Cancer News

Breast cancer survivor Vicky Ayech, said she had not eaten for 24 hours when she was in hospital for surgery on her breast.

The 67-year-old from Hertfordshire added:

I was taken up to the ward by 8.30pm after surgery on my breast - I was so hungry as I'd not eaten for 24 hours.

I was given a menu but didn't get any food until 11pm, and then it was only bread and jam.

After such an experience with nurses busy and impatient, I got myself discharged the next morning, earlier than was wise in retrospect.

• Health
• Hertfordshire
• Cancer

A poll conducted on 350 cancer patients treated in the last two years found that as many as one in 17 suffered blunders surrounding their medication.

This included getting the wrong drugs or being administered incorrect doses.

This survey sheds a worrying light on the sub-culture within some parts of the NHS where bad patient experience is acceptable. We have seen this at its worst in the case of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust exposed in the Francis Inquiry.

What staff need is the time and space to truly care for patients and to be given the tools to do this.

• Health
• Cancer

A charity has warned over the "alarming" number of cancer patients who are left to go hungry in hospitals, and want to drop out of treatment because of the way they were dealt with by staff.

One third of cancer patients in hospital were forced to ask for extra food, a new poll by Macmillan Cancer Support found.

More than 5% of patients said they felt like stopping their treatment early because of the way hospital staff dealt with them.

• Health
• Cancer

Angelina Jolie has written in the New York Times about her decision to undergo a preventative double mastectomy to reduce her risk of breast cancer.

My mother fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56. She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was.

My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman.

Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy.

• Entertainment
• Angelina Jolie
• Cancer

Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that the incidence of brain cancer has almost a quarter over the last thirty years.

In the last 32 years, brain cancer incidence rates have increased by 23% for men and 25% for women.

Unlike other cancers, brain cancer mortality rates have increased. In the last 32 years, the mortality rate from brain cancer has increased by 15% for men and almost 10% for women.

• Health
• Cancer

Cancer patients who work and those with children fork out an average monthly cost twice as high as those who are not in work or who do not have any children, a Macmillan spokeswoman has said.

This new research shows that cancer comes with a whopping price tag for many patients.

Combined with the current recession and with welfare cuts, the cost of the disease is hitting the most vulnerable hardest.

With the number of people living with cancer in the UK doubling from two to four million by 2030, this is a growing problem which cannot be ignored.

Cancer costs the equivalent of a second mortgage. We must act now to protect the financially vulnerable from having to foot the bill for their illness.

• Health
• Cancer
• Macmillan Cancer Support

Researchers at the University of Bristol surveyed 1,600 UK cancer patients to examine the impact on their finances during treatment. They found:

• Travelling to hospital appointments costs two in three patients £170 a month.
• Patients face an additional cost of £37 a month for parking charges at hospitals.
• A third said their fuel bills increased by about £24 a month.

• 30% said they were losing around £860 a month in earnings because they are unable to work or had to cut down their hours.

• Health
• Cancer
• Macmillan Cancer Support