Patient Navigator LLC was interviewed for this excellent reporting by Jeff Blyskal at Consumers’ Checkbook. His article explains clearly the many ways an advocate can help patients and families solve problems and find their way through the healthcare maze. If you’d like to learn more about how an advocate can help you, now or in…
A recent meta-analysis published in online edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine has concluded that, “Acupuncture is effective for the treatment of chronic pain and is therefore a reasonable referral option.”
The bewildering sensation of too much information, yet not enough knowledge to use it, is the reality for many people faced with a serious illness or condition. How do you decide what to do?
In what is hailed as a potential game changer in transplantation science, a small preliminary study suggests that donor matching and organ rejection issues can potentially be addressed by transplanting stem cells from the organ donor to the recipient.
The Cancer Immunotherapy Trials Network (CITN), announces plans to launch their first clinical trials later this year.
Cancer research continues to yield exciting breakthroughs as scientists learn more about the molecular and biological activity of cancer cells. Autophagy is one example.
Every person has the right to fully participate in decisions regarding his or her own health care. This legal doctrine is called the right to informed consent. As a patient or caregiver, you have the right and responsibility to obtain as much information as you need to be able to commit to a course of treatment or testing process.
People who are multiracial are one of the fastest growing demographic groups in the United States. However, despite donor drives and new efforts to utilize social networking to increase the number of donors, they are also the most under-represented in the marrow registry.
“Cyberchondriacs” spend hours at the computer screen, typing in symptoms, or fears, wading through the results, both accurate and inaccurate, and convincing themselves they have a certain condition. Often, they will print out reams of documentation and present themselves to their doctors, having already diagnosed their “condition” and determined a course of treatment.
Scientists have mapped specific genes that turn normal healthy cells into cancerous cells through The Cancer Genome Atlas Project (TCGA). Researchers have now developed a more reliable scientific method to identify these genes. As this research is shared around the world, more accessible and effective cancer treatment options are being discovered. The ultimate goal of the TCGA is to create a catalogue of these “defective” genes, thereby offering increased detection, and ultimately, better prevention and treatment of cancer.
Access to investigational therapies is a highly debated topic in the medical world. Investigational therapy involves drugs that are being scientifically tested but not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Often these drugs are offered through programs such as “compassionate use programs,” and “expanded access programs” to allow seriously ill patients access…
The words “clinical trials” can conjure up images of desperate medical experiments with little hope of success. In reality, medical advances and breakthroughs can and have resulted from clinical trials. Without them, we wouldn’t have many of the treatments we have today.