Breast Cancer Patients

When Pat Messick received the diagnosis, she became one of the people she had always read about: a victim of breast cancer."You're in a daze," said Messick, of Towson. "You feel very mortal, like you're going to have an end that might be sooner than you thought. You start having these very finite thoughts. In a way, you get used to it. But it always haunts you. It never goes away."That was almost two years ago. Today, Messick will be one of 15,000 people expected at the Inner Harbor for the "Race for the Cure," an annual event organized by the Susan B. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

CHRISTOPHER Rutland, a Severna Park Middle School pupil, has won a full-tuition academic scholarship to Archbishop Spalding High School.The scholarships are even more highly sought after than admission to the school. More than 400 eighth-graders are vying for the fewer than 250 slots that will be available to the Class of 2002.B&A Trail walk plannedPark Ranger David DeVault has scheduled a search-for-spring hike along the B&A Trail at 10 a.m. March 14.If the previous weather is any indication, this hike, which begins at the Jones Station Road/B&A Trail intersection in Severna Park, should be a great success.

Solving a medical mysteryA DISCOVERY by researchers at the University of Maryland's Greenebaum Cancer Center helps explain why some breast cancer patients have better success with chemotherapy treatment than others. The researchers identified a protein in some patients that "pumps out" the chemotherapy before the anti-cancer drug can reach and destroy the nucleus of the breast cancer cells.Now that the problem has been identified, researchers hope compounds can be added to chemotherapy drugs in the future that will inhibit the interference of these proteins -- allowing chemotherapy to work more effectively.

You spend months, maybe years, trying to get pregnant, watching in despair as friend after friend accomplishes this most elemental of biological tasks with apparent ease.Sooner or later, one of these blissfully fertile souls will look you in the eye and, with the best of intentions, diagnose your problem: stress.Or perhaps you cough a bit too much on the phone one night or let loose with a few impressive sneezes. Chances are, your telephone buddy will pause in mid-sentence to say: "That sounds like a bad cold.

Driven by insurance rules and new attitudes toward recovery, Maryland hospitals are limiting most mastectomy patients to an overnight stay or an outpatient routine that has women going home hours after surgery.A decade ago, women were hospitalized for up to a week after having a cancerous breast removed. It was a time for nurses to check drains and dressings, and for patients to begin recovering from an operation that can be painful and disfiguring.But in an era when hospitals do outpatient hernia repairs and discharge patients a day after gallbladder operations, they are preparing breast cancer patients to recover at home.

Osiris Therapeutics, a Baltimore biotechnology company, said yesterday that it will provide grants to the Ireland Cancer Center and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland to help pay for a clinical trial of a blood-boosting cell therapy the company has developed.Osiris' grants will pay for use of the therapy in breast cancer patients whose insurance does not cover such infusions.The clinical trial, which could involve up to 30 patients, began last month. It involves studying the safety of the Osiris therapy, which is designed to boost breast cancer patients' blood cell counts, said James Burns, Osiris' president.

Oncor Inc., a Gaithersburg biotechnology company, has received government permission to market in Europe and Australia a test that some experts believe could revolutionize the way doctors diagnose and treat breast cancer.The diagnostic test, which is still awaiting approval for marketing in the United States, can predict how likely a breast cancer patient's disease is to recur.That is significant because breast cancer patients whose disease recurs elsewhere in the body have lower survival rates than those whose cancer is diagnosed and treated early, said medical experts.

First the AIDS patients started marching. They acted up against the indifference of the medical establishment and the snail's pace of the Food and Drug Administration. Their tactics produced results, at least drawing attention to their plight.Then breast cancer patients started speaking up. They are angry that so little research has been devoted to this common killer. Too many questions remain unanswered.Now, at long last, the families of Alzheimer's patients are poised for action. They are the victims of federal foot-dragging and are ready to march on Washington.

For the first time, major health organizations have agreed upon standards clarifying which breast cancer patients should be offered the option of lumpectomy and radiation therapy as an alternative to removal of the breast, the American College of Radiology announced today.At least one-third of all breast cancer patients could be eligible for a lumpectomy -- removal of the primary breast tumor and adjacent breast tissue -- followed by about six weeks of radiation therapy instead of mastectomy, under the new guidelines.

WASHINGTON -- Silicone gel breast implants, one of the most popular cosmetic surgeries in the United States, will be available only to a limited number of women who will test their safety, FDA Commissioner David Kessler is to announce today.Breast cancer patients and those disfigured by birth defects or injuries will have the best chance to obtain the implants if their doctor is convinced it is necessary for their well-being, a Food and Drug Administration official familiar with the plan said.

* The Red Devils, a nonprofit group that funds improved quality of life for Maryland breast cancer patients and their families, will hold its annual Heart and Sole Stroll beginning at 10 a.m. Sunday at Centennial Park in Columbia. Individual registration is $35; family registration is $70. Organizers are hoping to raise $130,000. More information is available at heartandsolestroll.org or 410-323-0135. * St. Agnes Hospital will host a free blood pressure screening from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 17 at Security Square Mall in Baltimore.

Sandra Woodring has a soft spot for people with cancer. For a living, she works as an oncology registered nurse, and when she's off the clock, she supports breast cancer patients. "I just feel like I have to do something for women who have breast cancer," said Woodring, 40, of Street. "I wake up with an outlook on life on what a gift it is that I don't have cancer. Support for these women is something that's missing, and you can't put a job title on it." Woodring, who works at Bel Air Oncology, offers support through a program she helped start about six years ago called BCAUSE, Breast Cancer and U Support and Encouragement.

When Pam Ellinghausen received her breast cancer diagnosis last summer, the devastating news didn't end there. Doctors said her disease was incurable: It had seeped into her bloodstream and had spread to her neck bones, liver, spine and one of her lungs. Ellinghausen, 51, of Annapolis struggled with her prognosis as a stage IV cancer patient. Only 29 percent of those in that catergory live more than five years. Then she walked into the Breast Center at Anne Arundel Medical Center one day and met Dian "CJ" Corneliussen-James, a volunteer and fellow stage IV patient, who was planning a support group for women like themselves.

In a stark reversal of a long-term trend, more early-stage breast cancer patients are choosing mastectomy, despite evidence that the aggressive, disfiguring surgery has the same survival rate as removing the malignant lump, new research shows. The study by doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., suggests that a more detailed screening technique may have led additional women to have their breasts removed. But researchers also found a rise in mastectomies among women who weren't examined with the new magnetic resonance imaging technology.

Breast cancer patients who had reconstructive surgery using implants immediately after mastectomies were twice as likely to develop infections as women who immediately had breast reconstruction using their own tissue, according to a study published yesterday. The article in Archives of Surgery, which examined the medical records of breast surgery patients at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis from mid-1999 to mid-2002, found that 50 of 949 patients got an infection at the surgical site within a year after surgery.

Lark Schulze, a Rodgers Forge attorney, has never met author Katherine Russell Rich. But she feels a kinship to the New York City writer. Rich survived a brutal battle with breast cancer in her 30s, and told her tale in a 1999 book called The Red Devil: To Hell with Cancer - and Back. A year later, as Schulze's daughter was dying of the disease, Rich's book helped the Maryland lawyer understand what her child was going through. During moments of quiet hope during her own recovery, Rich had looked forward to seeing age 50, falling in love again and someday starting a group to help cancer patients.

Black women with breast cancer don't live as long as white women, but their deaths are more often caused by other health problems, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The findings underscore new thinking that patients and their doctors need to pay more attention to eating better, managing salt intake and exercising regularly. "Everyone worries about cancer staring them in the face, but the reality is, most breast cancer patients die of something else," said Diana Dyer, a registered dietitian from Ann Arbor, Mich.

Maurice Rottenberg, a Baltimore accountant who helped establish two support groups to aid breast cancer patients and their families and those suffering from alcoholism, died of lung cancer Tuesday at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. He was 69 and lived in the Gaywood section of Baltimore County. When his stepdaughter, Jessica Cowling, received a diagnosis of breast cancer in 2000, he and four friends entered the Avon three-day walk in Colorado to raise money for cancer research. They successfully raised $30,000 after completing the 60-mile journey between Fort Collins and Boulder.

To Dr. Sheri Slezak, the Food and Drug Administration's 1992 hearings on silicone-gel breast implants seemed more like a political convention than a gathering of scientific minds. Attendees donned buttons and waved signs, like party faithful pushing candidates. "People emotionally and fervently believe in whatever side they are on," said Slezak, an associate professor of plastic surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. More than 11 years after the FDA banned the sale of the implants for general use, that remains as true as ever.

Annette Grainger Drummond, a tireless advocate for breast cancer patients and a longtime science teacher in Baltimore city and county, died Monday of breast cancer at the Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care in Towson. She was 74. Mrs. Drummond, a resident of Timonium, taught middle school science -- primarily to seventh-graders -- at Woodbourne Junior High School in Baltimore from 1957 to 1968 and in the county at Cockeysville Junior High School and Ridgeley Middle School from 1970 to 1981.