New approaches give women more options for breast cancer surgery

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  Shown here is the start of a race to benefit Susan G. Komen for the Cure and another cancer-fighting group in Lyndhurst, Ohio, on May 8.AP

CHICAGO –  Treating breast cancer almost always involves surgery, and for years the choice was just having the lump or the whole breast removed. Now, new approaches are dramatically changing the way these operations are done, giving women more options, faster treatment, smaller scars, fewer long-term side effects and better cosmetic results.

It has led to a new specialty -- "oncoplastic" surgery -- combining oncology, which focuses on cancer treatment, and plastic surgery to restore appearance.

"Cosmetics is very important" and can help a woman recover psychologically as well as physically, said Dr. Deanna Attai, a Burbank, Calif., surgeon who is on the board of directors of the American Society of Breast Surgeons. Its annual meeting in Chicago earlier this month featured many of these new approaches.

More women are getting chemotherapy or hormone therapy before surgery to shrink large tumors enough to let them have a breast-conserving operation instead of a mastectomy. Fewer lymph nodes are being removed to check for cancer's spread, sparing women painful arm swelling for years afterward.

Newer ways to rebuild breasts have made mastectomy a more appealing option for some women. More of them are getting immediate reconstruction with an implant at the same time the cancer is removed rather than several operations that have been standard for many years. Skin and nipples increasingly are being preserved for more natural results.

Some doctors are experimenting with operating on breast tumors through incisions in the armpit to avoid breast scars. There's even a "Goldilocks" mastectomy for large-breasted women -- not too much or too little removed, and using excess skin to create a "just right" natural implant.

Finally, doctors are testing a way to avoid surgery altogether, destroying small tumors by freezing them with a probe through the skin.

"Breast surgery has become more minimalistic," said Dr. Shawna Willey of Georgetown's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

"Women have more options. It's much more complex decision-making."

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women around the world. In the U.S. alone, about 230,000 new cases are diagnosed each year.

Most can be treated by just having the lump removed, but that requires radiation for weeks afterward to kill any stray cancer cells in the breast, plus frequent mammograms to watch for a recurrence.

Many women don't want the worry or the radiation, and choose mastectomy even though they could have less drastic surgery. Mastectomy rates have been rising. Federal law requires insurers to cover reconstruction for mastectomy patients, and many of the improvements in surgery are aimed at making it less disfiguring.

Here are some of the major trends:

IMMEDIATE RECONSTRUCTION

Doctors used to think it wasn't good to start reconstruction until cancer treatment had ended -- surgery, chemotherapy, radiation. Women would have a mastectomy, which usually involves taking the skin and the nipple along with all the breast tissue, followed by operations months later to rebuild the breast.

Reconstruction can use tissue from the back or belly, or an implant. The first operation often is to place a tissue expander, a balloon-like device that's gradually inflated to stretch the remaining skin and make room for the implant. A few months later, a second surgery is done to remove the expander and place the implant. Once that heals, a third operation is done to make a new nipple, followed by tattooing to make an areola, the darkened ring around it.

The new trend is immediate reconstruction, with the first steps started at the time of the mastectomy, either to place a tissue expander or an implant. In some cases, the whole thing can be done in one operation.

Nationally, about 25 to 30 percent of women get immediate reconstruction. At the Mayo Clinic, about half do, and at Georgetown, it's about 80 percent.

SPARING SKIN, NIPPLES

Doctors usually take the skin when they do a mastectomy to make sure they leave no cancer behind. But in the last decade they increasingly have left the skin in certain women with favorable tumor characteristics. Attai compares it to removing the inside of an orange while leaving the peel intact.

"We have learned over time that you can save skin" in many patients, Willey said. "Every single study has shown that it's safe."

Now they're going the next step: preserving the nipple, which is even more at risk of being involved in cancer than the skin is. Only about 5 percent of women get this now, but eligibility could be expanded if it proves safe. The breast surgery society has a registry on nipple-sparing mastectomies that will track such women for 10 years.

"You really have to pick patients carefully," because no one wants to compromise cancer control for cosmetic reasons, Attai said.

"The preliminary data are that nipple-sparing is quite good," but studies haven't been long enough to know for sure, Willey said. "It makes a huge difference in the cosmetic outcome. That makes the woman's breast recognizable to her."

Dr. Judy Boughey, a breast surgeon at the Mayo Clinic, said the new approach even has swayed patients' treatment choices.

"We're seeing women choosing the more invasive surgery, choosing the mastectomy," because of doctors' willingness to spare skin and nipples, she said.

It helped persuade Rose Ragona, a 51-year-old operations supervisor at O'Hare Airport in Chicago. She had both breasts removed on April 19 with the most modern approach: Immediate reconstruction, with preservation of her skin and nipples.

"To wake up and just see your breasts there helped me immensely," she said.

She chose to have both breasts removed to avoid radiation and future worry.

"I felt it was a safer road to go," she said. "I can't live the rest of my life in fear. Every time there's a lump I'm going to worry."

FREEZING TUMORS

Attai, the California breast surgeon, is one of the researchers in a national study testing cryoablation. The technique uses a probe cooled with liquid nitrogen that turns tumors into ice balls of dead tissue that's gradually absorbed by the body. This has been done since 2004 for benign breast tumors and the clinical trial is aimed at seeing if it's safe for cancer treatment.

"The technology is amazing. This is done in the office under local anesthesia, a little skin puncture," Attai said.

In the study, women still have surgery at some point after the freezing treatment to make sure all the cancer is destroyed. If it proves safe and effective, it could eliminate surgery for certain cancer patients.

"I'd love to see the day when we can offer women with small breast tumors a completely non-operative approach, and I do think that's coming soon," Attai said.

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No period please: Many women skip menstruating

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Seemingly restrictive religious traditions that regard menstruating women as "unclean" may paradoxically build strong bonds between women, new research finds.

This sense of community, most famously depicted in the Bible-based novel "The Red Tent" (Picador, 1998), comes at a cost. Women with strict religious traditions around their periods feel more embarrassment and shame about menstruating. But their positive feelings suggest that there's an upside to having everyone know you're having your period.

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"They came up with a way of positively spinning it," said study researcher Tomi-Ann Roberts, a psychologist at Colorado College in Colorado Springs.

Nepalese tradition

The idea for the study came when study researcher Nicki Dunnavant, now a graduate student at the University of Chicago, studied abroad in Nepal in 2008. The first morning staying with a family in a traditional village, she woke up with her period.

Her Hindu hosts followed strict rules about what women can and can't do during menstruation. So that first morning, Dunnavant said, she had to go up to her host mother and explain the situation.

"I had to pull out my sad little notebook of phrases and words," she told LiveScience. The phrase she was looking for translated to, "I have become untouchable."

For the next four days, Dunnavant had to sit in the hallway instead of the kitchen, wash her own dishes and avoid contact with men. She had to wear the same clothes every day and didn't receive a tika, a red dot on the forehead that signifies a religious blessing. [8 Ways Religion Impacts Your Life]

"Everybody in the village knew that I was on my period, which was definitely a new experience," Dunnavant said. "I would walk down and the men would walk a little bit farther away from me."

She resisted the prescriptions "a little bit" at first, Dunnavant said, but soon came to see the rules as oddly empowering.

"It really became sort of a communal experience that I could share with the women in my village and with my female teachers, and offered me an entirely new perspective on how communal menstruating could be," she said.

Rules and restrictions

The experience made her wonder if women who grow up in these religious traditions feel the same way. So upon returning to America, Dunnavant teamed up with Roberts to survey 340 women residing in the Rocky Mountain West, ranging in age from 17 to 62, about their periods. The online survey gauged women's disgust and shame at their periods by asking if they agreed with statements such as, "It is important to keep the period a secret," and "A woman should feel ashamed if she 'leaks' menstrual blood on her clothes."

Seventy of the women surveyed were Orthodox Jews, Muslims or Hindus, three religious traditions that demand certain behaviors and purification rituals during the menstrual period. Another 162 women were religious, but their religions did not officially have any period-related rules, and another 136 were secular.

The results revealed that women from traditions with menstrual rules felt more shame, embarrassment and seclusion during their periods. But they also reported a heightened sense of community.

Follow-up surveys with a dozen women revealed that individuals with strict religious traditions often saw the restrictions as blessings in disguise. One Muslim women who followed the prescription not to engage in sex during her period saw the rule as a break from being sexually available.

“I like the idea that I can say no to my partner, and he's going to understand and he’s not going to like get upset over it because it's not in my hands," she told the researchers.

Interestingly, being in a relationship made both religious and non-religious women feel better about their periods, but for opposite reasons, Roberts said. Strict religious women enjoyed the opportunity to say no to sex. For secular women, a committed relationship eases the burden of secrecy surrounding menstruation, she said. [5 Myths About Women's Bodies]

"People might be horrified by this, but getting over the hump of what I would call menstrual sex, having sexual relations while you're having your period is a huge moment in a relationships," Roberts said. Suddenly, she said, the taboo surrounding the period is broken a little bit.

Healthy periods

The findings highlight that attitudes toward periods are quite negative, even among the secular, the researchers reported online Feb. 27 in the journal Sex Roles. Turns out, American culture has rules about proper periods, too, Roberts said.

"We are obliged as Western women to sanitize and deodorize and wear white clothing and appear not to be a menstruating being at all," she said. "We also practice rituals, they're just not codified."

That means that in American tradition, women get all of the disgust heaped on periods but none of the communal bonding that arises from religious rules. And disgust is a strong driver of moral judgments, Roberts said — perhaps explaining why women's reproductive health is a favorite topic for politicians. 

"When we associate women with blood and we are disgusted by them, we persist as treating them as less than fully human," Roberts said. She wants to see more positivity around periods. Instead of a monthly curse, she said, menstruation should be seen as a positive indicator of a woman's health.

"To the extent that we can help girls and women feel good about their periods and get more of a positive attitude toward it, they're going to feel better about their whole selves," Roberts said, adding, "I want to bring menstruation out of the closet."

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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11 reasons men love women

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You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll hide the moisturizer.

Here are 11 reasons men love women. 

1. Your sweaty post-gym rawness
You think you're most desirable when you're all dolled up and looking as elegant as a champagne flute. No. It's at6 o'clock on a weekday, when you're just back from the gym in an old gray tank top and a sports bra, devoid of makeup and perfume—when you are nothing but raw, glistening, briny womanness. "Ewww," you say, "I'm so gross!" We so beg to differ.

2. When you cross-dress
Why does the sight of you gliding by in one of our shirts or our boxers bring us such crazy-wild happiness? Maybe it's some primal, chimp-like possessiveness, as in: She's mine. Well, so what? We monkeys can't help it—we're thrilled that you're ours.

MORE: 10 Secrets of Super Happy Couples
 

3. Your awkward high school photos
"Oh my God!" you say, snatching the snapshot from our hand. "Don't look at that!" But here's what you don't know: No matter how frizzy the hair, no matter how gangly the limbs or how beglittered with braces the smile, we're fairly certain you wouldn't have talked to us back in high school anyway.

4. Your taste in movies
Just kidding. Sorry—it stinks.

5. Your way with kids
Here's the thing: We don't know where this young relationship is going, right? And nothing freaks us out more than when you start naming our future children. But when we see your warmth and ease around kids, when we notice your unspoken uplift in their presence, it's hard not to smile and think, "Maybe."

MORE: 5 Signs He’ll Be a Great Father
 

6. Your spaghetti and meatballs
We dig those candlelit dinners and all your impressive kitchen acrobatics. But you know what's just as good? When you dig out your mom's spaghetti recipe and uncork some $8 Chianti and we eat together on the patio or the couch, idly riffing about our day.  There's infinite bliss in simple moments.

7. Your beauty stash
Sure, we scoff mightily at all your high-tech moisturizers, your microdermabrasion cleansers and inscrutable creams. In public. But alone in your bathroom, we Barbasol-and-Ivory men make full sneaky use of your mystical chemistry set.

8. Your patience with our family
Uncle Schnozzie is making comments about your "rump," and Aunt Franny is pushing another ham-salad-covered Triscuit toward your lips while niece Harmony is hissing "Meat is murder!" in your ear; you're also pretty sure weird little cousin Sluggo has been spying on you while you pee. All this and you still want to have sex with us. It boggles the mind.

MORE: The Easiest Way to Boost Your Bond
 

9. When you clean your plate
The only thing sexier than a beautiful woman tearing into a medium-rare ribeye is her saying halfway through, "I can't stop eating this—it's way too good." A passion for great food suggests a freewheeling and insatiable appetite for all of life's sensual pleasures.

10. That look
You know the one. That look that clues us in as to where the night's headed. It's subtle and sly enough to be offered across a crowded dinner table but lascivious and powerful enough to buckle our poor knees. Don't underestimate it.

MORE: The Hidden Health Benefits of Sex
 

11. Your self-reliance
When on a camping trip you've gathered the wood and lit the campfire while we're still wrestling with the tent. Or when you fix your own crashed computer, or take a wrench to a leaky tub faucet. When you show you don't need us, it's that much more gratifying that you want us.

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Exercise cuts kidney stone risk in women, study shows

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Women have another reason to exercise: It may help prevent kidney stones. You don't have to break a sweat or be a super athlete, either. Even walking for a couple hours a week can cut the risk of developing this painful and common problem by about one-third, a large study found.

"Every little bit makes a difference" and the intensity doesn't matter - just getting a minimum amount of exercise does, said Dr. Mathew Sorensen of the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle.

He led the study, which was to be discussed Friday at an American Urological Association conference in San Diego.

About 9 percent of people will get a kidney stone sometime in their life. The problem is a little more common in men, but incidence has risen 70 percent over the last 15 years, most rapidly among women.

Obesity raises the risk as do calcium supplements, which many women take after menopause. A government task force recently advised against supplements for healthy older women, saying that relatively low-dose calcium pills don't do much to keep bones strong but make kidney stones more likely.

The new research involved nearly 85,000 women 50 and older in the government-funded Women's Health Initiative study. All had an exam to measure weight and height so doctors could figure out their body mass index, a gauge of obesity. They also filled out annual surveys on what they ate, so researchers could take into account things known to lower the risk of kidney stones, such as drinking a lot of fluids and eating less salt or meat.

Participants said how much exercise they usually got and that was translated into "METs" - a measure of how much effort an activity takes. For example, 10 METs per week is about 2 1/2 hours of walking at a moderate pace, four hours of light gardening or one hour of jogging.

After about eight years, 3 percent of the women had developed a kidney stone. Compared to women who got no leisure-time exercise, those who got up to 5 METs per week had a 16 percent lower risk for stones. The risk was 22 percent lower with 5 to 10 METs per week and 31 percent lower for 10 METs or more. Exercise beyond 10 METs added no additional benefit for kidney stone prevention. Exercise intensity didn't matter - just how much women got each week.

"We're not asking people to run marathons. This is just a very mild to moderate additional amount of activity," Sorensen said.

Why might exercise help? It changes the way the body handles nutrients and fluids that affect stone formation. Exercisers sweat out salt and tend to retain calcium in their bones, rather than having these go into the kidneys and urine where stones form. They also tend to drink water and fluids afterwards, another plus for preventing stones.

"There's something about exercise itself that probably produces things in your urine that prevent stone formation," said one expert not involved in the work, Dr. Kevin McVary. He is chairman of urology at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield, Ill., and a spokesman for the urology group. "It's not just being skinny or not being fat, it's something about the exercise that protects you."

Exercise is known to cut the risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and other conditions that raise the risk of kidney stones. Next, researchers want to study men and younger women to see if exercise helps prevent kidney stones in them, too .

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Documentary 'Aroused' explores what makes women turn to porn careers

Published May 02, 2013

Associated Press

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Ever wonder what makes young, pretty, "good" girls pursue careers in porn?

So did Deborah Anderson, that's why she made a documentary and fine-art photography book on the subject. "Aroused" opens in select theaters Thursday and is available for download on iTunes. The book is available on Amazon.

Many of the 16 adult-film actresses featured in "Aroused" attended the film's premiere Wednesday night at the Landmark Theatre and hung around afterward to autograph the coffee-table book.

Anderson was inspired to explore these women's stories after casting a porn star in a photo shoot for a magazine. She was struck by the woman's warm personality and her stories of harsh treatment from the public despite contributing to a widely consumed product of a billion-dollar industry.

Porn stars are not failed actresses. They enjoy their work and see off-duty sex as having nothing to do with their day jobs. All have had sexually-transmitted diseases. Most shared concern for how others view their profession and worried whether it could impede future job or romantic prospects.

Anderson said she hopes the book and film will spotlight the humanity of these women and the sensuality of their work.

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Women are dye-ing for Megan Fox's brows: Which celeb has the most beautiful facial feature?

Published April 24, 2013

SodaHead.com

People magazine has just crowned Gwyneth Paltrow the World's Most Beautiful Woman, but nobody is going to their plastic surgeon asking for her patrician nose — at least not in New York City.

According to a New York Post report on the most-desired celebrity facial features, New Yorkers with money to spend on nips, tucks and cosmetic procedures want to look like Natalie Portman, Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Garner, Megan Fox, Angelina Jolie, Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Lopez and Julia Roberts.

SODAHEAD SLIDESHOW: See the celebrities with the most beautiful facial features.

Specifically, women are dye-ing for Fox's dark, defined brows. 

Kim K's over-the-top full eyelashes are in demand.

We actually think Anne Hathaway looked much prettier BEFORE she chopped off her hair, but the cut is a hot seller.

The J-Lo glow has been popular for about a decade, and it's still going strong.

Angelina Jolie's pillowy lips make us swoon . . . but a fake pout hardly ever looks good on anyone (think Lisa Rinna).

Jennifer Garner's strong jaw doesn't do anything for us, but apparently it's a feature that makes celebrities more photogenic than the rest of us.

Who doesn't love Julia Roberts' million-dollar smile? And is Natalie Portman's noble nose really the secret to her delicate beauty?

PHOTOS: See the latest celebrity pictures to hit the Internet.

Let us know: Which celeb has the most beautiful facial feature?

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Size really does matter to women when choosing a male partner

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Put down the rulers, guys — whether your penis is the "right" size depends on the proportions of the rest of your body, a new study finds.

Women rate men with larger penises more attractive, but the returns on bigger genitals start to decrease at a flaccid length of 2.99 inches (7.6 centimeters), the researchers found. What's more, larger penises gave tall men a bigger attractiveness boost than shorter men. The study suggests that women's preferences for bigger penises could explain why human males have relatively big genitals for their body size.

Studies on women's preferences for penis size have been mixed, with some suggesting that women who frequently orgasm through vaginal stimulation are the pickiest, perhaps because penis size matters for that sort of stimulation. Men typically fret more about size than women, however, at least according to a 2007 review article in the British Journal of Urology International

But studies have relied on questionnaires, which may not always glean honest answers, Australian researchers wrote today (April 8) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And in other studies, scientists have asked women to judge the attractiveness of male figures in photos with only penis size varied, when in fact no trait is ever evaluated in a vacuum, the scientists added. [The 7 Weirdest Animal Penises]

To compensate, the researchers, led by Michael Jennions of Australian National University, showed 105 young Australian women life-size computer-generated figures of nude men, varying the figures' flaccid penis size, height and shoulder-to-hip ratio. Height and shoulder-to-hip ratio have previously been shown as factors used by women to judge attractiveness. The computer simulations varied penis width in sync with length, so that all penises were proportional.

The results revealed that women preferred taller men as well as high shoulder-to-hip ratios (meaning that the wider the shoulders were than the hip, the more attractive the man). Shoulder-to-hip ratio was a major determiner of attractiveness, accounting for 79.6 percent of the variation in hot-or-not ratings.

Though the effect was less extreme, women also preferred larger penises, at least up to 5.1 inches (13 cm) flaccid, which was the largest computer-generated penis in the study. Beyond 2.99 inches, however, the additional attractiveness per extra length started to decline. That's good news for guys, according to a 2001 Italian study that found 2.99 inches flaccid to be below average.

When the researchers controlled for shoulder-to-hip ratio, they found that a larger penis had a greater effect on attractiveness for taller men. It's possible that a larger penis just looked more proportional on a taller man's body, the researchers wrote, or it could be that women were biased against shorter men to the extent that even large genitals didn't help.

Women's own features mattered as well, the researchers found: Taller women were more likely to find taller men attractive. Women with greater body mass per height were slightly more likely than thinner women to weigh penis size more heavily in their judgments of attractiveness, though the difference was small.

The findings might help explain why humans have remarkably large genitalia given their average body size, the researchers wrote. Male humans outgun any other primate species: For example, male gorillas can weigh as much as 400 pounds (180 kilograms), but their erect penis length is only about 1.5 inches (4 cm). Human males weigh about half of what gorillas do, but studies peg average erect or flaccid-but-stretched penis length from 4.7 inches (12 cm) to 6.5 inches (16.7 cm).

Evolutionary biologists theorize that large human penises might help remove sperm from competing males during sex, but in an era before clothing, women may have been drawn to mating with men whose genitalia caught their eye. Men with larger penises, then, may have passed on their genes more readily, resulting in the large-genitals trait being handed down the generations. In other words, guys may have women to thank for their greater-than-gorilla-sized genitals.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Soy tied to better lung cancer survival among women

• 

Women with lung cancer who ate the most soy before their diagnosis might live a little longer than those who ate the least, according to a new study.

Of 444 Chinese women with lung cancer, researchers found those who consumed the most soy milk, tofu and similar products were 7 to 8 percent less likely to die over a 13-year period, compared to women who ate an average amount of soy.

"To our knowledge this is the first study to suggest this association. Although this finding is promising, it would be premature to make any recommendation based on the findings of a single study," said Dr. Gong Yang, the study's lead author from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee.

Another study from Yang's group published last year found women who ate the most soy were less likely to develop lung cancer in the first place.

"Based on that study, we hypothesized people with a history of eating a lot of soy food - if they're diagnosed with lung cancer, their lung cancer would be less aggressive," he said.

Laboratory and animal research has also suggested phytoestrogens - plant-based estrogens similar to those produced by women's ovaries, which are present in soy - can prevent tumor cells from spreading.

According to the researchers, only 15 percent of U.S. women who develop lung cancer are still alive five years after their diagnosis. So any improvement in survival could be meaningful.

For the new study, the researchers used information from the Shanghai Women's Health Study, which began in 1997 and surveys 75,000 women every two to three years.

Between 1997 and 2010, 444 women in the study developed lung cancer, and 318 of them died. They were - on average - 66 years old at diagnosis, and 92 percent of them had never smoked.

Before the women were diagnosed, they had eaten an average of 16 grams of soy from food each day, according to diet questionnaires.

The researchers found women who consumed more than that - 21 to 31 g of soy per day - were about seven to 8 percent less likely to die during the study, compared to women who ate 16 g daily.

On the other hand, women who only ate about 6 g of soy per day were over 40 percent more likely to die during that time.

"This longitudinal follow-up study provides the first evidence that soy food consumption before cancer diagnosis may favorably affect clinical outcomes of lung cancer in women," the researchers wrote in the Journal of Clinical Oncology on Monday.

But Matthew Schabath, a lung cancer researcher who was not involved with the new study, stressed that it can't prove eating soy prevents people with lung cancer from dying.

For example, Schabath, from the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, told Reuters Health women who eat a lot of soy may be in better health to begin with, and would be expected to live longer than women in poorer health.

Researchers also said more studies on soy and lung cancer are needed to confirm the findings.

"We need to take it with a grain of salt until this data is validated in clinic trials," Schabath said.

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MODEL MYSTERY: Group Suggests Cases of Missing Women Connected

With fears of foul play growing in the cases of three Colorado women who had profiles on small-time modeling websites before they disappeared, an advocacy group for women is launching its own investigation to see if they are connected or possibly even part of a bigger, nationwide case. 

The National Women’s Coalition Against Violence and Exploitation has hired a private investigator who plans to look into the possibility of a connection between the disappearances of Raven Furlong, 17, and Kara Nichols, 19, who both had profiles on ModelMayhem.com, and Kelsie Schelling, who has a modeling profile on the site Explore Talent.

“We are considering the options of an independent investigation into not only the cases we are currently handling but other cases that appear to have common attributes that may or may not be linked to the model sites in question,” Shelley Shaffer, head of the coalition's Missing Persons Division, told FoxNews.com.

“We are in conversations with former security investigators among others to see how significant all of the cases are to each other and then we will provide our findings to the authorities. Although we know of many cases with similar connections we are not placing blame on any one site, but we are following the concerns of our clients.” 

The coalition and investigators working with it have been probing some 14 cases nationwide in which missing women all had profiles on sites like Model Mayhem.

“When you have so many cases with a common denominator, that’s a red flag,” coalition spokeswoman Michelle Bart said.

Internet Brands, which owns and operates ModelMayhem.com, defended the site's practices in a written statement to FoxNews.com.

"While our policy is to fully cooperate with authorities if approached for assistance in an investigation, Model Mayhem has not been contacted by police authorities regarding either of the three recent disappearances in Colorado," Internet Brands spokesman Joe Ewaskiw said in the statement.

"Model Mayhem strongly believes that safety should be top of mind when doing anything online. ... The site offers detailed safety advice to help members understand what to look for when they are contacted by others," he added.

Site members also are encouraged to alert moderators to suspicious activity.

"Moderators view and respond to each and every inquiry," Ewaskiw said.

But the families of the missing tell FoxNews.com that not enough is being done by Model Mayhem.

“Do they run this website with full disclosure of the risk?” said Julia Nichols, mother of Kara Nichols, who has been missing since Oct. 9. She disappeared after telling her friends she was going to Denver from her Colorado Springs home for a modeling job. “These girls are young and impressionable. If they were fully aware, do you think they would use this website? They should inform the users and have more of a screening process.”

Furlong, 17, has been missing from Aurora since Feb. 5. Police consider her a runaway, according to KRDO. Buckley told Fox 31 Furlong called her family last month, but her mother says the call wasn’t normal.

“She said she had to go because it’s not her phone and they need their phone back,” said Lin Furlong.

Schelling was last seen on Feb. 4. Her empty car was discovered in Pueblo.

Furlong’s aunt, Tobi Buckley, discovered her niece's Model Mayhem profile after she vanished and saw some disturbing correspondence. Buckley has launched a Facebook page to build awareness around the case.

“If they are such a legitimate site, why wouldn’t they do anything?” she said to FoxNews.com. “Bad people are using the site, and they are doing nothing to stop it.”

Police have not officially linked the website—which has an “F” rating with the Better Business Bureau-- to any of the disappearances, but they are aware of the possible dangers that can be associated with using a site such as this.

El Paso County Sheriff's Lt. Jeff Kramer told FoxNews.com the modeling aspect is part of the probe.

“From the onset of the case we were aware that (Nichols) was an aspiring model, and we had a concern about the subculture often associated with these sites,” Kramer said.

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COLORADO MYSTERY:3 Missing Women HaveOnline Model Profiles

Three young women who disappeared in Colorado reportedly all had profiles on modeling social networking sites.

According to Fox 31, The National Women’s Coalition Against Violence & Exploitation says Kara Nichols and Raven Furlong both had profiles on ModelMayhem.com. The group says the site is a common link in several cases of missing girls.

“We’re up to 13 or 14 cases that we’re familiar with,” the organization’s co-founder, Michelle Bart, told Fox 31.

Nichols, 19, of Colorado Springs, has been missing since Oct. 9, 2012. She told her friends she was going to Denver for a modeling job and disappeared, KRDO Newschannel 13 reports. Furlong, 17, has been missing from Aurora since Feb. 5. Police consider her a runaway, according to KRDO.

A third missing woman, Kelsie Schelling, appears to have a modeling profile on the site Explore Talent. Schelling was last seen on Feb. 4. Her empty car was discovered in Pueblo.

Furlong’s aunt discovered her Model Mayhem profile after she vanished and saw some disturbing correspondence.

“The photographers asking her to do nude photographs after asking her if she was 18 and her telling them no,” Buckley told Fox 31.

According to the station, Furlong called her family last month, but her mother says the call wasn’t normal.

“She said she had to go because it’s not her phone and they need their phone back,” said Lin Furlong.

Professional model Jillian Mourning, 25, says she learned firsthand the dangers of modeling websites when she was 19. She tells KRDO that she connected with a “manager” on Model Mayhem and was sexually assaulted during a shoot in Arizona.

"He came into my room with three guys, and they [all] proceeded to rape me," recalled Mourning. "They took pictures of it, and would even show me pictures of things that I was doing, and videotaped the whole thing."

She says at 19 years old, she felt trapped. She said she was trafficked and forced to have sex with men for six months until her manager went to prison for an unrelated crime.

The owner of Model Mayhem, Internet Brands, said in an emailed statement to KRDO that it cooperates with all law enforcement investigations involving people on the site.

"Model Mayhem strongly believes that safety should be top of mind when doing anything online. Because there are scams on the Internet, Model Mayhem tries to educate users about scams and how to avoid them. The site offers detailed safety advice to help members understand what to look for when they are contacted by others. This can be found here," said public relations manager Joe Ewaskiw. "The site also has a feedback mechanism called "Contact a Moderator" that allows any member to let site moderators know of any suspicious activity they encounter. Moderators view and respond to each and every inquiry."

Police have not officially linked Model Mayhem to the girls’ disappearances, but the company does have an “F” rating with the Better Business Bureau, according to Fox 31.

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WHISTLE IF RAPED?Pol Hints Women Shouldn't Rely on Guns, Backtracks

A freshman Colorado lawmaker apologized Monday for suggesting during debate on gun control that a woman concerned about being raped should not be trusted with a gun -- but should instead use a whistle or call box.

Democratic state Rep. Joe Salazar said while his contentious comments might have come out wrong, he is sensitive to women's concerns. 

"I'm sorry if I offended anyone. That was absolutely not my intention," Salazar said in a statement to FOX31 in Denver. "We were having a public policy debate on whether or not guns makes people safer on campus. I don't believe they do. That was the point I was trying to make. If anyone thinks I'm not sensitive to the dangers women face, they're wrong."

Salazar made his controversial remarks during a debate on the House floor Friday over a concealed-weapons ban on college campuses. In arguing in favor of the proposal, Salazar, the father of two daughters, said women don’t need guns on college campuses to feel safe.

“It’s why we have call boxes, it’s why we have safe zones, it’s why we have the whistles,” he said. “Because you just don’t know who you’re gonna be shooting at. And you don’t know if you feel like you’re gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop … pop around at somebody.”

His remarks drew sharp criticism from female Republican lawmakers.

“My daughter’s going to be going off to college in about 10 years,” Rep. Lori Saine said. “I can’t imagine her only option’s going to be to outrun her attackers to a call box. I think she’s responsible enough to handle a gun.”

Salazar said he was trying to make a point about the potential for misidentifying someone and possibly shooting the wrong person, but some of his colleagues disagreed with the premise. 

“I’m sorry, a whistle and a call box are not going to help that woman on campus,” Rep. Polly Lawrence said, according to FOX31. 

Democratic House Speaker Mark Ferrandino stood by Salazar.

“Whatever his words may have been and however much those words are being taken out of context, he did the right thing to take responsibility,” Ferrandino said. 

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