Most Articles About Cancer Focused On The Positive Outcome Of Treatment

Most Articles About Cancer Focused On The Positive Outcome Of Treatment.
People often gripe that media reports one-sidedness towards bad news, but when it comes to cancer most newspaper and periodical stories may be overly optimistic, US researchers suggest. The enquiry authors found that articles were more likely to highlight aggressive treatment and survival, with far less notice given to cancer death, treatment failure, adverse events and end-of-life palliative or hospice care, according to their turn up in the March 22 issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

The University of Pennsylvania span analyzed 436 cancer-related stories published in eight large newspapers and five popular magazines between 2005 and 2007. The articles were most likely to focus on breast cancer (35 percent) or prostate cancer (nearly 15 percent), while 20 percent discussed cancer in general.

There were 140 stories (32 percent) that highlighted patients surviving or being cured of cancer, 33 stories (7,6 percent) that dealt with one or more patients who were at death's door or had died of cancer, and 10 articles (2,3 percent) that focused on both survival and death, the examination authors noted. "It is surprising that few articles about dying and in extremis considering that half of all patients diagnosed as having cancer will not survive," wrote Jessica Fishman and colleagues.

So "The findings are also surprising given that scientists, media critics and the put popular repeatedly criticize the news for focusing on death". Among the other findings.

Only 13 percent (57 articles) mentioned that some cancers are irremediable and hostile cancer treatments may not extend life. Less than one-third (131 articles) mentioned the voiding side effects associated with cancer treatments (such as nausea, pain or hair loss). While more than half (249 articles, or 57 percent) reported on warlike treatments exclusively, only two discussed end-of-life be concerned exclusively and only 11 reported on both aggressive treatments and end-of-life care.

Cancer is a assort of many related diseases that begin in cells, the body's basic building blocks. To dig cancer, it is helpful to know what happens when normal cells become cancerous.

The body is made up of many types of cells. Normally, cells thicken and divide to produce more cells as they are needed to keep the body healthy. Sometimes, this arranged process goes wrong.

New cells form when the body does not need them, and old cells do not cash in one's chips when they should. The extra cells form a mass of tissue called a extension or tumor. Not all tumors are cancerous; tumors can be benign or malignant.

Statistics. About 1,4 million remodelled cases of cancer will be diagnosed in the United States in 2005, and more than 550000 people will pass away of the disease. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in this country.

However, improvements in cancer detection, diagnosis, and therapy have increased the survival rate for many types of cancer sildenafilrx.net. About 64 percent of all kinsmen diagnosed with cancer will be alive 5 years after diagnosis.