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FRIDAY, June 4, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- After a diagnosis of breast cancer, Black women face a greater risk of having the disease spread to distant sites in the body — a disparity that is not readily explained, researchers say.It's known that in the United States, Black women have the highest death rates from breast cancer of any racial or ethnic group.Compared with white women, Black women are 40% more likely to die of the disease, and twice as likely if they are older than 50, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). Those grim statistics are often blamed on the fact that Black women tend to be diagnosed at a later stage of the disease, said Dr. Julia Blanter, a resident at Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine, in New York City.But in the new study, she and her colleagues...

FRIDAY, June 4, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. teens are getting their COVID shots -- how does that change their daily lives?Besides letting teens resume many of their normal activities, U.S. authorization of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for people as young as 12 is crucial to slowing the spread of the coronavirus, one expert says."We know that teenagers can not only get COVID-19 but they can also transmit the virus," said Dr. Jill Weatherhead of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. "While teenagers are less likely to have severe disease and require hospitalization, they can still get sick, develop long COVID symptoms and can transmit the virus to other people who are higher-risk."She said it's important for teens to know about and be prepared for common post-vaccination side effects...

FRIDAY, June 4, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- In some good news for those who have already suffered through a bout of COVID-19, a new study finds they may have a much lower risk of reinfection for at least 10 months.For the study, the researchers analyzed rates of SARS-CoV-2 infections between October 2020 and February 2021 among more than 2,000 nursing home residents (median age 86) and staff. Antibody testing was used to determine whether they'd had a previous infection up to 10 months earlier. Residents with a previous infection were 85% less likely to be infected during the four-month study period than those who had never been infected, while staff with past infections were 60% less likely to be infected than staff who had never been infected, the findings showed.Of the 634 people who...

FRIDAY, June 4, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Patients with advanced prostate cancers may have newfound hope: Researchers identified a new potential treatment for men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, which has no cure. Metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer means the disease continues to spread despite therapies that deplete male hormones (androgens) such as testosterone, which are thought to "feed" tumors.When added to standard care, this novel targeted radiotherapy improved survival for these cancer patients, researchers report. The study "offers the treatment possibility where there was really very little for the most advanced patient, but it opens a doorway for exploring the benefits of this drug in multiple earlier patient populations," said Dr. Michael...