Key points from today’s guests:
Kristy Brown, Ph.D., co-program leader, Cancer Prevention & Control, The University of Kansas Cancer Center
- There have been some exciting advances with regards to our understanding of how metabolic health is influencing cancer risk and progression.
- There's also some interesting data with regards to the microbiome and how it influences risk of various cancers and how diet and diet modifications can act to reduce the risk of cancer.
- There have also been a number of highlights with regards to people's lifetime achievements and really showing how far we've come both in cancer prevention and in cancer treatment. It’s really impressive to be seeing what has been done over the past few decades.
- A lot of what we do in cancer prevention and control is try to first understand what increases risk and then think about how we might be able to act in the community to be able to reduce that risk. So it's not only being able to find ways of reducing risk, but how do you implement that in the community with rural populations that don't necessarily have access to care as easily as in big centers?
- One big area of research is in obesity and metabolism. There are clear links between excess weight and many types of cancer, including the ones that you see here on the screen. And we know diabetes is also linked to many types of cancer and that obesity and diabetes are very common in the U.S.
- Healthy lifestyle, screening for early detection, and taking vaccines are important preventive measures to be able to reduce the risk of cancer.
Lauren Nye, M.D., breast oncologist; medical director, Breast Cancer Prevention, The University of Kansas Cancer Center
- A few of those ways that we focus on risk reduction include exercise, limiting alcohol, and trying to achieve a healthy weight. Those are what I call the lifestyle factors that we can target to reduce our risk of breast cancer.
- We do use medication that has been shown to reduce the risk of breast cancer and most of these are current state anti-estrogen medications or estrogen blockers that reduce the risk of breast cancer by about 50 percent.
- We do recommend them to women who are at increased risk of breast cancer or somebody who has at least double the average woman's risk of breast cancer, which right now is around 12-13 percent lifetime risk.
- There are many ways to calculate a woman's risk of breast cancer. The first step is talking to your provider about your family history and your personal risk factors like breast density, if you've ever had a breast biopsy, or if you've ever had any trouble with your breast.
- I think that HPV vaccine was our greatest vaccine to date showing decreases in cervical cancer in head and neck cancer. Not only does it prevent men from transmitting HPV, but head and neck cancer is a very difficult cancer to go through treatment for and if we can lower the incidence of head and neck cancer through HPV vaccination, that is an incredible achievement.
- Just know your risk. Knowledge is power. Work on the lifestyle modifications to lower your risk of cancer, but know when to start your early screening.
Shobana Kubendran, manager, Genetic Counseling Services, The University of Kansas Health System
- Pedigree is essentially a three-generation family history. We take into account the family size, the number of individuals with cancer, the types of cancer, the age of onset, and also unaffected relatives because that also comes into play when we do a risk assessment.
- A family history is good in the sense that it gives us indicators that could signal a hereditary predisposition. But the absence of a family history should not preclude anyone from asking for a genetic risk assessment because genetic testing is now a little bit more advanced.
- Part of a genetic counseling appointment is the assessment of the risk perception and the calculation of what are the chances somebody would have a mutation. We categorize results based on our they mutations in genes that are with a high risk of cancer, like BRCA one and two, which accounts for the vast majority of breast cancer, hereditary risk, and then you have moderate risk genes.
- The other most important thing is people need to understand is you can get three types of results.
- To meet with a genetic counselor, call 913-588-5568.
Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of Infection Prevention and Control, The University of Kansas Health System
- The hospital COVID count for this week is up to 12 inpatients, which is an increase from eight last week.
- Hopefully, we can get that trend to go back down to single digits and maybe even down to zero.
- A recent study confirms that the pandemic led to thousands of missed cancer diagnoses because people did not want to or were unable to go in to get testing.
- Online posts about “turbo cancer” are another example of false medical information.
- This misinformation about vaccines includes false messaging about people getting COVID vaccines who are somehow developing cancers that are fast moving. There's absolutely no truth behind that. All of the vaccines we have on the market right now have been proven to be safe and effective.
Tuesday, April 9 at 8 a.m. is the next Morning Medical Update. Meet Scott, who was ready to donate his kidney when he found out at the last minute he needed an organ donor himself.
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