Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Women Not Getting Lifesaving Cancer Treatment, Study Finds

It's a treatment that can raise the dismal survival rate from ovarian cancer by 10 percentage points, but most women who should be getting it aren't.

A new study shows just 41 percent of eligible women are getting chemotherapy delivered directly to the affected area, even though the benefits are so strong that the National Cancer Institute has made a rare recommendation for doctors to use it.

The therapy involved infusing strong chemotherapy drugs directly into a patient's abdomen alongside more traditional intravenous infusions.

It's not as easy as just showing up once a week or so to sit in a chair for a few hours. Patients have to be admitted to the hospital to get it. But a 2006 study showed that adding the extra infusion — called intraperitoneal chemotherapy — adds 16 months to the average patient's life.

Full article and related video available here: Women Not Getting Lifesaving Cancer Treatment...

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