It is important to question your physician about the prescriptions you are given. Most doctors will talk to you about the medication prescribed, but it is still important that you know what you're taking and ask appropriate questions.

• Know the name of the drug. This will enable you to look up information about the drug on your own. It will also enable you to discuss the drug with your doctor or another doctor for a second opinion.
• What is the purpose of the drug? This information will help you to know and understand what this drug is supposed to do and will let you know if the treatment is actually working.
• What are the side effects? It is helpful to be aware of the most common side effects. All drugs have some side effects. Information about side effects can be obtained by asking your doctor or pharmacist or consulting a reliable reference.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has something important to say about the sugar substitute aspartame.

Think about this:

Italian researchers concluded in 2005 that aspartame causes cancer. But Laura Tarantino of the FDA Office of Food Additive Safety concludes after a review of the study data that the low-calorie sweetener is not a carcinogen.

A similar review by the FDA's European counterpart agrees. There is no evidence this substance, used for 25 years to sweeten soda, gum, dairy products, and some medications, causes cancer.

Italian researchers say they will release their latest aspartame study results on Monday.

There are four pages in the March 2007 Reader's Digest featuring amazing discoveries, devices, tests, and cures. And many of the snippets of information are -- yes -- somehow linked to cancer.

Think about this:

• A new ultrasound technique lets radiologists distinguish between malignant and benign breast lesions. Using elasticity imaging, researchers accurately identified harmless and cancerous lesions in almost all of the 80 cases studied. If results can be reproduced in a large trial, this technique could significantly reduce the number of breast biopsies required.

• Scientists seeking new treatment for diseases can use an online tool developed by researchers at MIT and Harvard. The Connectivity Map matches diseases with compatible drugs, based on the genetic profiles of both. So far, about 160 drugs and compounds are cataloged, and a few new uses for existing drugs have already been suggested. Eventually, all FDA-approved drugs will be included.

• For those who sometimes forget to take their pills, a new device -- that can be preloaded with up to 100 doses of medication -- could one day be implanted in the body and programmed to administer drugs via wireless signals. This device, successful in tests using dogs, was designed to deliver medicines that are less effective when taken orally.

Sometimes it seems cancer's grip is tightening. Other times, in the war against this pesky disease, it seems we are on the verge of something really great.

What can I do at Careplace?

At Careplace you can connect with others who's lives are like yours. Discuss treatments in online forums, create personal webpages, show support with virtual hugs, send private messages, create your own photo albums, groups and online journals.

• Join or start a group - Groups are places that people can organize to discuss common interests. If you take a certain medication and want to discuss your progress or side effects, you can share with other group members who take this medication. You can also create groups about fishing or baseball, anything goes!
• Join a discussion - Forums are where people come together to support one another, ask questions and share news or experiences.
• Send a private message - Sending private messages is a great way to get to know others better, share a friendly greeting or ask them for more information about something with which they have some experience.
• Send someone a hug - Sending hugs are an easy way to show someone you care and remind them they are not alone.

Careplace is a knowledge portal that isn't bogged down with medical jargon and words you don't understand. The pages have lists of personal experiences people have had with medications,treatments, doctors and hospitals.

The standard dose of some medications are too high and dangerous for the patients, where some patients respond the exact opposite and show that the standard dose is too low to produce beneficial effects. It would seem to be a simple case of age, gender, or genetic differences to explain the individual variability in response to the drugs.

A study at the University of Kansas is reporting that variations in the body's production of hydrogen peroxide, which is believed to serve as a signaling molecule at low levels, can affect the accumulation of drugs inside our cells.

Oxidative stress, an increase in hydrogen peroxide levels, may have an increased response to a given dosage of a drug. This seems to show that it is in our best interest for physicians to provide more individualized dosing of drugs.

Hydrogen peroxide effects could be especially important in therapeutic drugs such as aminophylline, carbamazepine, lithium, carbonate, phenytoin, theophylline and warfarin. The researchers think that small changes in the doses of these drugs could cause either subtherapeutic or toxic results.

Kim Taylor is a 45-year-old single mother who lives in Suwannee County, Florida and is proud to have successfully raised one daughter -- a graduate of the University of Florida. Kim enjoys outdoor activities like camping as well as sewing, crafting, and carpentry projects. She is most at peace spending time with her family, working as a youth volunteer -- and raising awareness for breast cancer. It's a interest she acquired just two years ago, compliments of a personal encounter with the disease that has taught her to let the little things go, to appreciate every sunrise, to make every moment matter.

The breast cancer chemotherapy drug Adriamycin is often called The Red Devil. It's red in color and devilish in it's attack on both cancer cells and healthy cells. After her own personal attack by this drug, Katherine Russell Rich wrote a book, and she called it The Red Devil: To Hell with Cancer -- and Back. It's her account of how she got sick at the age of 32 with a relentless form of breast cancer. Although she was given just a short period of time to survive, Rich conquered cancer. And years later, she is alive and well. And she has discovered -- by mere coincidence -- that her book years ago inspired a group of women in Baltimore who are helping breast cancer patients through kind deeds. They foot the bill for transportation costs, housecleaning, and massage. They pick up and deliver medications. They gather and hug and eat. They take strolls. They call themselves The Red Devils.

Rich only found out about The Red Devils support group when a friend noticed a mention of the group in a newspaper. She informed Rich who visited the group's website. What she found took her breath away.

It seems a woman named Lark Schulze had at one time been desperate to learn about young women with stage IV breast cancer -- the same stage her 30-year-old daughter faced -- and she could not find any helpful resources. Until she came across Rich's book and poured herself into one woman's story. Moved by Rich's words, she tried to locate her, with no luck. So she took what she gathered from the book and after losing her daughter 19 months after diagnosis, became a founding member of a powerful support group -- The Red Devils -- in late 2002.

Despite failed attempts at finding Rich, Schulze says Rich changed her life. And now that the women have connected, Rich says Schulze has changed her life. At first Rich was afraid to be drawn into Schulze's world. But with a hunger to understand breast cancer from a mother's perspective, Rich took the plunge. She talked to Schulze, visited her, strolled with her, and soon the hard lump she'd carried in her stomach for so long began to soften as she connected in a deep and bizarre way with a woman she had inspired -- a woman she had never before known.

Numbness is wearing off, and I am beginning to feel twinges of pain surrounding the area where my port was once located. I can't see what was done to me today -- because the area is carefully bandaged -- but I know from what I feel that my skin has been cut and sewn back together. I feel the skin tightening, stretching, pulsing and while it's not terribly comfortable, it's pretty minor compared to the pain of so many other cancer procedures -- like my lumpectomy, my chemotherapy, my nausea, my neutropenia, my allergic reactions to various medications.

So I am fine, following my port removal that was predicted to last a few hours but somehow took most of the day. The actual procedure took just one hour, and the twilight drug that kept me in a peaceful funk allowed me to relax while the port that was tunneled into the tissue underneath my skin was precisely taken from my body. It was an uneventful experience -- except for a few tears that dripped from my eyes during the final moments before my surgery. I think it may have been the power of the moment -- the moment signaling the end of my active cancer journey. Or it may have been the power of support offered by my sister and my three-year-old son who accompanied me today. Or it may have been the power of the response I gave a nurse who had just seen my little guy and asked me if I planned to have more children. My response -- probably not, because of cancer -- seemed a little too final, a little too sad.

It may have been the combination of everything, all adding up over the past two years, that brought tears to my eyes today. But for now, the tears are gone. And the port is gone. For now, my cancer is gone.

The Cancer Research UK conducted a survey of breast cancer survivors and found more than half admit they have missed taking the scheduled doses of chemoprevention medication. The three most common reasons the women gave for not taking the medicine were: tablets hard to swallow, difficulty in coping with side-effects and the fact that drugs were a constant reminder of illness. In addition, some women simply forgot to take the prescribed medication in a timely manner.

Experts believe a lack of communication with women in regard to handling the side effects of drugs and the importance of staying with treatment the entire length of time prescribed to prevent recurrence, might be lacking. They also feel that more needs to be done to understand why women would willingly chose to discontinue or interrupt long-term chemoprevention drug treatment.

The study was a small one involving 131 women who were at least two years past initial breast cancer diagnosis, but I am certain that given a larger study researchers might realize the same findings. In my opinion, after breast cancer diagnosis -- surgery, chemotherapy, radiation -- or a combination of all three treatments -- is not only a physical challenge but an emotional one. Once past active treatment, the resources and support for breast cancer survivors can fall off dramatically while the difficult issues of being a breast cancer survivor remain.

US Oncology has launched a new program, OncologyRx Care Advantage, that provides a convenient home delivery service of oral cancer medications to cancer patients in Oregon, Washington, Texas and Virginia.

Not only will they be delivering cancer medications to cancer patients at home, oncology-trained pharmacists and nurses will call the patients to see if they have any questions and to monitor side effects, and in turn, patients can call anytime of the day or night to speak with nurses or pharmacists.

The OncologyRx Care Advantage team will report on a regular basis to the physician so that the physician is aware of how their patient is doing at the time cancer medications are delivered to the home. While this service is limited to Oregon, Washington, Texas and Virginia, the company hopes to expand to all 50 states by 2007.

The Center for Caregiver Training is developing web based education courses for AIDS/HIV and cancer caregivers that offer practical skills to manage and cope with the responsibilities of being a caregiver. Caregiving 101 has three completed modules of lessons -- Learning About the Disease; Working with Your Medical Team; and Building a Personal Support Team.

To make the most of the time spent visiting with the doctor, one of the lessons in the Working with Your Medical Team module is How to Be Prepared for a Ten Minute Doctor's Visit.

Here are some of the tips included in the lesson:

• Always maintain an up-to-date medication list that includes all prescription and non-prescription items taken.
• Keep a journal of information that the doctor feels is important. This might be weight, temperature, blood pressure, blood sugar levels, and level of pain.
• Between visits, make a note of any unusual symptoms experienced in the journal. This might be night sweats, nausea, lack of appetite, insomnia, fatigue, confusion or anxiety.
• In the journal, jot down questions you might have for the doctor as you think of them.
• Bring the journal with you when you take your loved one to visit the doctor.
  

Other modules in development are Finding Help in the Community, Tools for Life as a Caregiver, Daily Care at Home, Managing Medications, Maintaining Nutrition, Managing Symptoms & Side Effects, Managing Pain and Coping With Mental Changes.

According to Athens University researchers, taking paracetamol daily could reduce, by 30 percent, the risk of ovarian cancer. But the researchers warn that it might not be the best choice in cancer prevention. Why? Because taking paracetamol can lead to serious liver and kidney damage.

The words acetaminophen and paracetamol both come from the chemical names for the compound N-acetyl-para-aminophenol and para-acetyl-amino-phenol. In North America, paracetamol is sold in generic form or under a number of trade names like Tylenol, Anacin-3 and Datril. In Europe, it is known as Panadol.

In another recent study, Tylenol was found to cause liver damage even in small doses in just two weeks after taking the painkiller daily.

Dr. Neil Kaplowitz of the University of Southern California, hired by Purdue Pharma, which makes the prescription painkiller OxyContin to look into the effects of Tylenol on the liver said, "I would urge the public not to exceed 4 grams (eight extra-strength tablets) a day. This is a drug that has a rather narrow safety window." Heavy drinkers should not exceed 2 grams a day. But the makers of Tylenol argue that the study this study does not reflect the findings of the studies they have done on their product and that long-term high-dose Tylenol did not lead to liver disease.

The bottom line? Ovarian cancer does not occur as commonly as some of the other cancers, but it tends to be far more deadly unless caught in the earliest stage of development. Paracetamol or Tylenol, does and does not carry serious side effects, depending on the study and who is doing the study. Prevention, better methods of detection and more effective treatments would seem to be a better route in ovarian cancer prevention and cancer survivorship. But that does not help right now, for women who are concerned about being diagnosed with ovarian cancer and being told in the news there is an over-the-counter drug that might reduce the risk. Even though their study shows a benefit, Athens University researchers warn that deciding to take paracetamol as part of an ovarian cancer prevention strategy needs to carefully considered.

After 16 days, the hunger strike colon cancer patients launched in protest over a broken campaign promise has ended. During Israel's last election, colon cancer patients were promised that their medications would be included in the 2006 health basket, and when that promise was not honored, they staged a hunger strike.

For 16 days they sat outside in the Rose Garden in Jerusalem, refusing to end the protest. They were willing to die of hunger before they were willing to die from cancer because of medications denied. During the hunger strike, one of the protestors collapsed and had to be hospitalized at Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem. The protest has ended because the government has now assured the cancer patients they will receive the drugs they need to fight their cancer. But, if the promise is broken again, I suspect these strong-willed and resolute people will be right back protesting again. Cancer can make people that way -- from all the fighting against a disease that is trying to take life away. The government might want to just keep the promise.