The new mammogram recommendations out earlier this week caused quite an uproar. Now comes another change in screening tests for women -- this one for cervical cancer.
Young women should have their first Pap test no sooner than age 21, regardless of when they become sexually active, say new guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Earlier screening for cervical cancer may lead to unnecessary and possibly harmful treatments for an increasingly rare cancer, according to ACOG, the leading U.S. professional organization for obstetricians and gynecologists.
A government task force says women in their 40s don't need annual mammograms, but Sara Fought would beg to differ: She says she's alive today because a routine mammogram found cancer when she was 42.
Breast cancer surgeons, cancer organizations and even the White House are expressing concern about new screening recommendations issued by the United States Preventive Services Task Force.
A federal advisory board's recommendation that women in their 40s should avoid routine mammograms is not government policy and has caused "a great deal of confusion," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday.
A vacation to Washington nearly a decade ago led to a life-changing revelation for Kathi Cordsen. Passing by a breast cancer awareness event, her mother blurted it out: Her doctor had just confirmed that she had breast cancer.
Women in their 40s should not get routine mammograms for early detection of breast cancer, according to updated guidelines set forth by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
My wife always knows what's coming whenever her hometown of Cuba, Kansas comes up in conversation.* She always knows I'm going to tell the story of the first time I went there with her. We've been married for more than 11 years, so we're now in that early stage of finishing each other's stories. And I suspect that the "first time I went to Cuba" story has been told more than most.
The new mammogram recommendations out earlier this week caused quite an uproar. Now comes another change in screening tests for women -- this one for cervical cancer.
Young women should have their first Pap test no sooner than age 21, regardless of when they become sexually active, say new guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Earlier screening for cervical cancer may lead to unnecessary and possibly harmful treatments for an increasingly rare cancer, according to ACOG, the leading U.S. professional organization for obstetricians and gynecologists.
A government task force says women in their 40s don't need annual mammograms, but Sara Fought would beg to differ: She says she's alive today because a routine mammogram found cancer when she was 42.
Breast cancer surgeons, cancer organizations and even the White House are expressing concern about new screening recommendations issued by the United States Preventive Services Task Force.
A federal advisory board's recommendation that women in their 40s should avoid routine mammograms is not government policy and has caused "a great deal of confusion," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday.
A vacation to Washington nearly a decade ago led to a life-changing revelation for Kathi Cordsen. Passing by a breast cancer awareness event, her mother blurted it out: Her doctor had just confirmed that she had breast cancer.
Women in their 40s should not get routine mammograms for early detection of breast cancer, according to updated guidelines set forth by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
My wife always knows what's coming whenever her hometown of Cuba, Kansas comes up in conversation.* She always knows I'm going to tell the story of the first time I went there with her. We've been married for more than 11 years, so we're now in that early stage of finishing each other's stories. And I suspect that the "first time I went to Cuba" story has been told more than most.
Women at high risk of breast cancer can often lower that risk by taking medication, including drugs like tamoxifen or the osteoporosis drug raloxifene (Evista).
U.S. breast cancer cases have dropped in women aged 50 to 69 in recent years because many women have stopped taking hormone therapy, according to a study in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Women at high risk for breast cancer are generally advised to have one mammogram and one magnetic resonance image scan every year, and they usually schedule them around the same time, along with a hands-on examination by a doctor. The idea is to get three different views of what's going on in the breasts.
Do more frequent mammograms pick up some breast cancer tumors that might have gone away without treatment? Possibly, according to a controversial study published this week in Archives of Internal Medicine. However, experts caution that the research raises an interesting question, but can't definitively answer it.
A radioactive tracer that "lights up" cancer hiding inside dense breasts showed promise in its first big test against mammograms, revealing more tumors and giving fewer false alarms
When Sheri Diehl, a Chicago-area flight attendant, got -- and finally stayed --pregnant after four miscarriages in the 1990s, she contacted her supervisor and asked to stop flying immediately. Her biggest worry? Radiation. She knew the airplane's shell didn't protect her from the sun's rays at high altitude. Diehl and her fellow flight attendants had long wondered -- Could there be unknown health risks for frequent fliers? -- which now included her baby. "I wasn't taking any chances," she says.
Let's face it: There's no body part women obsess about more than breasts -- their size, shape, sag factor, and whether those strange pains stem from monthly PMS hormones or something more ominous, like breast cancer.
A paper cape sits loosely around your shoulders, covering your naked chest. A radiology technologist directs you toward an imposing-looking machine. As you hold your breath, one bare breast at a time is tightly compressed between two flat panels and X-rayed.
Invasive breast cancer rates have fallen since the substantial decline in postmenopausal hormone replacement therapy occurred, even after a decline in breast cancer screening rates, according to findings published in the 5th Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Healthy women should begin getting mammograms every year or two once they reach age 40, experts say. Here are tips from the American Cancer Society and other experts:
The American Cancer Society is recommending MRIs in addition to mammograms for certain women considered to be at unusually high risk for breast cancer. Here are more details:
As Breast Cancer Awareness Month draws to a close, CNN.com asked readers to share their stories. Here is a sampling of responses, some of which have been edited:
In 1987, around one in four women age 50 and older said they'd had a mammogram and breast exam in the past two years. Eleven years later, that number jumped to 69 percent.
A pair of landmark studies -- one on breast cancer and the other on schizophrenia -- jumped off the pages of the major medical journals. The first study's results were decisive; the second's much cloudier.
When cancer first touched my life in 1984, there were no pink ribbons, no 5K races for "the cure" and few support groups to rely upon. Cancer was the kind of word you whispered and prayed didn't strike your family.
Melissa Etheridge's powerful performance at the 2005 Grammy Awards rocked and resonated with the thousands in attendance and millions more watching on television. Her distinctive voice and hard-strummed guitar echoed throughout the hall, as did her energy.
It's hard to miss AmeriScan. I first notice it while standing in a Pottery Barn at San Francisco's Embarcadero Center. Across the street, draped in front of a conservative blue storefront, a large ...
Have you had a checkup recently? If you're like most Americans and it's been a while, you may be surprised the next time you see your doctor for a general physical. Many of the tests and procedures...
Enticed by the growth prospects of health care but leery of making a single bet on one company's future? Here's the cream of a growing crop of funds that specialize in the sector. We've screened th...
If star wars scientists can create imaging technology that detects imperfections in bombs and missiles, why not the same for human tissue? Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is doing just that:...
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