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Cancer patients who are given full access to their medical records feel a greater sense of satisfaction about their treatment, a new study finds.

The French researchers also found that providing comprehensive and accurate medical information built trust between patient and doctor.

Published online May 23 in the journal Cancer, the study analyzed 295 patients recently diagnosed with lymphoma, breast or colon cancer. All were being treated with chemotherapy.

The patients received either “on request information” or an organized medical record (OMR) — a briefcase full of detailed information about their condition and treatment. That information included reports on everything from surgery to radiology and pathology results, along with nurse narratives and treatment observations. Along with the OMR, they were given guides on medical terms and how to understand the material, as well as help from medical staff to decipher the various documents.
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Smoking increases the risk of advanced kidney cancer, researchers report.

In a new study, a team from Duke University Medical Center reviewed the cases of 845 patients who had had surgery for kidney cancer — or renal cell carcinoma — between 2000 and 2009. They found that current and former smokers were 1.5 to 1.6 times more likely to have advanced cancer than nonsmokers.

Heavy smoking (smoking for a longer period of time and smoking more) was associated with advanced renal cell carcinoma. Kicking the habit reduced the risk of advanced disease by 9 percent for every 10 years that a former smoker was smoke-free, the investigators found.
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Women who drink a substantial amount of coffee each day may lower their risk for developing a particular type of breast cancer, Swedish researchers say.

Their study linked consumption of five or more cups of coffee a day to a relatively marked reduction in the non-hormone-responsive disease known as ER-negative breast cancer. However, coffee consumption did not appear to lower the risk for developing ER-positive breast cancer, a hormone-responsive estrogen receptor form of the disease.

Daily consumption of coffee may protect against the most aggressive type of breast cancer, ER-negative, said study co-author Dr. Per Hal, a professor in the medical epidemiology and biostatistics department at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Read more »