There has recently been a level of growing optimism within the cancer community as reports have shown a decline in deaths from cancer.

Beauty productst created specifically for cancer survivors. These products to help ease the effects of treatment are designed by people who truly want to improve survivors' quality of life.

Simple techniques can help prevent lymphedema in breast cancer patients

Create your individual look using hats, scarves, turbans, and hairpieces.

Two companies founded by survivors create head coverings for patients managing hair loss.

• Preventive Treatment Reduces Risk of Febrile Neutropenia and Early Death
• Senate Asks Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to Review Restrictions on Erythropoietic Stimulating Agents
• Neulasta Reduces Risk of Neutropenia in Colorectal Cancer Patients

From post-surgery camisoles to mastectomy-friendly workout wear, our expert has answers to questions you never even knew you had.

Tips for re-creating eyebrows and eye lashes.

Ginseng May Improve Cancer-related Fatigue

Throughout her cancer treatment, Look Good…Feel Better® Dream Girl Jayne Jamison remained focused on the things that made her happy, including her career and the wedding that she wasn’t about to miss.

My experience with the Look Good…Feel Better program began in June 2004, after I was diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) for the second time.

Improving Your Look with a Little Cover: Concealer, Foundation, and Powder

• Some Chinese Herbs Reduce Nausea Associated with Chemotherapy

At the end of life, a simple intervention offers comfort and meaning to patients and families.

Is your therapist trained to address your needs?

Addressing Appearance-related Concerns Due to Cancer Treatment

•Neurontin May Reduce Frequency of Hot Flashes
•Early Use of Neulasta Reduces Complications from Neutropenia in Non-Hodgkin’s and Hodgkin’s Lymphomas

Look Good…Feel Better (LGFB) is a free, nationwide cancer support program created in 1989 from the concept that if a woman with cancer can be helped to look good, her improved self-esteem will help her approach her disease and treatment with greater confidence. Look Good…Feel Better teams volunteer beauty professionals with female cancer patients in active treatment, to provide practical tips on the use of cosmetics, wigs, and head coverings to camouflage the appearance-related side effects of cancer treatment. The program is conducted as a two-hour workshop offered in many hospitals and cancer-care facilities across the country.

• Kepivance® Reduces Mucositis in Colorectal Cancer Patients Receiving 5-FU
• Neulasta® Safe and Effective for Hodgkin’s Patients Treated with ABVD Chemotherapy

Beginning in this issue of Women&Cancer, Look Good . . . Feel Better, will contribute a regular column designed to bring readers practical tips on skin care, makeup techniques, and guidance for coping with hair loss and other appearance-related side effects patients may experience during cancer treatment. Future columns will focus on specific concerns from women and tips from some seasoned Look Good . . . Feel Better experts and volunteers. When a woman undergoes cancer treatment, she is usually aware that there may be some change to her appearance, such as the hair loss that often results from chemotherapy. What she may not be aware of, however, are the facial, skin, and nail changes that often occur during various forms of cancer treatment.

When Pia Awal went to the emergency room in June 2002 after suffering from a fever that antibiotics couldn’t wipe out and bone pain that was getting increasingly worse, the last thing she expected to hear was a cancer diagnosis. And when the doctors delivered the news that her symptoms were the result of acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), the 27-year-old’s world shifted. She didn’t leave the hospital that night, and she stayed for a month as doctors immediately began a course of treatment that would include intense chemotherapy designed to wipe out and then rebuild her immune system. Memories of the side effects of that high-dose treatment still make her shudder. “I was extremely sick from the get-go. The chemotherapy made me sick within three hours. The antinausea drug they were using was totally ineffective. It was pretty horrific. I lost about 20 pounds.”

Though an estimated 25 percent of cancer patients experience depression at some point during their illness—and despite the fact that untreated depression can affect quality of life, cancer treatment decisions, and possibly survival—depression often goes untreated. Why are so few cancer patients receiving care for depression? The underrecognition and the undertreatment of depression in cancer patients may result from several factors, including patients’ reluctance to report depression, physician uncertainty about how best to manage it, and the belief that depression is a normal part of having cancer.

Let me begin with the fact that not all chemotherapy causes hair loss; but if you are one of the millions of women on this journey, I want to assure you that you are not alone and that there are wonderful resources to help you manage the effects of your treatment.

Whatever your concerns about sexuality or intimacy, overcoming them requires open communication with your partner. Dr. Sally Kydd, coauthor of the book Intimacy After Cancer: A Woman’s Guide (Big Think Media, October 2006), refers to concerns about sexuality and intimacy as “the elephant in the room that no one talks about but that affects almost every woman treated for cancer.” The many physical and emotional changes that follow a cancer diagnosis can affect sex and intimacy. Openly addressing these changes with your partner and your healthcare team will help resolve problems that may arise and will allow you to continue to experience the joy of positive intimate and sexual relationships.

"Life doesn’t stop happening to you even when you get cancer,” Suzanne Guerrero says, and she ought to know. The 40-year-old Boise, Idaho, resident is currently undergoing treatment for stage I invasive breast cancer.