Latest news with #uterineCancer
Yahoo
a day ago
- Health
- Yahoo
I sit with my mom through each chemotherapy treatment. Her eyes light up when she talks about her time in the Air Force, and it's helping us both cope.
My mom was recently diagnosed with Stage 3 uterine cancer and is going through chemotherapy. I join her for each chemotherapy treatment, and we talk about her exciting days in the Air Force. Her stories are the remedy we needed. They are helping us both cope with the pain. As a child, my mother had a habit of pointing out various military planes in the sky and explaining their names and purposes. I heard those same planes zoom overhead on various military bases when I watched her, clad in an Air Force uniform with her short red hair peeking out stubbornly under her hat, command the respect of fellow officers with an ease I admired. It seemed like nothing could phase her — when it came to overseeing aircraft maintenance squadrons, Lieutenant Colonel Stinson — my mother — was in her element. How ironic it was that after everything she faced fearlessly in the Air Force, cancer was the one thing that scared her. Having retired as a lieutenant colonel after 20 years of service in the early 2000s, my mom had enjoyed post-retired life in San Antonio. Early this year, she told me of pains in her abdomen that were unbearable. Her doctor recommended a hysterectomy, and during her operation, the doctor removed a large cancerous tumor on her uterus. However, some of her lymph nodes also looked concerning, so some biopsies were taken. After her hysterectomy, my mom seemed more energetic, returning to the vibrant woman I remembered. During the two-week wait for those biopsy results, I truly believed they wouldn't show cancer. I was wrong. One of her lymph nodes had cancer. Hearing the Stage 3 uterine cancer diagnosis shattered my delusion. A sense of shock surged through my body that left me feeling strangely numb. I heard the doctor say, "Chemo," and "hair loss," and after weeks of holding back tears, I started to cry. No prescription can ease the shock of a loved one's cancer diagnosis. However, stories from my mother's past have become the remedy we sorely needed, as I sit with her through each chemotherapy treatment. The older I got, the more I told myself that I would record her story one day, but time slipped by. Then, when I heard the doctor diagnose her with cancer, time seemed more finite. "You were doing the 'Captain Marvel' thing before it was cool," I'd told her one day while we were sitting in the chemotherapy treatment center. Becoming a commissioned officer in the Air Force after college had always been my mom's dream. But as she jokingly told me, the Air Force wasn't exactly seeking experts in radio—her major in school. Instead, there was a greater demand for aircraft maintenance officers. So, after graduating, she found herself in maintenance school — a path she hadn't planned for — and nearly failed out. Still, she was determined to succeed. Despite the initial setback, my mom slowly but surely rose up the ranks. A combination of her hard work and aptitude for leadership, recognized by the performance boards of her superiors, determined who should be promoted. Watching her eyes light up with every story she tells is medicine my heart didn't know it needed. My mom had repeatedly told me that she had two major life goals — one was to serve her country. The other was to be a mother. She had dealt with her fair share of workplace sexism during her tenure, rode in a fighter jet twice as a passenger (another requirement for officers in maintenance squadrons), fallen asleep in cargo planes, helped found a Logistics Scho, overseen the flyover for the late senator Barry Goldwater's funeral, and been invited to be a White House aide. I had taken her stories for granted growing up, and now I hungered for more of my mother's memories: how a wing commander visited her in the hospital after she gave birth to me, seeing a picture of her in uniform, back turned to the camera, walking toward a fighter jet with her hair firmly in place. Lost in a sea of memories that weren't mine, I felt a spark reignite in my soul, a fire that had dimmed ever since I had heard the cancer diagnosis. Her stories kept the blaze of the future alight in us both, something more powerful than any fighter jet engine could muster. My mother has always been a fighter, and she still is. I was doing her a disservice by being sad. Read the original article on Business Insider
Medscape
07-05-2025
- Health
- Medscape
Uterine Cancer Survival Varies Widely by Race Across US
A study of 162,500 patients with uterine cancer found that survival rates varied significantly by race and geographic location, with Black patients experiencing the worst survival outcomes in areas with high and low overall diversity. METHODOLOGY: Despite known racial and ethnic disparities in uterine cancer survival in the United States, data on the association between geographic region and these disparities remain limited. A retrospective cohort study analyzed outcomes from 162,500 patients with uterine cancer (median age, 61 years at diagnosis) between 2000 and 2019 from 17 Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registries. Researchers categorized patients by race and ethnicity: 7.5% were Asian individuals, 8.6% were Black individuals, 12.8% were Hispanic individuals, and 71.1% were White individuals. Geographic locations were ranked from 0% to 100% by the US Census Bureau's Diversity Index, with higher values indicating greater diversity. Values varied from 76.0% for Hawaii to 30.8% for Iowa. The primary outcome was uterine cancer–specific survival. The median follow-up durations were 84 months for Asian patients, 59 months for Black patients, 73 months for Hispanic patients, and 93 months for White patients. TAKEAWAY: Compared with White patients, Asian patients had better cancer-specific survival (hazard ratio [HR], 0.91), whereas Black patients had worse cancer-specific survival (HR, 1.34), and cancer-specific survival for Hispanic patients was similar (HR, 1.01; 95% CI, 0.97-1.06 ). Black patients experienced worse survival than White patients in both high-diversity areas (HR, 1.34 in California and New Jersey; HR, 1.39 in Georgia) and low-diversity locations (HR, 1.34 in Louisiana; HR, 1.42 in Connecticut; HR, 1.71 in Iowa). Compared with White patients, Hispanic patients showed worse survival in Hawaii (HR, 2.09) and Georgia (HR, 1.44), whereas Asian patients demonstrated better survival in California (HR, 0.91). Black patients with low-grade endometrioid, nonendometrioid, and early-stage disease had worse survival in Louisiana than White patients (HRs 2.08, 1.29, and 1.77, respectively), and those with high-grade endometrioid disease in Seattle and nonendometrioid disease in Iowa also had worse outcomes (HRs, 2.23 and 2.01, respectively). IN PRACTICE: 'In this cohort study of patients with uterine cancer, racially and ethnically disparate uterine cancer–specific survival was observed in specific geographic locations,' the authors wrote. 'While etiologic studies that assess the causes of geographically defined racially and ethnically disparate uterine cancer survival are needed, our findings suggest that locations with the most pronounced racial and ethnic disparities should be prioritized.' SOURCE: The study, led by Caitlin E. Meade, Division of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, was published online in JAMA Network Open . LIMITATIONS: The analysis focused was limited to 11 locations with SEER registries. The researchers noted that the low power in areas with lower diversity indices might have affected the detection of racial and ethnic disparities. The study also lacked other measures of structural inequities and systemic discrimination that could contextualize the findings. DISCLOSURES: The study received grants from the National Cancer Institute. Several authors reported receiving personal fees or grants from various sources.
