When Tiffany Chancheya was born in October 2005, she had a quarter-inch reddish mark on one cheek. Tiffany's parents, Tim and Samay Chancheya, grew worried several months later because the small splotch, later diagnosed as a hemangioma, had darkened and was mushrooming in size. Hemangiomas are birthmarks caused by the…
Timing. It often determines whether a stroke victim will resume a normal life, suffer disabilities – or even survive. “From the onset of symptoms until treatment begins, there are only four and half hours in which intravenous clot-busting drugs are effective,” says neurologist Dr. Steven Cramer of the UCI Health…
Minimizing a cancer patient's radiation exposure during diagnostic scanning and treatment is a continuing goal in oncology. As the recent debate over mammograms shows, physicians struggle with the issue of radiation exposure even in preventive procedures. Since January, UC Irvine's Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center has used an innovative radiotherapy…
In 2003, oncologist Dr. Rita Mehta had "the kind of moment everyone lives for" — everyone, that is, who's working to find a cure for cancer. Mehta, a health sciences associate professor of medicine at the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, was one of the first researchers to use chemotherapy…
Kerby Mellott enjoyed being physically active all his life. When he was younger, Kerby loved to play sports. Tall, lean and athletic in his youth, Kerby was a high school state basketball team champion and played for his college’s championship football team. After college, he began steadily gaining weight. A…
John G. Lee, MD, is director of Pancreaticobiliary Services at the H.H. Chao Comprehensive Digestive Disease Center. He is an expert in diagnosis and treatment of disorders of the pancreas and biliary tract using minimally invasive techniques. These include ERCP (endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography, which employs a thin flexible tube called…
Surgery without large, open incisions is a proven advancement offered at UC Irvine, where women may have many treatment options when they face gynecologic conditions such as uterine fibroids, endometriosis and ovarian cysts. The term for such procedures is “minimally invasive surgery,” or MIS. It includes a variety of techniques…
The physicians at the UCI Health Melanoma Center specialize in the most advanced methods for determining the spread of this aggressive skin cancer beyond the initial site. One of the best predictors of the spread of melanoma is determining whether the disease involves lymph nodes, says Dr. James G. Jakowatz…
Wayne Treichel was 62 when his wife convinced him to get an endoscopy and colonoscopy. He didn’t have any symptoms or pain, and was in good health, but his wife knew preventive screening was important. As it turns out, having those exams saved Wayne’s life. His doctor diagnosed him with…
Carey Moyer was 31 and still a newlywed when she felt a lump in her right breast in January 2010. "It felt like a rock, but it didn’t hurt when I touched it," Moyer recalls. "So, of course I went online." She found little reassurance. When her gynecologist felt the…
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