Cancer Education and Prevention
After Polyp Removal: Can Your Next Colonoscopy Wait?
Can your next colonoscopy wait after polyp removal? This article reviews a large randomized trial comparing surveillance beginning at three versus five years. Cancer incidence remained similar at five years, but longer follow-up continues. Learn how these findings fit current recommendations and why polyp characteristics, examination quality, and your medical history still guide a personalized plan for colorectal cancer prevention with your gastroenterology care team.
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Steps and Health: What the New Lancet Meta-Analysis Reveals
A new Lancet Public Health study confirms that walking around 7,000 steps a day can substantially reduce the risk of early death, heart disease, diabetes, and dementia. The findings highlight that meaningful benefits begin even at 3,000 to 4,000 steps, offering hope to less active adults. Regular movement throughout the day proves more important than perfection, turning step counting into a powerful, evidence-based health strategy.
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Whole Body Scans for Screening: Benefits and Risks
Whole body scans offer the promise of early disease detection. They may reveal cancers, heart disease, or aneurysms before symptoms appear. However, they also carry risks like false positives, unnecessary follow-up tests, radiation exposure, and high costs. Learn the true pluses and minuses of full body scans and why targeted, evidence-based screening often provides smarter protection.
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Can Obesity Cause Cancer? Understanding the Types and Risks
Keeping a healthy weight is essential for long-term wellness. Extra weight doesn’t just affect appearance—it significantly raises the risk of diseases, including cancer. Obesity, defined by excessive body fat, goes beyond aesthetic concerns and plays a role in making the body more susceptible to certain cancers.
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GLP-1: A Surprising Friend Against Cancer in Type 2 Diabetes?
New research suggests diabetes drugs known as GLP-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1) might protect against certain cancers. This study focused on type 2 diabetes patients and followed them for 15 years. It’s a surprising finding that could change cancer prevention for diabetes patients.
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Thyroid cancer: low-dose radioactive iodine works in the long term too
Now we have long-term data from the original HiLo trial. Patients with no distant metastasis, well-differentiated thyroid carcinoma do as well with low-dose radioactive iodine (30 mCi) treatment compared to those receiving the high dose RAI (100 mCi). Unless distant metastasis is documented, patients with well-differentiated papillary or follicular cancer should receive 30 mCi I-131 when indicated. A group of 450 patients was followed for about 7 years. GT
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New FDA approval: drug therapy for anaplastic thyroid cancer
Anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) is a rare and aggressive type of thyroid cancer. It accounts for about 1-2% of all thyroid cancers. NIH estimates 54,000 new cases of thyroid cancer and 2,000 deaths from the disease in the US in 2018. The tafinlar + mekinist combination is now approved for the treatment of BRAF V600E mutation-positive ATC that cannot be addressed surgically or has already spread to other organs. Tafinlar and Mekinist have also been approved…
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Categorized as Blog, Cancer Education and Prevention, FDA Approvals, Insights from Dr. Tashko, Thyroid Health
Cancer immunotherapy causes hypothyroidism
Nivolumab is an effective immunotherapy for advanced malignancies such as gastric cancer, renal cell carcinoma, unresectable metastatic melanoma, non-small cell lung cancer, hodgkin lymphoma and head/neck cancer. However it has also been noted to cause endocrinopathies like type 1 diabetes and pituitary, adrenal and thyroid dysfunctions. Current study shows that nivolumab-induced inflammatory hypothyroidism is relatively rare at about 5% in 6 months, and was mainly seen in participants with elevated baseline thyroid antibodies. This suggests…
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Diabetes and obesity increase the risk of 12 malignancies
The article provides more evidence that diabetes and obesity increase the risk of malignancy, particularly of colorectal, gallbladder, pancreas, kidney, liver, endometrial, postmenopausal breast, ovarian, gastric cardia, thyroid cancer, esophageal adenocarcinoma and multiple myeloma. It is estimated that 430 million adults have diabetes worldwide, while 2.0 billions are overweight or obese. How could this global health problem be meaningfully approached? GT
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Categorized as Blog, Cancer Education and Prevention, Diabetes Care, Insights from Dr. Tashko, Obesity Care
Small thyroid cancers, how to monitor?
Thyroid papillary micro-carcinoma is defined as an isolated cancer with diameter no larger then 1.0 cm. It is considered to have good long-term prognosis. Analyses reveal that these small cancers could be more aggressive than expected. Authors also find that cancer volume, rather than diameter, expansion is the best structural tool in identifying tumors at risk of progression. GT
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