Biopsy

After a recent chest X-ray, my doctor told me I might have sarcoidosis. What causes it, how can I be sure I have it, and how is it likely to affect me?The dictionary defines sarcoidosis as a chronic disease characterized by the development of lesions similar to tubercles in the lungs, bones and skin. Sarcoidosis occurs throughout the world. An estimated 2.4 percent of blacks and 0.85 percent of whites are at risk to develop sarcoidosis during their lifetimes.What causes sarcoidosis is unknown.

Washington.--In December the National Cancer Institute revised its guidelines on mammogram screening for breast cancer. Previously, it had recommended regular mammograms for all women over age 40. Now it makes no recommendation for those between 40 and 50. Its position is that the evidence is not clear. Women, it says, should study the data and decide for themselves.This is a deeply unsatisfying recommendation, for two reasons. First, if the experts at the National Cancer Institute can't decide whether mammograms are worth while for women in their 40s, how on earth is a non-expert supposed to decide for herself?

When the debilitating cell disease that had plagued their daughter since birth began last year to stop her heart for several minutes at a time, Dawn and Stephen Murphy turned to home hospice care. Hospice helped with both the practical and emotional aspects of caring for a 6-year-old child with a terminal illness. Hospice nurses made sure Kayla was comfortable in her Havre de Grace home. Counselors helped the parents cope with the possibility of death. "We don't want her to be in a sterile hospital environment," said Kayla's mom, Dawn.

Seeing a chance to stop one of the most deadly kinds of cancer before it forms, doctors at Johns Hopkins and at other hospitals around the nation are focusing on the common pancreatic cyst. Up to 20 percent of pancreatic cancer begins as one of these small, fluid-filled brown lesions. And left to grow unabated, pancreatic cancer kills 95 percent of sufferers within five years. "We have a wonderful opportunity to intervene at an early stage," Dr. Anne Marie Lennon , an assistant professor and director of a new Hopkins Multidisciplinary Pancreatic Cyst Program.

Q: My doctor has made a tentative diagnosis of temporal arteritis and has referred me to a surgeon for a biopsy of an artery on the side of my face. I am reluctant to follow his advice because my only health problems at age 75 are some headaches and increased tiredness. Why would I need a biopsy?A: Temporal arteritis, also known as giant cell arteritis, is a disorder caused by an unexplained inflammation of the arteries, most often those supplying the scalp and eyes. Narrowing of the arteries by the inflammation can decrease the blood supply to tissues and cause headaches, pain and tenderness in the scalp, pain when chewing and recurrent, but transient, blurring or loss of vision.

A new type of PSA blood test could spare up to 200,000 men a year the need for painful biopsies to determine if they have prostate cancer, doctors in a large national trial said yesterday.The test, which received government approval in February, helps to distinguish between early-stage prostate cancers and benign conditions that should merely be watched."Medical science has come up with a more rational approach to screening for prostate cancer," said Dr. Alan Partin, a urologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, one of seven medical centers involved in the study.

PHILADELPHIA - A breast biopsy that comes back benign is reassuring to most women, but about a third are at significantly higher risk of breast cancer and need to discuss their options, a new study concludes. Those options include taking tamoxifen, undergoing genetic testing and supplementing regular mammography with breast MRIs. "There are different categories of benign biopsies, and they convey different risks," said Mayo Clinic oncologist Lynn Hartmann, who led the study published in today's New England Journal of Medicine.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Orioles catcher Brook Fordyce, who lost five pints of blood when an artery burst between his stomach and esophagus in January, got some long-awaited good news yesterday. The biopsy that was performed to determine the cause of the incident showed nothing to indicate it was the result of a serious disease. Fordyce, understandably relieved, said he has been assured that a recurrence is unlikely if he avoids aspirin products and anti-inflammatory medication and takes an acid-neutralizing medication regularly.

Johns Hopkins researchers say they have devised a more accurate blood test for prostate cancer that could eventually replace PSA screening, flagging more malignancies while reducing the number of false alarms. The scientists, who reported their findings today in the journal Urology, say the test could spare thousands of men painful biopsies that turn out negative every year. "We're biopsying a lot of men who don't have prostate cancer," said Dr. Robert H. Getzenberg, director of urological research at the Johns Hopkins Brady Urological Institute.

Dr. Gary S. Hill, an internationally renowned renal pathologist and the former chief of pathology at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, died Tuesday from lung cancer. He was 74. Dr. Hill pioneered a new technique for biopsies of tissue, in addition to developing a system for identifying lupus and how far the disease had progressed in a patient. Colleagues and family described him as a man greatly interested in conversation and friends, traits that translated into the way he moved forward in his career.