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Cancer Education in Minnesota

Video Features

View syndicated health information from Mayo Clinic.

Television

  • Art at the Bedside

    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.

  • Brain Tumor Success Story

    Brain tumors, not all are curable, but technology and medicine continue to get better, giving better lives to people who struggle with these diseases.

  • Branden's Story

  • Breast Cancer and Osteoporosis

    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.

  • Breast Cancer Drug Study

    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.

  • Breast Cancer Prevention Options

    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.

  • Cancer Risk and Lifestyle

    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.

  • Chemotherapy and Pregnancy

    Can a pregnant woman get the lifesaving chemotherapy she needs without harming her unborn child? Doctors at Mayo Clinic have the answers.

  • Chemotherapy and Sterility

    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.

  • Chew-Tobacco Lozenge Study

    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.

  • Clinical Trials for Breast Cancer

  • Comprehensive Breast Cancer Care

    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.

  • Freezing Kidney Tumors

    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.

  • Genetic Risks of Breast 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

  • Ginseng for Cancer Fatigue

    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.

  • High Tech Radiation Therapy

  • How Cancer Cells Spread

    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.

  • Incidence of Skin Cancer

    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.

  • Laparoscopic Colon Removal

    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.

  • Laparoscopy for Colon Cancer

    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.

  • Less-Invasive Prostate Treatment

    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.

  • Locating Breast Tumors

    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.

  • Neurolymphoma

    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.

  • New Biopsy for Breast Cancer

  • New Breast 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.

  • New Breast Reconstruction

    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.

  • New Test for Liver Disease

    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.

  • Nicotine Therapy Options

    Research shows nicotine replacement therapy helps. But which type works best? The patch, nasal spray, nicotine gum?

  • Node Biopsy for Melanoma

    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.

  • Pain Control for Pancreatic Cancer

    Mayo Clinic uses celiac nerve block to control pain for patients with pancreatic cancer.

  • Pediatric Brain 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.

  • PET Scanner

    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.

  • PET/CT Scanning for Cancer Diagnosis

    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.

  • Photodynamic Therapy

    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.

  • Preventing Malignant Melanoma

    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.

  • Prosthesis for Children with Bone Cancer

    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.

  • Radiation for Lymphoma

    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.

  • Radiofrequency Tumor Ablation

  • Robotic Prostatectomy

    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.

  • Rotationplasty

    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.

  • Screening for Lung Cancer

    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.

  • Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy

    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.

  • Skin Cancer Awareness

    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.

  • STAR Trial Update

    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.

  • Surviving Childhood Cancer

  • Surviving Kidney 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.

  • Taking Aim at Breast 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.

  • Talking About Breast Cancer

    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.

  • Thalidomide for Myeloma

    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.

  • Treatment Options for Prostate Cancer

  • Understanding Colon Cancer Screening

    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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