Iowa Cancer Summit

The Iowa Cancer Summit was Monday and yesterday, and fortunately I was able to go yesterday. The Summit is an annual statewide event that brings together over 100 people involved in cancer control practices. A major theme at this year's Summit was the unveiling of the newly revised Iowa Cancer Plan, which is available to download online here. The plan is meant to guide cancer control practices across the state for the next 6 years and is separated into four major sections: Prevention, Screening, Treatment, and Quality of Life.

The keynote speaker this year was Dr. Laura Seeff, the Comprehensive Cancer Control Branch Chief for the CDC. Her talk was great; one of the take home messages was about the importance of policy and systems-level change, and that we should be sure to include efforts to change those instead of focusing only (or even primarily) on individuals. She also talked about the importance of working together with other chronic disease control efforts and groups dedicated to improving health in other ways to make sure we aren't all duplicating efforts and not being as effective as we could otherwise be.

One of my favorite parts of the Summit, however, was the Cancer Survivors Panel breakout session. Three cancer survivors spoke on the panel about their experiences. The speakers were Gail Orcutt, a radon-induced lung cancer survivor who is a tireless radon advocate and simply a wonderful person; Greg Cantwell, a stage 4 brain cancer survivor; and Gabbi DeWitt, whose mom passed away from cancer this spring. (The ICC, like the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, defines cancer survivors as those who have been diagnosed with cancer, those who are affected by a loved one's cancer, and caregivers). One major theme of their stories was the importance of having care coordinated. As a cancer patient, you see many different specialists, and sometimes they do not communicate with each other, meaning that major problems/complications can be overlooked and it can be very confusing. I was especially thankful for Gabbi's insights into the benefits of hospice. I think many times the focus in cancer treatment is how survivors are going to win their battle with cancer, but sometimes that is not possible, and that can be very difficult for people to accept or even want to talk about. Gabbi, who works in hospice herself, said that her mom was able to be on hospice care for 11 weeks before she passed, and that those 11 weeks were wonderful and "like a breathe of fresh air." Her mom was able to stay at home and spend time with her friends and family. For more information about hospice, here's a fact sheet from the National Cancer Institute.

This was the second Cancer Summit I've been able to go to, and it's always great to see so many great people dedicated to fighting cancer.
 
Anyway, before I got, here are some articles I've read this past week that you might find interesting:

Study Cites Increase in Throat Cancers from HPV - Denise Grady, NYT
Further support for the importance of the HPV vaccine and for the importance of vaccinating boys.


Hormonal Contraceptives May Raise HIV Risk for Men and Women - Scott Hensley, NPR Health Blog


Top 5 Unnecessary Health-care Costs - Jonathan D. Rockoff, WSJ Health Blog
"Doctors’ prescribing a brand-name statin, without first  checking to see if a lower-priced generic drug would cut a patient’s cholesterol sufficiently, results in $5.8 billion in excess health-care spending, according to the research letter published Oct. 1."


Should a Candidate's Weight be Part of the Conversation? - Katherine Hobson, WSJ Health Blog
My opinion to this question is a definite no.