Cancer Prevention Works: Cancer Patients and COVID-19

May 2020

News to Know About COVID-19

A cancer diagnosis and its treatments can bring many challenges. The possibility of getting seriously ill from COVID-19 adds to these challenges. It’s important for cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers to know what to do to protect their health and reduce the risk of getting COVID-19. CDC’s Division of Cancer Prevention and Control Director, Dr. Lisa Richardson, provides steps cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers can take to stay healthy during the COVID-19 pandemic in this podcast. [MP3-2MB].

Providing nurses with information to help cancer patients prevent an illness like COVID-19 is critical. “To keep our communities safe and the most vulnerable people healthy, everyone needs to stay at home as much as possible. But patients with cancer and survivors must take extra steps to help maintain their health and safety,” says CDC’s Dr. Richardson. Based on CDC’s Staying Well While Staying Home Guide, Dr. Richardson’s new blog post for the Oncology Nursing Society’s ONS Voice, provides patient education talking points to help prevent COVID-19 and avoid being exposed to it.

Sun Safety Helps Prevent Skin Cancer

Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States, but most skin cancers can be prevented. May is Skin Cancer Awareness Month—a great time to learn about the dangers of unprotected exposure to ultraviolet rays. Anyone can get skin cancer, and damage from UV exposure builds up over time. That’s why sun safety should start at an early age. But don’t worry! It’s not too late to reduce your risk. Taking steps such as using sunscreen, wearing protective clothing, and avoiding indoor and outdoor tanning are important in preventing skin cancer.

Robin Soler learned from experience. “Sun is my vice,” she says in her blog post. “I fell in love with the sun-assisted caramel color that my Afro Puerto Rican roots blessed me with every summer. As I got older, I took extra efforts to ensure I had sun exposure. In 2012, I noticed a misshapen mole on my right arm. Today, I still love the sun, but my skin protection behaviors are very different.”

Sun Safety Tips

Actions for Better Health and Lower Cancer Risk for Women

National Women’s Health Week (May 10 to 16) highlights actions women can take for better health. You can take steps every day to lower your chance of getting certain kinds of cancer. Healthy choices such as getting regular physical activity, keeping a healthy weight, avoiding tobacco use, and limiting alcohol can help improve your overall health and lower your cancer risk. Cassie Wyssbrod has a BRCA genetic mutation that increases her risk for breast and ovarian cancer. “I saw the likely future, and I could change it,” she recalls in this new blog. “Good habits give me the highest chance for not just a long life, but a good life. At 47, I feel better than I did at 30.”

Cancer and Women

Thrive After Cancer: "Talk to Someone" Simulation Now Available in Spanish

A new release of the “Talk to Someone” simulation featuring Linda, a five-year cancer survivor, is now available in Spanish. “Talk to Someone” gives cancer survivors useful tips for living well after cancer. Linda gives advice to help fellow survivors start and maintain healthy habits. Cancer survivors can talk with Linda about anxiety and distress, alcohol use, tobacco use, and physical activity and nutrition. Linda is a virtual friend and coach who encourages survivors to take steps to live a longer, healthier life.

"Habla con alguien"

New Video Explains Dense Breasts and Cancer Risk

Dense breasts are one of many factors that can contribute to a woman’s risk of breast cancer. Women with dense breasts have a higher chance of getting breast cancer. The more breast density you have, the higher your risk. About half of women who are 40 years old or older have dense breasts. Understanding your breast density status can help you be more aware of your personal risk and build a screening strategy with your doctor. In this new video, CDC’s Dr. Temeika Fairley explains what it means to have dense breasts and why it’s important for women to know.

View Video

Research Spotlight

Are Uninsured Women in a National Screening Program Having Longer Intervals Between Cervical Cancer Screening Tests? examines cervical cancer screening intervals for more than 1.3 million uninsured and underserved women in CDC’s National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program. Medical Costs Associated with Metastatic Breast Cancer in Younger, Midlife, and Older Women looks at the medical costs due to metastatic breast cancer in women during three life stages and by phase of care (initial, continuing, and terminal). Health Literacy and Communication Strategies in Oncology summarizes discussions about the critical role of health literacy when it comes to engaging in healthy behaviors to reduce disease risk and improve health outcomes among patients with cancer.

Did You Know? The most common signs of skin cancer are changes to your skin such as a new growth, a sore that doesn’t heal, or a change in a mole. For cancer patients, developing a fever while undergoing chemotherapy treatments is a medical emergency. Fever may be the only sign of an infection and this can be life-threatening.