Several MS patients who are dually diagnosed with cancer are applying to participate in LiveAble, a two-year study funded by the National Cancer Institute.

This study concentrates on cancer survivors with pre-existing functional impairments due to any physical and emotional disabling conditions such as multiple sclerosis, brain injury, polio, spinal cord injury and depression. This study will look into health-promoting behaviors and quality of life among persons, who because of pre-existing medical conditions, may explain how cancer diagnosis and treatment is affecting their on-going challenges.

According to Heather Becker, Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing, the study will help medical professionals understand how cancer survivors who had a functional limitation or disability prior to being diagnosed with cancer take care of their health.

Sook Jung Kang, Graduate research assistant and doctoral student at The University of Texas at Austin, School of Nursing, is leading the study.

"I think it is really important to understand how people who have functional limitation dealt with an additional load."[More]
 

Since its first broadcast in 1999, MS Learn Online, the National MS Society's Internet program, has been a successful way to educate about multiple sclerosis. View pre-recorded webcasts to learn more about MS from the convenience of your own home. Programs cover a wide variety of topics such as information for people newly diagnosed, MS basic facts, symptom management, employment, intimacy, care-partners, and progressive MS.

Each program may include:

Participants of the November MS/Cancer self-help group were treated to the uplifting, spiritual words of 37-year colon cancer survivor and co-founder of CanCare of Houston Anne Turnage. 

Anne also co-authored More Than You Dare to Ask: The First Year of Living With Cancer (John Knox Press) and Grace Keeps You Going: Spiritual Wisdom from Cancer Survivors (2001, Cokesburry Press) with her late husband Mac Turnage, a Presbyterian minister.

On the night of Anne's emergency surgery, 700 people were gathered at her husband's seminary for the Annual Lectures. As they joined in prayers for Anne, she was being diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer and given only a slight chance of survival.[More]
 

Conference call participants in the August MS/Cancer self-help group sponsord by NMSS received a treasure trove of information from Melanie Whetzel, Job Accommodation Network (JAN) consultant.

JAN, a service of The U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy, describes itself as: Your Resource for Workplace Productivity Enhancements and Reasonable Accommodation Solutions. The agency offers free consulting services for people with physical or intellectual limitations that affect employment.

And indeed it is a most valuable resource for both employees and employers.[More]
 

Summary: In a small-scale, early-phase trial of the hormone estriol, a form of estrogen, women with relapsing-remitting MS showed decreases in MRI-detected brain lesion activity and immune responses during treatment, suggesting that additional study of estriol is called for to determine longer-term efficacy and safety.

• Women who have MS and are pregnant often experience fewer MS symptoms and relapses, especially during the second and third trimester. Because the hormone estriol is elevated during later stages of pregnancy, and mice given pregnancy levels of estriol were shown to have fewer symptoms of an MS-like disease, the hormone was considered as a candidate for testing against MS.
• Estriol was well tolerated. Six women with relapsing-remitting MS experienced significant decreases in brain lesion numbers and volume, as well as reductions in levels of immune proteins indicative of inflammation.[More]