Many With Terminal Cancer Still Getting Routine Screens

Many patients with incurable cancer are still being screened for common cancers, although these tests are unlikely to provide any benefit, researchers from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City have found. Specifically, many patients diagnosed with advanced lung, colorectal, pancreatic, gastroesophageal or breast cancer are still undergoing the ordeal of routine breast, prostate and colon cancer screening, said the researchers. Not only might these patients suffer from invasive procedures like colonoscopies near the end of life, the researchers said, but they face the unnecessary risk of additional tests, biopsies and psychological distress resulting from the detection of new malignancies.

"For patients living with advanced cancer, cancer screening should not be a routine procedure," said lead researcher Dr. Camelia S. Sima, an assistant attending biostatistician. "Patients living with advanced malignancies and their doctors should engage in a realistic conversation about the risks and benefits associated with cancer screening in face of a severely limited life expectancy," she added. The report is published in the Oct. 13 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. For the study, Sima's team collected data on 87,736 Medicare patients aged 65 years or older with advanced lung, colorectal, pancreatic, gastroesophageal or breast cancer, whose data was reported in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) tumor registries.

These patients were followed from their diagnosis, between 1998 and 2005, until they died or to the end of 2007. To compare the findings to a control group, the researchers also collected data on 87,307 similar Medicare patients without cancer, who were matched with the other individuals for age, race, sex and SEER data. In both patient groups, Sima's team looked at the rates of mammograms for breast cancer, Pap tests for cervical cancer, prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests for prostate cancer and endoscopy for colon cancer. The investigators found that among women with advanced cancer, 8.9 percent had a mammogram, compared with 22 percent of those without cancer; and 5.8 percent of the cancer patients had a Pap test, compared with 12.5 percent of those without cancer.

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Placebo Pill Gives Boost to Some Women's Sex Drive

About one-third of women given a placebo pill to treat a low libido reported improvements in their sex lives, a finding researchers say is evidence of the powerful and somewhat mysterious mind-body connection surrounding arousal and desire. After drugs like Viagra and Cialis revolutionized the treatment of male sexual dysfunction in the late 1990s, a flurry of clinical trials were conducted in women in the hopes that the drugs could do the same to revive a woman's flagging sex drive. The drugs flopped in women. But recently, researchers went back and looked at the old data on Cialis and found that not only did about 35 percent of women given the placebo pill experience significant improvement in psychological aspects of sex such as desire, many reported improvements in the physical aspects of arousal, including better lubrication, more frequent orgasms or more easily attainable orgasms, according to the study.

"Everything across the board improved in some women," said study author Andrea Bradford, a post-doctoral fellow at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. The study is published in the current issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine. In the original study, 50 women aged 35 to 55 who were diagnosed with female sexual arousal disorder were given either Cialis or a placebo for 12 weeks. The women, most of whom were married, were asked to have sex at least three times a month. "Many went above and beyond," Bradford noted. Women also had to keep a diary of how often they had sex and how satisfying it was. Bradford suspects the improvements were due to several aspects of the study the hope that the pill might be working plus speaking with medical professionals about sex, thinking about sex and trying to have better sex.

"I think just the act of attending to their sex lives was very therapeutic for some women," Bradford said. Over time, the frequency with which women had sex dropped some, but they continued to report better sex lives overall. "It was quality over quantity," she said. When sex is no longer satisfying, women tend to avoid it, noted Aline Zolbrod, a Boston-area clinical psychologist and sex therapist. Without at least giving it a try, there's little hope sex will get better. "I love this study," Zolbrod said. "It does what we'd like to get our patients to do, which is to start having sex again. Instead of getting into bed and sighing, 'Oh, this is never going to work,' instead they are getting into bed and thinking, 'Let's see what happens.' When you have that attitude and you have sex almost once a week, for some women it really did the trick."

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Casual Sex Can Lead to Long-Term Relationships: Study

People who "hook up" for casual sex can have as rewarding a long-term relationship as those who take it slowly and establish a meaningful connection before they have sex, says a new study. University of Iowa researchers analyzed relationship surveys and found that average relationship quality was higher for people who took it slowly than for those who became sexually involved in "hook-ups," casual dating, or "friends with benefits" relationships. However, having sex early on wasn't the reason for this disparity, according to UI sociologist Anthony Paik. When he factored out people who weren't interested in getting serious, he found that those who became sexually involved as friends or acquaintances and were open to a serious relationship were just as happy as those who dated but delayed having sex.

The study analyzed a survey of 642 heterosexual adults in Chicago. To measure the quality of the relationships, people answered questions about how much they loved their partner, their level of satisfaction with intimacy in the relationship, the future of the relationship, and how their lives would be different if the relationship ended. "We didn't see much evidence that relationships were lower quality because they started off as hook-ups," Paik, an assistant professor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said in a UI news release. "The study suggests that rewarding relationships are possible for those who delay sex. But it's also possible for true love to emerge if things start off with a more 'Sex and the City' approach, when people spot each other across the room, become sexually involved and then build a relationship," he added.

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Older Diabetes Patients Still Sexually Active, Study Finds

Most older adults with diabetes are sexually active but the disease does cause some problems with intimacy, a new study found. U.S. researchers surveyed 1,993 people, aged 57 to 85, and found that nearly 70 percent of partnered men with diabetes and 62 percent of partnered women with diabetes had sex two or three times a month, which is comparable to people the same age without diabetes. However, compared with men without diabetes, diabetic men were more likely to lack interest in sex and to experience erectile dysfunction.

Men and women with diabetes reported a higher rate of orgasm problems, such as climaxing too soon (men) or not at all (men and women).The study, published in the September issue of the journal Diabetes Care, also found that 47 percent of men with diabetes had discussed sexual problems with a doctor, compared with only 19 percent of diabetic women. Men were much more likely than women to initiate this type of discussion."Patients and doctors need to know that most middle-age and older adults with partners are still sexually active despite their diabetes.

However, many people with diabetes have sexual problems that are not being addressed," study lead author Dr. Stacy Lindau, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology and of medicine at the University of Chicago, said in a university news release. "Failure to recognize and address sexual issues among middle age and older adults with diabetes may impair quality of life and adaptation to the disease," added senior author Dr. Marshall Chin, a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. "Sexual problems are common in patients with diabetes, and many patients are not discussing these issues with their physicians."

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U.S. Child Abuse Cases Falling, Despite Recession

Child abuse rates in the United States declined between 2007 and 2008 despite the onset of the economic recession, a new study has found. Cases of child sexual abuse decreased 6 percent, physical abuse declined 3 percent and child neglect fell 2 percent, according to researchers at the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. Researchers led by center director and professor of sociology David Finkelhor said the decreases are especially noteworthy because 2008 was the first full year of the current recession and tough economic times are believed to be associated with increased family stress and child abuse.

"This is good news, but we need to be very cautious. It could be that discouragement and despair in families about their deteriorating economic situation take longer than a year to show their effects," Finkelhor said in a university news release. However, the study did note that the recent decrease is part of a downward trend in physical and sexual abuse that's continued for more than 15 years. "The long-term improvement for sexual and physical abuse may be related to a generation-long effort to educate and respond more effectively and aggressively to the problem," Finkelhor said. "If successful prevention efforts are behind the declines, then the improvements may persist even in the face of social stressors like the recession."

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Cyberbullying, 'Sexting' Major Problems for Schoolkids

Being bullied in cyberspace and "sexting" are major problems for school-age children, and parents need to be aware of this to protect them, says an expert. Research suggests that as many as 25 percent of children in the United States report being subjected to cyberbullying, which the use of technological devices to deliberately harass or harm other people through e-mail, text messaging, instant messaging, cell phones and online networking sites."With the increase technological devices, children are now using to harass and harm other children," Bridget Roberts, an professor of counseling at Indiana State University, said in a university news release.

"Many children have personal cell phones, making it very easy to use these devices in that way. Communication in cyberspace also seems more anonymous and seems to require less responsibility on the part of the child committing the behavior." And at least 20 percent of teens say they've engaged in sexting, which is the sending of sexually explicit photos via cell phones. "Teens and their parents are not aware of the serious nature of such an act and the potentially life-long consequences" of sexting, Roberts-Pittman warned. For example, teens arrested for sexting can be charged with the possession or distribution of child pornography and be required to register as a sex offender for up to 20 years in some states.

She said worrisome changes in a child's behavior may be an indication of cyberbullying or sexting. "Behavior change is a part of adolescence. However, a significant change could mean the child is dealing with a serious issue such as cyberbullying. Parents should be aware of signs such as anxiety, depression, their child not wanting to attend school or making a drastic decision such as quitting a sports team," Roberts-Pittman said. In addition, parents need to monitor their children's phone and Internet use and can do so using software packages such as Spectorsoft or I Am Big Brother.

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