Breast Cancer Awareness

Accoriding to Innovation-Reports, a breast cancer dictionary is being developed to help bridge the gap between complicated medical terms and patient terminology.

“It was discovered that patients and doctors used very different words and expressions to talk about breast cancer. Patients used an incredible 3,000 different words and phrases to talk about their condition”, the site reports.

The dictionary will be in French however the team hopes to work with the Unified Medical Language System in the US to create a French and English dictionary.
The French dictionary will be available next year.

According to reports from several British media, men are dying from breast cancer at an alarming rate.

According to the Times Online professor Ian Fentiman said, “Half the men . . . are not diagnosed until their cancer is very advanced, and men are dying unnecessarily because they are unaware of the symptoms or because they are too embarrassed to seek help..If diagnosed early enough, a man has a 75-100 per cent chance of making a full recovery.”

I remember watching an “amazing animal” show where a womans dog kept biting her in the breast. She eventually went to the doctor and found out she had breast cancer.

I’ve always known that animals have a special sense.

Now, there may be scientific evidence to back it up.

The March 2006 issue of the journal Integrative Cancer Therapies will publish a study that confirms that dogs can detect early stages of cancer.

According to News-Medical.net, “The study showed that the dogs were able to detect breast and lung cancer with sensitivity and specificity between 88% and 97%, and it appears that this high accuracy persisted even after results were adjusted to take into account whether the lung cancer patients were currently smokers. The study also confirmed that the trained dogs were even able to detect the early stages of lung cancer along with early breast cancer. “

This is great news, however researchers said that more work is needed to expand the method.

Lottery tickets to benefit breast cancer research and awareness went on sale yesterday in Illinois.

This new game will provide $3 million per year to the cause. Players can win up to $20,000 on each ticket.

According to a press release;

“Net revenue from the sale of Ticket For The Cure tickets will be deposited into an interest bearing account in the State Treasury called the Ticket For The Cure Fund. The Illinois General Assembly will appropriate this money solely to the Illinois Department of Public Health who will award grants to public and private entities in Illinois for the purpose of funding breast cancer research, education and services for breast cancer patients and their families. All grants funded by Ticket For The Cure revenue will be reviewed and approved by a special advisory board called the Ticket For the Cure Board. “

The game ends in 2011.