Weight loss blog » Cancer

COMMON TYPES OF CANCER: PROSTATE CANCER

admin — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 09:28:05 +0000

Cancer of the prostate is the most common type of cancer in males today, after skin cancer. In 2000, 180,400 new cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed, and from these, about 32,000 men would die. Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death.From 1980 to 1990, prostate cancer incidence rates increased by 65 percent, largely due to earlier diagnosis in men without symptoms. This was accomplished by increased use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood-test screenings and increased public awareness. Today, prostate cancer rates are declining.Most signs and symptoms of prostate cancer are nonspecific – that is, they mimic the signs of infection or enlarged prostate. Symptoms include weak or interrupted urine flow or difficulty starting or stopping the urine flow; the need to urinate frequently; pain or difficulty in urinating; blood in the urine; and pain in the lower back, pelvis, or upper thighs. Many males mistake these symptoms for other nonspecific conditions, such as infections, and delay treatment.Incidence of prostate cancer increases with age; over 75 percent of all prostate cancers are diagnosed in men over age 65, although increasing numbers of young men seem to be affected. Black Americans have the highest prostate cancer incidence rates in the world; the disease is more common in northwestern Europe and North America. It is rare in the Near East, Africa, Central America, and South America. There seems to be a slightly increased risk if a family member has the disease, but it is unclear whether this is due to genetic or environmental factors. Recent genetic studies suggest that strong familial predisposition may be responsible for 5-10 percent of prostate cancers. International studies suggest that dietary fat may also be a factor.Fortunately, even with so many generalized symptoms, most prostate cancers are detected while they are still localized and tend to progress slowly. Because most men detect cancer in their late 60s and early 70s, it is likely that they will die of other causes before prostate cancer leads to their deaths. For this reason, health care groups are beginning to question the cost effectiveness and necessity of prostate surgeries and other costly procedures that may have little real effect on life expectancy. Prostate patients have an average five-year survival rate of 80 percent. Because the incidence of prostate cancer increases with age, every man over the age of 40 should have an annual digital rectal prostate examination. In addition, the American Cancer Society recommends that men age 50 and older have an annual prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test. If either result is suspicious, further evaluation in the form of transrectal ultrasound is recommended.*23/277/5*

THE BASIC UNDERSTANDING OP CANCER

admin — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:19:04 +0000

Usually a cancer begins when a single cell within the body undergoes essential changes in its DNA so that the ‘switches’ which control the processes of proliferation and of differentiation are altered. That cell multiplies by dividing into two cells and the cancer characteristics are transmitted in the DNA to each new ‘daughter’ cell. Hence each cell that is the product of cellular proliferation has the same version of the genetic code. In this way the characteristics of a cancer are inherited from cell to cell arid retained by all the cells within that cancer. Cancer is thus a generic disease, because the genetic information is passed from cell to cell within the cancer. It is not usually a genetic disease in the sense that its occurrence is passed from parents to their children.
So what are the essential switches that control how the cell behaves and how are they altered to turn that cell into a cancer cell? By no means all the answers to these questions are yet available. However, the new biology has provided a number of them and yielded glimpses of several more.
The first point to make is that the change into a cancer cell does not occur as a result of an alteration in a single controlling gene. A series of changes, as many as half a dozen, will usually be necessary before the full characteristics of a cancer cell develop. One or two changes may produce an abnormal cell, but without all of those characteristics of growth, invasion and metastasis that we considered in the last section.
The characteristic of abnormal growth is passed on to ‘daughter’ cells but does not yet form a cancer. The second change increases the abnormal growth pattern and it may give rise to a lump, but this does not spread and is not yet cancer. A further change occurs and now, as we look down the microscope, the growth appears like a cancer but it is growing slowly and does not spread. After a fourth change the cancer starts to grow more rapidly, but a fifth change is necessary before it has all the features of growth and spread which are the hallmarks of the disease. In no single cancer are all these stages, or the exact number of stages, clear, but for some cancers a great deal of information exists. Two important kinds of gene in which changes occur to promote the development of a cancer have now been discovered and there are many examples of each.
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BIOLOGICAL FACTORS FOR CANCER DEVELOPMENT

admin — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 16:57:05 +0000

Some early cancer theorists believed that we inherit a genetic predisposition toward certain forms of cancer. Recent research indicates that a gene for breast cancer exists. To date, however, the research in this area remains inconclusive. Although a rare form of eye cancer does appear to be passed genetically from mother to child, most cancers are not genetically linked. It is possible that we can inherit a tendency toward a cancer-prone, weak immune system or, conversely, that we can inherit a cancer-fighting potential. Both possibilities are considered rather remote at this time. But the complex interaction of hereditary predisposition, lifestyle, and environment on the development of cancer makes the likelihood of determining a single cause fairly remote.
Cancers of the breast, stomach, colon, prostate, uterus, ovaries, and lungs do appear to run in families. For example, a woman runs a much higher risk of having breast cancer if her mother or sisters (primary relatives) have had the disease, particularly if they had the disease at a young age. Hodgkin’s disease and certain leukemia show similar familial patterns. Whether these familial patterns are attributable to genetic susceptibility or to the fact that people in the same families experience similar environmental risks remains uncertain.
Gender also affects the likelihood of developing certain forms of cancer. For example, breast cancer occurs primarily among females, although men do occasionally get breast cancer. Obviously, factors other than heredity and familial relationships affect which sex develops a particular cancer. In the 1950s and 1960s, for example, women rarely contracted lung cancer. But with increases in the number of women who smoked and the length of time they had smoked, lung cancer became the leading cause of cancer deaths for American women in the 1980s and continues to be the leading cause of cancer death in women. Lifestyle is clearly a critical factor in the interaction of variables that predispose a person toward cancer. Although gender plays a role in certain cases, other variables are probably more significant.
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RADIATION TREATMENT – TREATMENT OF SYMPTOMS (PART 2)

admin — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 09:30:01 +0000

If radiation is recommended to you for control of symptoms, I suggest you read Chapter 6 carefully. Aspects to consider are discussed in detail there. In brief though, the usual cost versus benefit balance must be weighed up. How seriously are the symptoms interfering with your day-to-day life? What other ways are there of treating the symptoms? What exactly would these treatments involve? What chance is there that radiation will control the symptoms? How many treatments would you need? How quickly would it act? Would you have to be hospitalised and if so, for how long? For how long would the symptoms be controlled? How likely is it that the symptom would recur in your lifetime? What side effects of treatment could there be? Could radiation that is mainly aimed at treating a symptom also result in you living longer (for example, by temporarily reducing the size of cancer deposits in the brain or by temporarily opening up an obstructed windpipe)? If it could result in your living longer, is this what you really want? What other symptoms could develop in that extra time? How likely is it that they could be controlled?

These are some of the questions that you should ask yourself and your doctor before deciding whether or not to have palliative radiation treatment.

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Cancer

RADIATION TREATMENT – TREATMENT OF SYMPTOMS (PART 1)

admin — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 09:29:22 +0000

I believe that one of the most valuable roles of radiation in cancer treatment is palliative — the control of symptoms. Here, the aim is not to cure or completely control the cancer, but simply to treat some of its symptoms. As a rule, the doses needed for palliative treatment are much less than for curative treatment because the aim is only to shrink a particular cancer deposit, not to kill every cell in it. Thus, the side effects of palliative treatment tend to be relatively minor. There are many symptoms that can be relieved temporarily by reducing the size of a cancer deposit.

Pain due to a cancer deposit in a bone can often be relieved by radiation. The radiation can also reduce the chance of fracture of the affected bone. Pain due to pressure on nerves or other sensitive structures near a cancer deposit may be relieved by shrinking the growth by radiation. Symptoms due to cancer in the brain like headache, vomiting, paralysis and numbness may be temporarily relieved by radiation treatment. A cancer growth that has ulcerated through the skin may be shrunk sufficiently for the skin to heal over. Bleeding from an ulcerated cancer deposit may be stopped by radiation. A cancer that is causing an obstruction may be shrunk by radiation enough to temporarily relieve the blockage and its symptoms. For example, blockage of blood or lymph vessels, bronchial tubes, the oesophagus (gullet), the ureter (tube from kidney to bladder) or the lower bowel may be temporarily relieved by radiation.

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Cancer

SOME FACTS ABOUT CANCER SURGERY – INTRODUCTION

admin — Mon, 18 May 2009 06:57:11 +0000

You may be frightened of having any operation at all for cancer because you have heard that ‘letting the air in’ makes the cancer grow and spread much more quickly. What facts support this belief? How heavily should it weigh when you are considering the possible costs of a proposed operation?

It is true that some people die of cancer very soon after having an operation for it. If you look into it you will find that most of these patients have had operations which consisted simply of opening them up, having a look and closing them up again. In other words, most of these patients already had extensive cancer before their operation, so extensive that no useful procedure was possible. Rather than asking ‘Did the operation aggravate their cancer?’, I think questions such as these are more important: ‘What was the purpose of operating at all?’ ‘What possible benefit was expected?’ ‘Couldn’t they have found out before operating that it would not be possible to do anything useful?’

‘Open and shut’ operations should hardly ever happen. They can usually be avoided by careful assessment of patients. The diagnosis and probable extent of disease should be established by tests before any operation is planned. A properly-planned procedure is rarely made impossible by finding something unexpected when the patient is operated on.

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