Welcome to Weekly Health Update

“A critical weekly review of important new research findings for health-conscious readers”

SURGEON PERFORMANCE IMPAIRED AFTER DRINKING ALCOHOL THE DAY BEFORE SURGERY

Surgeons, like pilots, are held to a very high standard of conduct when it comes to alcohol and drug use. Unlike pilots, however, there are no rules barring surgeons from having a few beers, or other alcoholic drinks, on the day or evening before they enter the operating room to perform surgery.

While most surgeons drink alcohol responsibly, some surgeons (like people in any other profession) may occasionally have a few more drinks the day or evening before they report for duty than might be considered prudent. When a surgeon has a few more alcoholic drinks than they might have planned on the day before they are scheduled to perform surgery, most will undoubtedly assume that “sleeping it off” overnight will leave them fresh and in tip-top shape to wield the scalpel in the operating room on the next morning. However, a newly published clinical research study suggests otherwise….

A newly published prospective, randomized clinical study, which appears in the latest issue of the Archives of Surgery, included two groups of study volunteers. A total of 8 expert laparoscopic surgeons were included in one group, while the other group consisted of 16 university science students. All 24 participants were trained to use a computer-based laparoscopic surgery training device that is routinely utilized to train new surgeons in laparoscopic surgery skills. The science students were then divided into two groups. The “control” group abstained from alcohol for the 24-hour period prior to being tested on their laparoscopic skills, while the other half of the students (the “experimental group”) were allowed to drink alcohol freely until they felt themselves to be “intoxicated.” The 8 expert laparoscopic surgeons were all permitted to drink alcoholic beverages “until intoxicated.” The following day, all 24 study volunteers were tested on the laparoscopic training device at 9:00 AM, 1:00 PM, and 4:00 PM. All study participants also underwent breathalyzer testing to measure their blood alcohol level, and only one of the volunteers had a blood alcohol level above the legal limit (for driving) of 0.1 percent at 9:00 on the morning after their drinking binge.

Among the science students, performance deteriorated in all of the tested laparoscopic surgery skills among those who had consumed alcohol on the day prior to testing (when compared to the “control group” of students). The outcome was not any better for the expert laparoscopic surgeons, either. These experienced surgeons, all of whom consumed multiple alcoholic drinks on the day before testing, showed significant deterioration in the time that it took them to perform specific laparoscopic surgery skills, as well as a significant deterioration in their coordination and in the number of technical errors that they made. Moreover, this significant deterioration in surgical performance was still detectable at 4:00 PM on the day after these study volunteers had consumed multiple alcoholic beverages, and despite blood alcohol levels well below the legal limit for driving.

As previous research with airline pilots has shown, alcohol consumption within 24 hours of performing critical tasks can cause significant cognitive and physical impairment, even when blood alcohol levels are zero, or near zero. The findings of this clinical study of surgeons came to similar conclusions, and these findings suggest that surgeons should avoid the consumption of multiple alcoholic drinks within 24 hours of entering the operating room.

For a complete evidence-based discussion about how to live an evidence-based cancer prevention lifestyle, order your copy of my new book, A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race.  For the price of a cheeseburger, fries, and a shake, you can purchase this landmark new book, in both paperback and e-book formats, and begin living an evidence-based cancer prevention lifestyle today!

For a groundbreaking overview of cancer risks, and evidence-based strategies to reduce your risk of developing cancer, order your copy of my new book, “A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race,” from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Vroman’s Bookstore, and other fine bookstores!

On Thanksgiving Day, 2010, A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race was ranked #6 among all cancer-related books on the Amazon.com “Top 100 Bestseller’s List” for Kindle e-books! On Christmas Day, 2010, A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race was the #1 book on the Amazon.com “Top 100 New Book Releases in Cancer” list!

Disclaimer:  As always, my advice to readers is to seek the advice of your physician before making any significant changes in medications, diet, or level of physical activity

Dr. Wascher is an oncologic surgeon, professor of surgery, cancer researcher, oncology consultant, and a widely published author

For a different perspective on Dr. Wascher, please click on the following YouTube link:

Texas Blues Jam

Welcome to Weekly Health Update

“A critical weekly review of important new research findings for health-conscious readers”

PROSTATE CANCER AND HIGH INTENSITY FOCUSED ULTRASOUND (HIFU)

The two most commonly used treatments for early-stage prostate cancer, surgery and radiation therapy, are both associated with a significant risk of potential complications, including impotence and varying degrees of urinary incontinence.  Because of these serious side effects of prostate cancer therapy, new approaches to the management of this common type of cancer are constantly being evaluated.

High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is a relatively new and non-invasive approach to cancer therapy.  Unlike more invasive cancer treatments, HIFU focuses very powerful ultrasound (sound wave) beams directly at a tumor.  These focused ultrasound beams then cause the tumor to become heated to the point that the tumor is killed.  Unlike radiation therapy, however, which is used to essentially destroy the entire prostate gland (or surgery, which requires the removal of the entire prostate gland), HIFU can be focused onto just the portion of the prostate gland where early-stage tumors are located.

A newly published research study, which appears in the current issue of the Journal of Urology, has evaluated the use of HIFU in carefully selected patients with very early prostate cancer.  In this small prospective clinical research study, 20 men with small, localized prostate cancer tumors were treated with HIFU.  Repeat biopsies of the prostate gland were then performed 6 months later, and these 20 men were then reassessed, once again, 12 months after undergoing HIFU treatment of their early prostate cancers.  (Low-risk cancers were present in 25 percent of these men, and intermediate-risk prostate cancers were present in the remaining 75 percent of these male volunteers.)

At 12 months following HIFU therapy, an amazing 95 percent of these men were still sexually potent.  Moreover, 90 percent of the men had complete control of their urinary stream (urinary continence), and 95 percent of these men did not require a protective pad in their underwear to prevent soiling of their clothes with urine.  Moreover, 89 percent of these men were simultaneously free of urinary leaks, impotence, and detectable recurrences of their prostate gland tumors at 12 months. (These extremely impressive results with HIFU reveal a complication rate that is far below what has been described for surgical removal of the prostate, and for radiation therapy for prostate cancer; as well as an excellent cancer control rate at 12 months.)

Now, a few caveats before anyone gets too excited about the results of this study.  First of all, this was a very small study, and the patients who participated in this study were very carefully selected based upon the very small size of their prostate cancer tumors.  Secondly, prostate cancer is, in general, a slow-growing cancer, and the 12-month period of follow-up of these study volunteers is much too brief to measure the long-term effectiveness of HIFU for the treatment of prostate cancer.  Finally, although HIFU is considered a non-invasive form of treatment, it generates very high temperatures within the tissues that are targeted by the ultrasound beams.  As with radiation therapy, HIFU can, therefore, also cause unintended damage to surrounding organs, and can cause some of the very same complications associated with radiation therapy.

While not yet ready for “prime time,” HIFU may still have an important future role in the management of localized prostate cancer.  However, in my view, larger clinical studies, and longer patient follow-up, will be necessary before HIFU proves itself to be equal to surgery and radiation therapy in the management of prostate cancer.

For a complete evidence-based discussion regarding an evidence-based cancer prevention lifestyle, order your copy of my new book, A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race.  For the price of a cheeseburger, fries, and a shake, you can purchase this landmark new book, in both paperback and e-book formats, and begin living an evidence-based cancer prevention lifestyle today!

On Thanksgiving Day, 2010, A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race was ranked #6 among all cancer-related books on the Amazon.com “Top 100 Bestseller’s List” for Kindle e-books! On Christmas Day, 2010, A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race was the #1 book on the Amazon.com “Top 100 New Book Releases in Cancer” list!

Disclaimer:  As always, my advice to readers is to seek the advice of your physician before making any significant changes in medications, diet, or level of physical activity

Dr. Wascher is an oncologic surgeon, professor of surgery, cancer researcher, oncology consultant, and a widely published author

For a different perspective on Dr. Wascher, please click on the following YouTube link:

Texas Blues Jam

Welcome to Weekly Health Update

“A critical weekly review of important new research findings for health-conscious readers”

AXILLARY LYMPH NODE DISSECTION FOR BREAST CANCER MAY NOT BE NECESSARY

The management of breast cancer has undergone many advances since the radical mastectomy that first came into popularity in the United States in the late 19^th century.  At that time, even early cancers of the breast were managed by surgically removing the entire breast, the underlying chest wall muscles, and all of the lymph nodes under the armpit (axilla).  It wasn’t until the 1970s that surgeons began to abandon radical mastectomy, in favor of the less disfiguring modified radical mastectomy, based upon emerging research data at the time.  By the 1980s, additional research data had confirmed that women who underwent lumpectomy plus radiation therapy experienced equivalent survival when compared to women who underwent mastectomy.  In the late 1990s, another major paradigm shift in the surgical management of breast cancer occurred with the rapid adoption of sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy, which had previously also revolutionized the surgical management of melanoma.  Following the successful application of SLN biopsy to breast cancer, the 60 to 70 percent of women with breast cancer who have normal axillary SLNs (i.e., no evidence of spread of breast cancer cells to the lymph nodes in the axilla) could now avoid undergoing complete axillary lymph node dissection (ALND), wherein about two-thirds of the armpit lymph nodes are surgically removed.  As the risk of arm swelling (lymphedema), numbness, and other long-term side effects associated with ALND are only one-tenth as common following SLN biopsy, the majority of women undergoing breast cancer surgery over the past decade have been able to avoid many of the chronic complications and side effects associated with the more radical surgical approaches used in the past.  However, between one-fourth and one-third of women diagnosed with breast cancer will still be found to have tumor cell in their SLNs, and most of these women have routinely been advised to undergo ALND to remove additional armpit lymph nodes.

Now, a newly published clinical research study from the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group has, once again, dramatically shifted the paradigm of breast cancer management.  This clinical research study, which I was privileged to participate in when I was a Surgical Oncology Fellow at the John Wayne Cancer Institute, enrolled 891 women newly diagnosed with breast cancer, and with early metastatic cancer involving one or more of their axillary SLNs.  These women were evenly randomized into two groups.  One group underwent the standard therapy of ALND, while the other half of these patient volunteers were observed, without further surgery, following SLN biopsy.  The results of this pioneering breast cancer research study appear in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

After an average duration of patient follow-up of more than 6 years, this pivotal clinical study has confirmed what many of us oncologists have long suspected.  In women with evidence of microscopic spread of breast cancer to one or more axillary SLNs, there was no difference in overall survival whether or not they went on to undergo ALND, as long as they underwent otherwise standard therapy for lymph-node-positive breast cancer (including lumpectomy, radiation therapy to the breast, and chemotherapy).

I cannot overstate the potential impact of the findings of this important clinical study.  However, while some have heralded the findings of this study as breaking important new ground, in fact that ground was broken by the very same pioneering prospective clinical research study (the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project’s NSABP B-04 study, which began in 1971) that originally led surgeons to abandon radical mastectomy.  Within this older large prospective clinical study was an important subgroup of 586 women with palpably enlarged axillary lymph nodes (and which actually indicated a more advanced stage of lymph node involvement than the women who participated in the more modern American College of Surgeons Oncology Group study).  Like all of the women who participated in the NSABP B-04 study, these 586 breast cancer patients with enlarged armpit lymph nodes were randomized to undergo radical mastectomy with radical ALND versus mastectomy alone (and no lymph node surgery at all ) combined with radiation therapy.  After an average follow-up of 25 years, there wasabsolutely no difference in survival between the women who underwent radical lymph node surgery combined with radical mastectomy versus those women who underwent simple mastectomy alone (and no lymph node surgery) followed by radiation therapy.

Thus, the newly reported findings of this pivotal American College of Surgeons Oncology Group clinical study only further validates the findings of the nearly 40 year-old NSABP B-04 study, and should put to rest, once and for all, the decades-old debate about the role of surgery in the management of the axillary lymph nodes in patients with newly diagnosed breast cancer.  At a minimum, surgeons should now advise their breast cancer patients that there is now 40 years worth of high-level clinical research data showing that the surgical removal of most or all of the armpit lymph nodes (ALND) does not improve survival in women who otherwise undergo standard breast cancer treatment that includes lumpectomy (or mastectomy), chemotherapy, and radiation therapy.

I predict that the findings of these two landmark breast cancer surgical studies will, together, once again revolutionize the surgical management of breast cancer, and will further reduce the adverse impact of surgery on hundreds of thousands of women around the world each year.  Indeed, this latest revolution in the management of breast cancer has already started at major cancer centers in the United States, where women are already being advised that the finding of early spread of breast cancer cells to their axillary SLNs no longer mandates “completion ALND,” as long as these patients undergo standard chemotherapy and radiation therapy following lumpectomy and SLN biopsy.

For a complete discussion of evidence-based approaches to cancer risk and cancer prevention, order your copy of my new book, A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race.  For the price of a cheeseburger, fries, and a shake, you can purchase this landmark new book, in both paperback and e-book formats, and begin living an evidence-based cancer prevention lifestyle today!

For a groundbreaking overview of cancer risks, and evidence-based strategies to reduce your risk of developing cancer, order your copy of my new book, “A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race,” from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Vroman’s Bookstore, and other fine bookstores!

On Thanksgiving Day, 2010, A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race was ranked #6 among all cancer-related books on the Amazon.com “Top 100 Bestseller’s List” for Kindle e-books! On Christmas Day, 2010, A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race was the #1 book on the Amazon.com “Top 100 New Book Releases in Cancer” list!

Disclaimer: As always, my advice to readers is to seek the advice of your physician before making any significant changes in medications, diet, or level of physical activity

Dr. Wascher is an oncologic surgeon, a professor of surgery, a cancer researcher, an oncology consultant, and a widely published author

For a different perspective on Dr. Wascher, please click on the following YouTube link: Texas Blues Jam

I and the staff of Weekly Health Update would again like to take this opportunity to thank the more than 100,000 health-conscious people, from around the world, who visit this premier global health information website every month. (More than 1.2 million health-conscious people visited Weekly Health Update in 2010!) As always, we enjoy receiving your stimulating feedback and questions, and I will continue to try and personally answer as many of your inquiries as I possibly can.