The New York City Fire Department’s 20-year report on the health consequences of the 9/11 terrorist attacks finds that first responders consistently report mental health quality-of-life indicators that are better than those of average Americans, even as their physical health declines.
Patients often fork over payments comparable to valet rates to park while receiving care. A recent study found that some of the country’s most prestigious cancer centers charge nearly $1,700 over the course of treatment for some types of the disease.
Access to physician-assisted death is expanding across the U.S., but the procedure remains in Montana’s legal gray zone more than a decade after the state Supreme Court ruled physicians could use a dying patient’s consent as a defense.
Multiple-gene panel tests are frequently offered to patients at risk for diseases such as cancer that can assess more than 80 genes. But in screening a wide variety of genes, doctors might see a variant that hasn’t yet been deciphered and be unable to explain its significance, leaving patients with concerns and no answers.
Older patients with cancer, dementia or other serious illnesses should check with their doctors, but medical experts recommend the vaccine for most people.
A proposal in Washington state would use right-to-try laws to allow terminally ill patients access to psilocybin — the famed magic mushrooms of America’s psychedelic ’60s — to ease depression and anxiety.
The National Cancer Institute plans to launch a multisite study next year involving roughly 5,000 women to assess whether self-sampling at home for the human papillomavirus that causes cervical cancer is comparable to screening in a doctor’s office.
Cancer patients seeking care during the coronavirus pandemic face an array of obstacles as states reopen, such as heavily restricted in-hospital appointments and new clinical trials on hold.
As hospitals across the country are forced to delay or cancel certain medical procedures in response to the surge in patients with COVID-19, those hard choices are disrupting care for some people with serious illnesses.
California has one of the lowest rates of new lung cancer cases in the country, attributed largely to its aggressive anti-tobacco policies. But gaps in the state’s health care system mean that people who are diagnosed with the disease, or at a high risk of getting it, often fall through the cracks.
