Cancer is the second-leading cause of death in the United States after heart disease. Cancer involves abnormal cells that divide uncontrollably and have the ability to invade and destroy normal body tissue. Improvements in cancer screening and treatments have contributed to better survival rates.
It's been a confusing week for women.
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 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.
Heart attack patients are exposed to a radiation dose equal to about 725 chest X-rays over the course of their hospital stay, according to research presented Monday at the American Heart Association meeting in Orlando, Florida.
Almost half of women who have breast cancer surgery still have pain or numbness two to three years later, according to a new study. Women younger than 40 who receive lumpectomies are at the greatest risk.
In the year since a U.S. cancer researcher's warning drew wide attention, more evidence is emerging that long-term cell phone use is associated with cancer, but there's still not a definitive explanation or proof of cause and effect.
Most people know that healthy cholesterol levels can help protect your heart. But new research suggests another potential benefit: a lower risk of developing some types of cancer.
When Katherine Frazier was a teenager in Silver Spring, Maryland, back in the '60s, smoking was the "in" thing to do. She thought it was glamorous. She thought it was cool. Her friends smoked, her parents smoked, and at the time, no one knew that smoking tobacco could kill you.
The 12-year-old girl plucked cold, slimy potato peels out of the garbage containers in a village in eastern Poland. When those trash scraps became scarce, she ate clover.
More than 100,000 cases of cancer each year are caused by excess body fat, according to a report released Thursday in Washington.
My son is not a hugger. He's almost 2 years old, and I can count on one hand the times he's squeezed his chubby arms around my neck (they all involve my husband running the vacuum). I'm okay with this because on the rare occasion when I do get a hug, I get very emotional. I imagine most moms experience these my-heart-might-burst moments when a seconds-long embrace makes them feel like the luckiest person in the world. But for me, it's a little different. A little sweeter. And I am a lot luckier. See, I wasn't supposed to have a baby. I'm a cancer patient. Seven years ago I was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), a slow-moving form of blood cancer. I'm in remission, thanks to a medication I take every day that states right smack on the bottle: Do not get pregnant while taking this drug. But I did. Then I stopped my lifesaving medication and endured nine long months of what-ifs: What if the brief exposure to the drug affects the baby? What if my cancer comes back? What if I leave my child motherless? I took a big risk, but it paid off even bigger. Now I want to do it again.
Hannah Powell-Auslam of La Mirada, California, had surgery this month to check her lymph nodes, just in case the breast cancer had spread.
Three years ago, Anne Willis mentioned to the man she was dating that she didn't know about her fertility, since she had undergone cancer treatment as a teenager. His response --"Oh, so you don't know if you're going be able to have kids?" -- was off-putting.
Less than an hour before her mastectomy was scheduled to begin, Eve Wallinga's surgeon gave her the bad news: Because of unforeseen complications, doctors wouldn't be able to reconstruct a new breast for her immediately after removing her cancerous breast as planned. She was told she'd have to wait another day for the plastic surgery.
This week, the comedic actress Suzanne Somers is promoting her newly released book, which espouses the virtues of alternative medicine and, more important, explains why one should avoid conventional medicine.
Less than an hour before her mastectomy was scheduled to begin, Eve Wallinga's surgeon gave her the bad news: Because of unforeseen complications, doctors wouldn't be able to reconstruct a new breast for her immediately after removing her cancerous breast as planned. She was told she'd have to wait another day for the plastic surgery.
A year after beating breast cancer, Peter Criss, a founding member of the rock band KISS, calls himself "the luckiest man in the planet."
Leslie Elder's eyelids fluttered open, and through the fog of pain medication, she saw the emergency room doctors pull back the curtain in her room.
I was 18 when I first felt a lump in my breast. Of course, I was convinced that I was going to die. This was three decades ago -- back when we knew far less about breast cancer. A general surgeon removed the lump, which, thank goodness, wasn't malignant.
Walk into Lisa Nasser's kitchen most evenings and you're greeted by rich aromas that indicate an exceptional cook is at work on a delicious creation.
Actor Patrick Swayze's achievements include several feature films such as "Dirty Dancing" and "Ghost," as well as living with advanced pancreatic cancer for longer than most patients.
When Josephine Hathcock of Newark, Delaware, went in for gallbladder surgery, she never dreamed she'd wake up an ovarian cancer patient. Neither did her doctors, who found the cancer accidentally while she was on the operating table. To make matters worse, the cancer was stage 3, aggressive and had spread to her abdomen.
Men with prostate cancer who were previously infected with the sexually transmitted germ Trichomonas vaginalis are more likely to have an aggressive form of the cancer, compared with men who never had the STD, a new study says.
Do you sometimes feel as if going to a doctor's office is like going through a revolving door: in, swoosh-blur, out? You fight traffic to get there, wait a while in the waiting room, wait a while in the exam room, get seen, get dressed and get out. But once you've gone, you realize you're missing something -- maybe a small piece of helpful information. Below, some insider tips from medical specialists who tell you what your doctor doesn't have time to tell you in that all-too-brief appointment.
In 1974, when Edward Kennedy Jr., developed an aggressive form of bone cancer that at the time few survived, his father, the late senator, wasted no time snapping into action. Summoning a group of cancer specialists to his Virginia home, the senator and the doctors debated well into the night how best to treat the 12-year-old boy, according to Adam Clymer, author of "Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography."
It's Saturday night. Three young women are dressed to the nines at a trendy bistro on Rush Street in downtown Chicago. They're having drinks outside on the kind of summer night that makes you fall in love with the city.
When cancer invades the brain, the prognosis is usually grim. Despite his treatment at highly regarded medical centers, Edward "Ted" Kennedy, who served as a Democratic senator from Massachusetts for nearly 47 years, died just over a year after his surgery.
They're ready to sting, and they know where they're going.
Occupational therapist Cathy Kleinman-Barnett works with breast cancer patients, but she has never encouraged women with lymphedema, a breast cancer-related swelling of the arm, to lift weights.
If all goes according to plan, cancer survivor Kyle Garlett will compete in October's Ford Ironman World Championship, a grueling triathlon made up of a 2.4-mile ocean swim, a 112-mile bicycle ride and a 26.2-mile run.
Women with a family history of breast cancer may have a new weapon against the disease: breast-feeding. In a new study of more than 60,000 women, nursing a baby for at least three months cut the risk of breast cancer in half for those who had a family history of the disease.
Sunbeds pose a similar cancer risk as cigarettes and asbestos, according to an international cancer research agency.
For 12 years, Georgia Dunston and Dr. Chiledum Ahaghotu have been trying to figure out why African-American men develop prostate cancer at an earlier age and are twice as likely to die from it than any other group in the United States.
Sure, the fountain of youth is as elusive as ever, but there's plenty you can do to stay young. With all that scientists are learning about the powers of exercise, antioxidant-rich roods, healthy fats, and brain-teasing games to keep you feeling and looking your best, age can really just be a state of mind. This head-to-toe guide shows how to beat the clock -- or at least slow it down.
Women who use hormone therapy after menopause may be at a higher risk of ovarian cancer, and the risk remains elevated for up to two years after women stop taking estrogen, a new study says.
In May, Denise Bertholin got married. She wore a white dress and carried beautiful lilies. She and her groom, Matt Braun, said "I do" in front of family and friends.
Pamela Hampton stands at the kitchen sink, her gaze trained out of the window of her family's small hillside home. The disaster site is not visible from where she stands, but she knows it is there, down the hill, around a short stretch of highway, less than a mile away.
The news that one of America's TV icons is suffering from cancer brought sadness. Learning the type of cancer she had made some squeamish.
This week it was reported that Steve Jobs, the CEO and cofounder of Apple, underwent a liver transplant two months ago. One detail concerning Jobs's transplant seemed odd: The surgery took place at a hospital in Tennessee, some 2,000 miles from Jobs' home in northern California. Why Tennessee?
Weight-loss surgery can sometimes reverse type 2 diabetes and ease other obesity-related conditions. Now, new research suggests that obese women who undergo bariatric surgery experience a 42 percent drop in their cancer risk.
When Linda Campbell of Lexington, North Carolina, started to lose her vision in winter 2000 she knew something was wrong. After a diagnosis of ocular melanoma, a rare cancer, she went through numerous treatments to save her eye. Despite one recurrence, by 2007 Campbell was pretty sure she had beaten the odds. That was until last year, when her doctors found lesions on her liver. Her melanoma had spread.
A nonprofit consumer group said Thursday that it will sue Bayer HealthCare, alleging "deceptive and irresponsible" advertising that contends selenium in two of its multivitamins may reduce men's risk of prostate cancer.
Ken Gehle first noticed something was wrong about a year ago: He'd sit down to dinner and the first bite of food seemed to get stuck in his throat.
Think that vitamins can only help--but never hurt--a condition? Although that's true in many cases, some vitamins can be harmful to certain people or under special circumstances.
The death rate due to cancer has declined in the United States in recent years, largely due to better prevention and treatment. In fact, 650,000 lives were spared from cancer between 1990 to 2005, according to new statistics from the American Cancer Society.
When Tiffany Wilson noticed a small growth on her left hip, she didn't think much of it.
Perhaps no one is watching the Daniel Hauser case in Minnesota more closely than Theresa and Greg Maxin in Ohio. Seven years ago, the Maxins found themselves fighting to keep their own son from having chemotherapy. But the two families' stories ended quite differently.
The case of Daniel Hauser, a Minnesota teenager whose family rejected chemotherapy based on religious beliefs, raised questions about the rights of parents in determining medical treatments for their children. On Tuesday, the family consented to chemotherapy for the 13-year-old to treat his Hodgkin's lymphoma after the boy's tumor grew.
Women with breast cancer in the United States have an average age of 63 when they are diagnosed, and the disease is more common in older women than younger.
Do men who frequently smoke pot have a higher risk of testicular cancer than those who do not? It's possible, according to a new study. However, the researchers say the link is currently a "hypothesis" that needs further testing.
Cancer patients may be able to fight chemotherapy-induced nausea using a common pantry spice -- ginger.
Myriad Genetics, a Utah-based company, vowed Wednesday to "vigorously defend" itself against a legal challenge to its patents on two human genes linked to breast and ovarian cancers, its attorney told CNN.
Two weeks, the doctors estimated. That's how long they expected Lillie Bradley to live after an infection spread to her pancreas, liver and bile duct.
Stephanie White is a skin cancer expert. At 41, she's had all three types of the condition: basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma.
Ahmed Hamdi wants to be a superhero when he grows up. A lot of people at his school will tell you he already is one.
Smoking is a lot like Russian roulette: You never know who will end up developing lung cancer and who won't. But Dr. Jian-Min Yuan, as well as other researchers from the University of Minnesota, say they are one step closer to determining a smoker's risk for developing the disease. In a study, they tracked the carcinogen and nicotine levels in nearly 500 smokers through a simple urine test and discovered a link between the level of a specific carcinogen and lung cancer. Their findings were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research conference.
Variations within women's genes could predict risk for ovarian cancer, a new study has found.
Moderate drinking can be good for your heart. But for women, drinking alcohol raises the risks of breast cancer.
A self-described health nut, Andrew Traver takes vitamins, runs, lifts weights, scorns red meat and got tested for prostate cancer at age 40.
The small fruit has the color of a cranberry, the shape of an almond and tastes like a flavorless gummy.
Burger lovers beware: People who eat red meat every day have a higher risk of dying over a 10-year period -- mostly because of cardiovascular disease or cancer --than their peers who eat less red or processed meat, according to a new study of about half a million people.
A decade-long study following more than 75,000 men found that prostate cancer screenings led to more diagnoses but did not reduce the number of deaths from the illness.
Obesity shaves two to four years off the average lifespan, while being very obese can shorten your lifespan by 8 to 10 years, according to a new analysis of 57 studies including nearly 900,000 people.
Cancer patients who rely on religion to cope with their terminal illnesses are more likely to use intensive life-prolonging care, according to a study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Pancreatic cancer patients who are obese may be 12 times more likely to have cancer that's already spread to their lymph nodes at the time of surgery than similar cancer patients who weigh less, according to a study released Monday in the Archives of Surgery.
Eighty-year-old Margie Graf is a health care success story, representing the kind of disease-preventing, cost-saving treatment the Obama administration envisions as it seeks to expand Americans' access to doctors.
The first swipe of the electric razor exposed a six-inch patch of bare skin on Dr. Craig Castellino's scalp. Within minutes, the pediatric oncologist with the Aflac Cancer Center in Atlanta, Georgia, was bald.
Seven-year-old Heather McNamara was heading home Tuesday, a month after surgery that temporarily removed organs from her digestive tract to allow removal of a tennis ball-size tumor.
Attention red wine drinkers: Drinking moderate amounts of any kind of alcohol (including wine, beer, and liquor) is associated with a slightly increased breast cancer risk -- and the rosy-hued beverage is no exception.
Do you remember the scene in the movie "Something's Gotta Give" where Jack Nicholson's character lies about Viagra to a doctor in the emergency room?
President Obama's pledge to conquer cancer "in our time" is a great goal, but one of America's top cancer experts isn't sure he'd use the word "cure."
On a recent afternoon, Pamela Rinchich quietly recalled how her cancer doctor abruptly canceled an appointment. Rinchich owed $268 from a previous visit: She didn't have the money and the doctor refused to see her until she paid.
Gilles Frydman wasn't ready to see his friend Dr. Doreen Kossove in her condition: tethered to an oxygen tank, hardly able to speak, living with only one lung, her tiny, frail body ravaged by cancer and barely visible under her blankets.
Attention, libation lovers: Middle-aged women who indulge in just a few alcohol-containing drinks each day may have a higher risk of cancer than those who drink less often, according to a report released Tuesday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Judy LaCour has been taking a multivitamin supplement for the past 30 years: "As often as I can remember, which isn't always, but on and off since I was in my 40s." She buys them in bulk from her local wholesale warehouse.
Pancreatic cancer is rare and extraordinarily lethal, experts say.
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.
When Maria Rubeo closed her arm, she felt something "very big -- like a lemon."
Steve Karas and Matthew Welling share a special bond.
Smoking is bad for you, and by now, most of us know it.
A new study by Canadian researchers, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found that colonoscopies are still very effective in detecting colorectal cancer, but they're only good at doing so in cancers found on the left side of the colon, not on the right side.
As Apple enthusiasts speculate over why pancreatic cancer survivor Steve Jobs won't appear at Macworld Conference & Expo this year, the CEO asks them to think differently about his health.
Previous studies suggested that taking certain vitamins might lower the risk of getting prostate cancer. However, two new studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that men taking these supplements were just as likely to develop prostate cancer as those who weren't taking them.
An analysis of 14 studies shows children who attend day care or play groups decrease their risk of developing the most common type of childhood leukemia by 30 percent. The analysis bolsters the theory that children exposed to common infections early in life gain protection from the disease. The research was presented in April 2008 at the Causes and Prevention of Childhood Leukemia conference in London.
More than 25,000 American men will die from prostate cancer this year. But prostate cancer can be treated successfully if the disease is caught early. A blood test that can detect whether a man is at high risk for developing prostate cancer is on the horizon. The study was published in the February 28, 2008, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Go out in the hot sun, take a magnifying glass and focus concentrated sunbeams on your lips. That's what some dermatologists claim you're doing when you apply shiny lip gloss and go into the sun. The consequence may be an increased risk of skin cancer on your lips. Skin cancer of the lips accounts for 10 percent of all skin cancer cases, and 3,500 new cases of skin cancer of the lips are diagnosed each year.
Sen. Edward Kennedy announced in May 2008 that he was suffering from a brain tumor, a malignant glioma, in his left parietal lobe. He had surgery at Duke University in June 2008.
A staggering 99 percent of all cervical cancers are caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), according to the American Cancer Society. For 50 years, the Pap test has been the gold standard for detecting cervical cancer. But there's a new kid on the block: the HPV DNA test.
The chances of surviving ovarian cancer appear to vary dramatically depending on the levels of two tumor proteins, suggesting that this type of cancer may have a more nuanced outlook than the grim statistics indicate.
Two of the most common diseases in the United States -- cancer and diabetes -- are not often linked together in the public mind. But they may have a stronger link than most people think. Cancer patients who already have diabetes have a greater chance of dying of the disease than cancer patients who do not have the blood-sugar disorder, according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
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.
Estrogen therapy is about the last thing you'd expect a doctor to prescribe for a woman with breast cancer: The hormone is famous for coaxing tumors to grow, not shrink. But in a new study, one out of three postmenopausal women with advanced cancer who were given a daily dose of estrogen saw their tumors slow to a stop, and in some cases, even get smaller.
CNN's Judy Fortin looks at the risk of lung cancer in women.
Twenty-seven million new cancer cases are expected by 2030, according to a report released Tuesday by the World Health Organization's cancer research agency.
Men who want to reduce their prostate cancer risk shouldn't bother popping antioxidant vitamins and supplements, according to two of the largest trials ever conducted on vitamins and cancer prevention.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego found that vitamin D intake is correlated with decreased rates of breast and colon cancers in 15 countries. The American Cancer Society says further study is needed. The study was published in January 2008 in the Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Rates of new cancer diagnoses and deaths for U.S. men and women have fallen for the first time, according to a new report from leading cancer and medical research organizations.
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.
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