Cancer

20 articles
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    What Needs to Change in Cancer Treatment for Young Adults

    For a while, oncologists didn’t get it. Many were, both during and after these young patients’ treatment, often oblivious to and ill-equipped to meet their needs.Photograph by U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Peter Dean Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . I treated an inspiring teenage girl in my clinic […]
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    The Problem with the Mutation-Centric View of Cancer

    How risk-assessments of cancer go wrong.
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    This Man’s Immune System Got a Cancer-Killing Update

    William Ludwig was a 64-year-old retired corrections officer living in Bridgeton, New Jersey, in 2010, when he received a near-hopeless cancer prognosis. The Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania had run out of chemotherapeutic options, and Ludwig was disqualified from most clinical trials since he had three cancers at once—leukemia, lymphoma, and squamous […]
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    What Medicine Is Learning from Animals That Resist Cancer

    Beating cancer might come from animals that evolved defenses against it.Photograph by Patrick Bouquet / Flickr Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . In recent years, naked mole rats, elephants, and bowhead whales have caught the attention of cancer researchers. At first glance, these three don’t have much in common: […]
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    Cancer Isn’t a Logic Problem

    A year ago, Joe Biden launched his “cancer moonshot,” a major national push to improve the prevention, detection, and treatment of cancer, a plan that was widely recognized to be incremental. “I believe that we need an absolute national commitment to end cancer as we know it,” Biden said while he was on his tour to cancer […]
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    How to Solve Oncology’s Labor Crisis

    Cancer doctors are overworked, retire early, and attract fewer recruits than other specialties, leaving the rising cancer-patient population vulnerable. Here’s what must be done.Photograph by Ghislain & Marie David de Lossy / Getty Images Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . I watched a man die today. We were “rounding” […]

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    Why Doctors Should Start Taking Your Past Spiritual History

    Sharing what meaning you take from illness can enhance your treatment and sense of well-being.Illustration by Len Small Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . A little over a decade ago, Farr Curlin, a physician and professor of medical humanities at Duke Divinity School, became curious about the spiritual lives […]

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    Cancer’s Financial Cost Can Be Almost as Toxic to Patients as the Disease Itself

    Financial distress due to cancer treatment could count as another cancer mortality risk factor, alongside smoking, diet, and exercise.Photograph by John Piekos / Flickr Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Add a new entry to the list of factors that can exacerbate a cancer diagnosis: money. Paying for cancer […]

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    This Cancer Treatment Extends Life Without Pills, Radiation, or Surgery

    The very act of existential unburdening proves to be life prolonging.Photograph by UpperCut Images / Getty Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . What would go through your mind if I told you that you had cancer? Perhaps you’d wonder how you got it, or how you were going to […]

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    We Spoke to the Surgeon Who Gave a Man His Penis Back

    In May this year, Curtis Cetrulo, a plastic-reconstructive surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, performed the first penis transplant in the United States. Previously his patient, Thomas Manning, 64, had most of his penis amputated to stem penis cancer, a rare form of the disease. Since the transplant, Manning has received a wave of media attention, […]

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    The Man Who Would Tame Cancer

    Patrick Soon-Shiong is opening a new front in the war on the deadly disease.