A bitter pill to swallow

Reporting for Kaiser Health News in collaboration with The Washington Post, Sandra Boodman writes: "When Jere Carpentier learned last year that she had advanced colon cancer -- her third malignancy in a dozen years -- she worried about spending hours in a clinic tethered to an intravenous line, enduring punishing chemotherapy that would make her hair fall out. Her veins ruined by earlier treatments, Carpentier was elated when her oncologist said this time she could avoid needles and take a pill at home that would specifically target the cancer cells and spare her hair" (Boodman, 4/27). Watch the related video.

---

This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.