September 2009

Although there is widespread agreement that the direct and indirect costs of litigation and the threat of lawsuits are major contributors to spiraling healthcare costs, tort reform and other proposals to remedy the problem have been relatively minor components of the debate over healthcare reform.

Two recent provocative newspaper articles and an editorial that appeared in a major medical journal serve as an excellent introduction to this brief commentary on the currently underappreciated and potentially serious implications for the medical community regarding the rapidly expanding arena of Internet-based social networking.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, colorectal cancer is the second leading cancer killer in the United States, affecting both men and women.

"In most cancer centers, and in good community practices, we do a pretty good job at the time of diagnosis informing a patient and their family what the diagnosis is, and what they'll need to do to get through treatment," Ganz says. "But patients often have no idea what to expect once they've finished their cancer treatment, and neither do the primary care providers on their t

Proton therapy centers are being built around the country, and one of the companies leading this effort is ProCure, a company dedicated to improving the lives of patients with cancer by increasing access to proton therapy. Since 2005, ProCure has developed several centers and more are underway.

Radiation therapy has been used to treat cancer for more than 100 years, and was made possible by the discovery of X-rays in 1895 by German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, which allowed tumors to be detected more easily and noninvasively.