Chemotherapy | featured news

Shortages of a chemotherapy drug probably led to higher rates of cancer relapse among young patients, hospital records show. The finding raises questions about the impacts of recurring drug shortages.

With thinning brown hair and nearly invisible eyebrows, Margaret Fisher sits her frail frame down in the salon chair. She received a diagnosis of Stage IV pancreatic cancer almost two years ago and has undergone 18 radiation treatments and six rounds of chemotherapy since. A hairstylist places a wig on Fisher’s head and draws eyebrows on her bare face. Fisher, 63, looks in the mirror and smiles.

Jenni Lake gave birth to a baby boy the month before her 18th birthday, though she was not destined to become just another teenage mother. That much, she knew. While being admitted to the hospital, she pulled her nurse down to her at bed level and whispered into her ear. The nurse would later repeat the girl's words to comfort her family, as their worst fears were realized a day after Jenni's baby was born.

President Hugo Chavez will undergo a third round of chemotherapy for cancer at home in Venezuela beginning Sunday, he said, instead of traveling to Cuba where he had two previous rounds of treatment.

D.J. Soviero wanted the least treatment that would beat back her small, early-stage breast cancer, but her first doctor insisted she had only one option: tumor removal followed by radiation and chemotherapy.

Then she found a novel program at the University of California, San Francisco, that gave her an unbiased evaluation of the pros and cons of all treatment options.
"I realized that I didn't need to use a sledgehammer. It was my choice," said Soviero, of San Francisco, who went with the lumpectomy and radiation, but refused the chemo.

A family friend says X-rays show the tumor in the chest of a 13-year-old Minnesota boy who resisted treatment has shrunk significantly after court-ordered chemotherapy.

A mother who took her son out of state because he refused court-ordered chemotherapy for his cancer told a judge Tuesday she now believes the treatment is necessary to save his life. The judge then ruled Daniel Hauser can stay in his parents' custody.

Federal authorities are on the lookout for a mother and her 13-year-old son who have been refusing the chemotherapy that doctors ...