MASSDEVICE ON CALL — Early-stage breast cancer patients treated with a combination of surgery, radiation therapy and drugs have a significantly lower risk of developing a more invasive type of cancer over the long term, according to researchers at Stanford University.
The study examined data from two studies of patients with localized cancer of the milk duct, which accounts for about 25 percent of new breast cancer diagnoses. The researchers compared treatment with lumpectomy alone (the removal of the diseased portion of the breast only), lumpectomy and radiation therapy and lumpectomy, radiation therapy and five years on the estrogen inhibitor tamoxifen.
The results, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, showed that breast cancer deaths were about the same for each group. But 19 percent of the lumpectomy alone cohort had a recurrence of invasive breast cancer over the next 15 years, compared with 9 percent from the lumpectomy plus radiation group and 8.5 percent who had the full trio of options.
Low risk of radiation from Japanese reactor leak; three workers exposed
There’s little risk of radiation exposure from the nuclear reactor damaged during last week’s catastrophic earthquake in Japan, according to officials there. Chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said residents living within a 12-mile radius of the Fukushima Daiichi plant were evacuated as a precaution.
Radiation sickness is a nasty business and gets nastier along two fronts: The strength of the radiation and the length of exposure. Three workers at the Daiichi plant have radiation sickness, according to the New York Times, but it’s unclear how much radiation they were exposed to, and for how long.
In terms of scale, the Daiichi disaster is likely to be more like the partial core meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 than the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the then-Soviet Union, which released a huge cloud of highly radioactive gas and particles into the atmosphere and caused an epidemic of thyroid cancer and leukemia. Dr. David Brenner of Columbia University’s Center for Radiological Research told the Times that there’s no evidence, even decades later, that the Three Mile Island incident caused any illness. The Japanese situation is also unlikely to result in any long-term risks to public health, Brenner said.
“The sorts of numbers I’m seeing are not the sort that could be linked with radiological symptoms,” he told the newspaper.
Federal appeals court fast-tracks Obamacare challenge
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit will fast-track the Obama administration’s appeal of a Florida judge’s ruling that the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.
Last week, the U.S. Justice Dept. appealed Judge Roger Vinson’s decision that the healthcare law’s individual mandate violated the Constitution and asked the appeals court for an expedited review of the case. The court granted that request, listing a schedule for filing legal briefs until May 25.
FDA chief Hamburg backs $4.3 billion budget
FDA commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg went before Congress to defend the 30 percent budget increase she’s asking for, saying that the $4.3 billion request is necessary to make sure that America’s food, drug and medical device supplies are safe.
Republicans are looking to cut $400 million from this year’s budget and are likely to slash even deeper in next year’s budget.
GOP, Dems unite over Obama proposal to cut pediatric training funding
President Barack Obama is finally getting the kind of bipartisan cooperation he’s been looking for. Unfortunately for him, Democrats and Republicans are uniting to oppose one of his proposals.
Obama’s 2012 budget calls for $300 million in cuts to medical education at children’s hospitals, replacing it with "targeted investments to increase the primary care workforce," according to The Hill.
That has the GOP and Democrats crying foul. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) has said he plans to introduce legislation reauthorizing the program. And Reps. Kay Granger (R-Texas) and Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) told Dept. of Health & Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius that they want the program to survive.
Sebelius said the decision to cut the program was a painful one that, in better times, would not have been on the table.
"That is one of the toughest budget cuts that we made in this 2012 proposal,” Sebelius said, according to the blog.
