Why People Stick with Cancer Screening, Even When It Causes Harm | TIME.com

A great graphic that communicates the hard evidence in a powerful way on prostate cancer screening, overall death rates, and unnecessary treatment.

Main reasons why people prefer the anecdote over evidence:

1. General power of anecdotes to trump evidence – and everyone has an anecdote, either concerning someone they know or a celebrity
2. Deep seated need for suffering to be meaningful

Why People Stick with Cancer Screening, Even When It Causes Harm | Healthland | TIME.com.

Personality Secrets to a Long Life – MedicineNet

And the list is:

• Be outgoing
• Be positive — not the type to talk ill of others
• Laugh often
• Express emotions
• Are conscientious
• Not be neurotic

Quote:

“We know personality has a strong genetic background,” she says. Those who live to 100, Jopp says, “seem to have a very special psychological makeup.”

Those who age successfully adjust their expectations about health, she has found. They accept a few aches and pains, she says. They don’t focus on complaints, such as having trouble sleeping.

Based on her work and that of others, Jopp says for now she can give this advice to those who want to make it to 100: “Don’t get too stressed out,” she says.

“People who are optimistic and look positively into the future have not only a better time, but it may help them live longer,” she says.

Personality Secrets to a Long Life – MedicineNet.

Global Cancer Rates Set to Soar by 2030

No longer a ‘rich country’ disease: cancer rates will jump more than 75 percent by 2030, over 90 percent in developing countries.

Main reason is population growth and aging of the population. Type of cancer varies by country. In the US, obesity-related cancers such as breast and colon cancer are expected to rise. In developing countries, rates related to infection are high such as cervical, liver and stomach cancer. As countries develop, so does the type of cancer. Quote:

It means that as countries become more developed and move toward a more Westernized way of life — not exercising, eating an unhealthy diet, and smoking — rates of these cancers will increase, Nanus says. This will occur against the backdrop of lower rates of cancers linked to infection.

Americans are a cautionary tale, he says. “Globally, there has to be a greater emphasis on lifestyle prevention and getting the message across that the Western diet in America is not as great as it is made out to be.”

There could be a double whammy. Developing countries will start seeing the same cancers that Westernized countries are seeing, but they won’t have the same access to state-of-the-art health care. “There will be a peak in cancers and more deaths due to differences in health care.”

Leslie Bernstein, PhD, has seen this shift coming. She is an epidemiologist at the City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif.

“As we control those cancers which are related to infection like liver cancer and stomach cancer, we are going to see more cancers that are environmentally caused, meaning that they are related to lack of physical activity, obesity, smoking, and things like that,” she says.

“These cancers take over as countries become more and more Westernized.”

Global Cancer Rates Set to Soar by 2030.

A New Class of Cancer Drugs May Be Less Toxic – NYTimes.com

A good overview piece on one of the more promising treatments in cancer treatment: targeted therapy, harnessing antibodies to deliver ‘toxic payloads’  to cancer cells, thereby largely sparing health cells, and without the major side effects of conventional chemo and radiation therapies.

Current drugs include Adcetris, for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and T-DM1 for breast cancer, with about 25 other drugs in clinical trials. Pretty amazing technology.

A New Class of Cancer Drugs May Be Less Toxic – NYTimes.com.

X-rays and iPads: The network healthcare evolution | Ars Technica

An overview piece on some approaches to more aggressive use of technology to:

• Monitor patients’ health more proactively with networked devices, ranging from wirelessly networked medicine bottle lids to worn or embedded sensors that report back on vital signs;
• Coordinate care with the help of analytic tools in the cloud and a wealth of individual and collective patient data; and
• Connect physicians directly with patients over PCs or mobile devices for between-appointment follow-ups.

And of course the easy, an obvious applications for iPads (imaging, not just x-rays), particularly with the latest model and its HD display.

And the usual obstacles and challenges to making this happen, ranging from privacy considerations to compensation.

X-rays and iPads: The network healthcare evolution | Ars Technica.

Life, Interrupted: Keeping Cancer at Bay – NYTimes.com

The latest from Suleika Jaouad. Best lines:

I’ve begun to think of cancer as a junkyard dog. It may be fenced in, but it’s snarling, always trying to dig under the fence. So the tentative news was good. My bone marrow was clear, but I would have to work like hell to keep it at bay, behind the fence. One test can determine an initial diagnosis, but it’s many tests over months or years that track the progress to a cure. That means there’s always another scan down the road. The biopsy next time.

Life, Interrupted: Keeping Cancer at Bay – NYTimes.com.

Doctor and Patient: Afraid to Speak Up at the Doctor’s Office – NYTimes.com

A good piece on the patient-doctor relationship, and how patients feel uncomfortable asking their doctors about treatment alternatives. Quote:

The participants responded that they felt limited, almost trapped into certain ways of speaking with their doctors. They said they wanted to collaborate in decisions about their care but felt they couldn’t because doctors often acted authoritarian, rather than authoritative. A large number worried about upsetting or angering their doctors and believed that they were best served by acting as “supplicants” toward the doctor “who knows best.” Many also believed that they could depend only on themselves for getting more information about treatments or diseases. Some even said they feared retribution by doctors who could ultimately affect their care and how they did.

The gap between the patients and doctors perceptions was striking, as doctors largely feel they are already doing shared decision-making. What makes this study interesting is that most participants were affluent, well-educated and over 50 – precisely the group that should be most comfortable, and most likely to view themselves as peers to doctors.

My own experience with my decision tree was open and joint. Yes, I was ‘steered’ toward having the allo SCT, but it was done in an open and joint manner. And as in my case, as in general, this takes time:

“We urgently need support of shared decision-making that is more than just rhetoric,” Dr. Frosch said. “It may take a little longer to talk through decisions and disagreements; but if we empower patients to make informed choices, we will all do much better in the long run.”

Doctor and Patient: Afraid to Speak Up at the Doctor’s Office – NYTimes.com.