Cancer care in the United States is a system in crisis, according to a new report from the Institute of Medicine that says urgent changes are needed to boost the quality of care and improve outcomes for people diagnosed with the disease.
Scientists from UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health led by Julia Heck, an assistant researcher in the school's epidemiology department and a member of
Breast cancer risk estimates for individual women vary substantially depending on which risk assessment model is used, and women are likely receiving vastly different recommendations depending on the model used and the cutoff applied to define "high risk," according to a new study from UCLA. The study appears online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
Current incidence rates indicate that about one in eight women born in the United States today will develop breast cancer at some time during her life. The risk increases with age.
THE DISCOVERY IN THE 1980s linking the human papillomavirus (HPV) to nearly all cases of cervical cancer led to the groundbreaking development of a cancer-prevention vaccine, approved for use in females in 2006 and for males in 2009. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now recommends that the HPV vaccine — which can prevent cervical, anal, vulvar, vaginal, penile and certain throat cancers, as well as genital warts — be offered routinely to adolescents and young adults ages 11-26.
PANCREATIC CANCER IS TREATABLE when detected early, but since symptoms rarely occur until the disease has spread to other organs, the vast majority of cases are diagnosed in the later stages, making it among the most lethal tumors. According to the American Cancer Society, the five-year survival rate following a pancreatic cancer diagnosis is 9 percent. It is the fourth-leading cause of cancer death in the U.S.
Over the past 30 years, progress in early detection and treatment of cancer has helped reduce the overall death rate by more than 30%. Pancreatic cancer, however, has remained difficult to treat. Only 1 in 9 people survive five years after diagnosis, in part because this cancer is protected by biological factors that help it resist treatment.
Past research has shown that pesticide exposure increases the risk of cancer. Now, UCLA-led research has exposed which specific pesticides increase the risk of retinoblastoma — a rare eye tumor — in children.
The study, published in the August International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, found that children prenatally exposed to the chemicals acephate and bromacil had an increased risk of developing unilateral retinoblastoma, or cancer in one eye, and that exposure to pymetrozine and kresoxim-methyl increased the risk of all types of retinoblastoma.
A UCLA-led research team has found apparent links between pesticides and thyroid cancer risk in three Central California counties.
California voters will decide in November whether to uphold or block a law Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in 2020 that banned the sale of certain flavored tobacco products, an effort by anti-tobacco advocates to stop a youth vaping crisis and weaken the industry’s influence in the state.
Dr. Patricia Ganz, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health distinguished professor of health policy and management, has been recognized for her work to improve the care and lives of cancer survivors and their families.