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Guidelines for sites linking to mayoclinic.orgView syndicated health information from Mayo Clinic.
If you've ever been in the hospital, you know that it's usually not much fun. You may have to take medicine that makes you feel lousy, have tests and are no doubt a little anxious about being there. Doctors at Mayo are working on making the hospital experience easier for patients and their families.
Resource: Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Brain tumors, not all are curable, but technology and medicine continue to get better, giving better lives to people who struggle with these diseases.
Vertebroplasty is a treatment option for patients with severe pain from fractures in the spine due to osteoporosis. The outpatient procedure involves injecting surgical cement in to the spine at the location of the fracture. Most patients find pain relief within 48 hours. Only patients with treatable fractures will benefit from the procedure.
For many years, doctors have been using the vibrations of ultrasound to diagnose and even treat many conditions. Now research shows that the vibrations of a harp may help improve the condition of people nearing the end of life.
Let's go to Mayo Clinic to learn how one woman is being proactive in preventing breast cancer -- the disease that took her mother's life.
Resource: Treatment of Breast Cancer
Quit smoking or you might get cancer. No doubt you've heard that message before. How about this one? Eat right and exercise to maintain weight and stay healthy. This information has been around a long time. But now, you might want to take it more seriously. That's because doctors at Mayo Clinic published a study of over 30-thousand postmenopausal women that showed women who make certain healthy lifestyle choices significantly reduced their risk of developing or dying from cancer.
Can a pregnant woman get the lifesaving chemotherapy she needs without harming her unborn child? Doctors at Mayo Clinic have the answers.
Resource: Treatment of Breast Cancer
He was young, in college, with a great girlfriend and a future career. But then he got hit with a potentially deadly cancer. The chances of beating the disease were fair, but only if he had surgery and heavy doses of chemotherapy - a treatment with many side effects including the possibility of becoming sterile.
Ask just about any of the 8 million people who're addicted to smokeless tobacco and they'll likely tell you: it's harder to quit chewing than it is to quit smoking.
Resource: Nicotine Dependence Center
She was living the American dream. She was young, had a loving husband, two healthy sons, and a successful career as a doctor. But her dreams were shattered by breast cancer. And within weeks of her diagnosis an unbelievable chain of events happened. Her three sisters and mother were also all diagnosed with the disease.
For this year, 2007, the National Cancer Institute estimates that more than 50,000 people will be diagnosed with kidney cancer. Many will have surgery to remove the tumors. But some people are not able to have an operation because of other medical problems. In that case doctors at Mayo Clinic offer another, less-invasive option. It's called cryoablation.
Resource: Treatment of Kidney Cancer
Imagine standing in a room with eight female friends or family members. Statistics show that one of them will get breast cancer in her lifetime
Resource: Treatment of Breast Cancer
For thousands of years, practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine have used the herb ginseng to increase energy, endurance and brain power. Research shows that in many cases, the herb may help. Researchers at Mayo Clinic led a study with ginseng and found it may also help fight fatigue in cancer patients.
Resource: Cancer Treatment at Mayo Clinic
Modern medicine has made amazing advances in the treatment of many cancers. Take prostate cancer, for example. If you catch it early, it's often curable. But once the cancer spreads to other parts of your body, it can be much harder to stop. That's why researchers at Mayo Clinic are studying how cancer cells move. They want to learn how cancer cells spread, or metastasize - in hopes of one day finding therapies to stop the progression of these deadly diseases.
Every year, 1 million people in the United States are diagnosed with basal cell or squamous cell carcinomas. Skin cancer. These non-melanoma skin cancers usually don't kill, but they can destroy tissue if they're not removed.
Resource: Treatment of Skin Cancer
It might be cancer. Those words are not easy to hear. Especially if you're faced with the possibility of a large operation to find out. Doctors at Mayo Clinic are striving to make complicated surgeries easier on patients. They're using technology that allows a more rapid recovery, less pain and the chance to get back to life as usual faster than standard operations.
Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in this nation, right behind lung cancer. Screening tools like colonoscopy may save your life. That's because if caught early, colon cancer can be curable. Traditional surgery for this tough cancer includes a long incision, about a week in the hospital and weeks of recovery at home. But now, a national study led by doctors at Mayo Clinic shows that a less-invasive approach to surgery is safe, and it gets patients back to a normal life faster.
Statistics show that if you're male and you live long enough you're probably going to get it. Four out of five men will develop an enlarged prostate gland by the time they're 80 years old. It's a normal part of aging, but benign prostatic hyperplasia, or BPH, can cause annoying and embarrassing symptoms. Medications can help, but the most effective cure has been surgery. Now, doctors at Mayo Clinic offer less-invasive ways to correct the problem.
Thanks to modern imaging technology doctors are finding breast cancer earlier, while it's still curable. But most of the time, tumors are so small doctors can't feel them. They can't tell exactly where they are. But now, doctors at Mayo Clinic are using a new technique that allows them to pinpoint tumors more precisely, giving them a better chance at removing all of the cancer.
He's a world-class martial arts champion. But his strength could not fend off a deadly cancer. A cancer that causes debilitating pain. It took some intense detective work by doctors at Mayo Clinic to make the diagnosis and find a treatment that would keep this athlete alive.
Resource: Cancer Treatment
It could be your mother, sister, aunt or best friend. One out of every seven women you know will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Thankfully, advances in early detection and treatment are helping many women beat breast cancer. But there's always the fear that the cancer could come back. Now for the first time, doctors at Mayo Clinic, working with doctors in Canada and in seven other countries, have proven that a new drug can cut a woman's risk of getting a recurrence of breast cancer almost in half.
Mayo Clinic doctors offer new breast reconstruction for patients needing surgery. Standard reconstructions involve removing part of an abdominal muscle and surrounding fat. Now, doctors can transfer only fat and vessels to construct the new breast. Patients recover more quickly and struggle less with problems relating to loss of stomach muscle.
Every day, doctors use ultrasound, CT scans and MRIs to see inside the body without making an incision. Those tests are great at showing size and structure, but they don't show important physical properties such as tissue stiffness, which, for example, is a sign of fibrosis in the liver. But researchers at Mayo Clinic have developed technology that uses sound waves to see if a patient's liver is harder than it should be — if it's developing fibrosis. It's called Magnetic Resonance Elastography, and it offers a noninvasive alternative to liver biopsy.
Resource: Treatment of Liver Disease
Research shows nicotine replacement therapy helps. But which type works best? The patch, nasal spray, nicotine gum?
Resource: Stop Smoking
Malignant melanoma can be deadly if it's not caught early. Standard treatment involves removing the mole and also removing lymph nodes to see if the cancer has spread. But now, doctors are using a test that shows them whether or not cancer has spread to the lymph nodes and tells them exactly which ones need to be removed.
Mayo Clinic uses celiac nerve block to control pain for patients with pancreatic cancer.
Brain cancer is one of the most common cancers in children, second only to leukemia. But unlike leukemia, the genes that cause pediatric brain cancer continue to be somewhat of a mystery to researchers. They don't know why some tumors just don't respond to treatment. Doctors at Mayo Clinic are working hard to find the genes responsible for tumor growth in hopes of one day finding an easier cure for patients like the 15-year-old you're about to meet.
Resource: Treatment of Pediatric Brain Tumors
Is the tumor benign or malignant? That's a key question for doctors and patients whenever a lesion is found. The new Dedicated Ring-Detector PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scanner provides accurate diagnosis and improved care for patients with cancers, such as lung, colorectal, esophageal, melanoma, and lymphoma. A newly improved version of the conventional PET scanner, this PET scan can identify areas of cancer spread, distinguish between scar tissue and active tumor, and help determine cancer response to chemotherapy and radiation therapy. A patient can have a PET scan, rather than needle biopsy, to see if the nodule is benign or malignant. And in most cases, this new PET scan can show if a tumor is contained and operable or has spread making it inoperable. This technology can help save the patient from painful surgeries that may be unproductive.
Every year medical science takes leaps not steps. Now combine two excellent diagnostic techniques for finding cancer and you have an often life-saving test that's very precise. Doctors at Mayo Clinic are using two types of scans in one test. CT scans plus what's called a PET scan equals a more accurate diagnosis, and could save you from unnecessary biopsies or surgery.
Occasional heartburn is usually nothing to worry about. But if heartburn hits two or more times a week, you may be at risk of developing a condition called Barrett's esophagus that increases your risk of cancer.
Resource: Treatment with Photodynamic Therapy
Sun exposure can increase you risk of developing a type of skin cancer called malignant melanoma. If it spreads, there is no cure. Here are some tips on how to prevent melanoma and how to recognize suspicious moles.
Osteosarcoma is a deadly cancer for some children diagnosed with the disease. However, early treatment can mean a cure for some of these patients. While many of these children may beat the cancer, they have to deal with prosthetic bone implants that do not grow as they grow. Doctors at Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale removed a tumor from a little girl's leg bone and replaced it with a special prosthesis.
Swollen glands. If you've ever had a bad cold, you've probably had them. Those tender little glands under your jaw are a sign that the white blood cells in your lymph nodes are working to fight the infection. So most of the time swollen glands are a good thing. But if they don't hurt and don't go away, they could be a sign of something more serious.
Resource: Treatment of Cancer
Doctors are using robots for many operations including prostate cancer surgery. Learn the latest on how this advance in technology is helping some patients get better faster.
Resource: Treatment with Robotic Prostatectomy
Not long ago kids with bone cancer in a leg faced amputation. But now, doctors at Mayo Clinic are performing a surgery that allows some kids to regain use of their leg, even after part of it has been removed.
Resource: Treatment with Rotationplasty
Research has shown that for some cancers, screening for early detection most definitely saves lives. Examples are mammograms for breast cancer and colonoscopy for colon cancer. But not all cancers have screening tools that have been proven to work. Let's go to Mayo Clinic to learn more about screening for lung cancer.
Resource: Treatment of Lung Cancer
Maybe it's your mom, wife, sister or best friend. Chances are you know someone with breast cancer, because one out of eight women is diagnosed with the disease. It used to be your had no choice but to have your breast removed along with all the lymph nodes. Removal of those nodes is what causes most of the pain and complications. But now, a new, minimally invasive procedure allows doctors to find out whether or not your cancer has spread to the nodes, and shows them exactly which ones, if any, need to be removed. It makes what used to be a big operation much, much smaller.
Mayo Clinic gives tips on how to prevent and recognize malignant melanoma, the deadliest type of skin cancer. The story also explains how the cancer grows from a mole or freckle on the skin into the body.
In the spring of 2006 the National Cancer Institute released initial results of the STAR trial for breast cancer prevention. The study compared the drug tamoxifen to another drug called raloxifene. Both reduced the incidence of invasive breast cancer by 50 percent in high-risk postmenopausal women.
Resource: Treatment of Breast Cancer
If you have kidney cancer, you might not get symptoms until it's rather advanced. Not long ago a diagnosis like that was bad news. But now, thanks to technology, teamwork and medical expertise, people are beating this deadly disease.
Resource: Treatment of Kidney Cancer
Ten years ago, 48,000 women -- mothers, wives, sisters -- died every year from breast cancer. Today, that number has dropped to 40,000. But it's still too high. That's why many women who are at high risk of getting breast cancer choose genetic testing.
Resource: Breast Cancer Risk Assessment
The words "you have breast cancer" are never easy to hear. They often mean the beginning of a treatment plan that can be very difficult. For some women, talking about their cancer with those who've been through it can help make the process easier. And doctors at Mayo Clinic say this communication may improve the quality of life of many women fighting this disease.
Resource: Treatment of Breast Cancer
Have you ever heard of the drug thalidomide? It was banned from use in the 60's because it caused severe birth defects in babies whose mothers took it during pregnancy to reduce symptoms of morning sickness. But the same properties that make thalidomide so dangerous, are helping in the treatment of multiple myeloma - a deadly cancer of the bone marrow for which there is no cure.
It kills half of its victims. Colon cancer. But you can beat colon cancer if it's diagnosed early. In fact, you can even prevent colon cancer from developing if you're screened properly. So how do you know when to be screened or what type of test you should take? Here are some answers to those questions.
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