is a type of building material used in thermal insulation products and ceiling tiles. In the United States, asbestos usage peaked during the 1950s - 1970s. During the late 1960s, concerns over the health
consequences of asbestos exposure began to arise, thereby decreasing the amount of asbestos manufactured in next two decades. By the 1980s, a new industry of asbestos
abatement began to flourish. But according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as many as 733,000 schools and public buildings still contain asbestos.

Small asbestos fibers that enter the air do not evaporate and can remain suspended in the air for a long time. These fibers, when breathed into the body, are toxic. There are three types of asbestos exposure.

Occupational asbestos exposure: People working in factories that manufacure asbestos are likely to have a high exposure to asbestos and are most at risk of developing asbestosis or mesothelioma.

Paraoccupational asbestos exposure: Family members of workers exposed to asbestos in the workplace are susceptible to exposure from asbestos dust brought home by the worker on his clothes or skin.

Neighborhood asbestos exposure: Those who live in the vicinity of an asbestos manufacturing plant are also at risk.