Cancer Information

Archive for the ‘Treatment of Cancer’ Category

We have conducted numerous studies over several years to understand the causes of cancer and to find appropriate remedies. The cancer of the prostate is the type most common cancer in men. The fruit of 20 years of continuous efforts was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The researchers were able to obtain clarification of the mechanism of development of prostate cancer. The gene HOXB13 is responsible for a genetic mutation.
Important discovery

Studies have shown that a genetic mutation may increase the risk of transmission of hereditary prostate cancer. This type of cancer can be passed from father to son and the young male members of a family are spared.

William Isaacs, Professor of Urology, Faculty of Medicine says that this discovery is a major step in the search for methods of prevention against cancer. It is now possible to perform screening campaigns on individuals at risk. Such a campaign is on the agenda for 2012 and more than 240,000 people expected to attend.

In addition to developing the disease itself, we know that the cancer patients are twice as difficult. Facing cancer is not just face the fact of having a potentially terminal, but also a lot of symptoms that it makes us suffer in our bodies, which may constitute a significant obstacle to recovery from illness.

The more you reduce the symptoms of cancer, the more likely we are to overcome the disease, and improve our quality of life. But how to get rid of them? Apparently the massage has the answer to this question .

According to a study presented at the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia Annual Scientific Meeting in Melbourne, which was conducted by Dr. David Joske, which evaluated the quality of life of 1,244 cancer patients, who conducted massage sessions to reduce the symptoms of the disease.

Joske noted that a reduction of 14% of symptoms was experienced by cancer patients in the study, including some such as fatigue, pain, breathing difficulties, lack of appetite, nausea and insomnia.

Although researchers have not entirely clear whether this was due to a placebo effect, the truth is that it really happened this way, recognizing that massage may play an important role in order to develop natural cancer treatments .

In fact, after receiving massage therapy patients also experienced a reduction in symptoms using conventional therapies, so that massage could work both ways.

Prostate cancer is one of the most common in Western society, has a very high incidence among males. Similarly it is also one of the tumors with higher cure rate through early detection methods and increasingly effective treatments.

Relative survival of these patients is approximately 65% and 90% in low risk patients. The main cause of death in this type of cancer metastasis, particularly bone and liver.

Early diagnosis is made by measurement of PSA, which is very sensitive but nonspecific, because other conditions such as prostatitis also increase its value. It is also advisable for adult men over 50 be checked with your doctor as this condition can be detected by digital rectal examination.

From the point of view there are several alternative treatment, although surgery remains the most widely used. Radiation therapy is gaining every day a more significant place in the treatment of prostate cancer.

Continuing the series of nutrition for people with cancer today will present the recommended foods and tips that will allow the body maintain proper balance, body weight and energy needed for recovery.

Some of the foods recommended for people undergoing treatments for cancer are:

Protein: beef, chicken or fish cooked, boiled eggs, sour cream, cottage cheese, yogurt, soups. Bread, cereal, rice and pasta, breads and cereals without nuts, pasta, potatoes and rice.

Fruits and vegetables: bananas, citrus, melon, peeled apples and vegetables.

Beverages, desserts and other foods

* Beverages: mention the fruit juice, milk, smoothies, and tea.
* desserts you can eat cakes and cookies without nuts, jelly and ice cream.
* Other foods allowed, are butter, margarine, salad dressings, salt, pepper, herbs, spices and honey (to be integrated at the time of cooking), sugar, jam, jelly, mustard, chocolate and olives.

Essential when a person is under treatment for cancer is known in advance that will suffer some eating disorders (loss of appetite, altered taste and smell) and should work to overcome.

Smoking patients who receive a liver transplant have a higher incidence of smoking-related tumors (SRM, for its acronym in English), present in 13.5 percent of patients who died. This is demonstrated by an investigation conducted by the University Hospital of Navarra in Pamplona, ​​to be published this April in the journal Liver Transplantation. “

Although it is known that smoking is a risk factor for developing cancer in both the general population and in transplant recipients, smoking and taking immunosuppressants may be the main risk factor for the emergence of so-called transplant-related carcinomas.
However, the Spanish investigators did not demonstrate the existence of this association. Their study suggests most significant indicators continue to smoke after a transplant, as an indicator of increased risk, and quit after a transplant, a fact which reduces it.
According to the leader of this study, Ignacio Herrero, University Clinic of Navarra, “Smoking is associated with several of the most common causes of tumor after a transplant.”
“We investigated whether the risk of developing tumors were different in patients who stopped smoking than those who continued smoking after transplantation,” he explains, adding that, in this study, we examined the risk factors for developing after transplantation , lung, head and neck, esophagus, kidney and urinary tract.
The team analyzed a total of 339 patients who received their first liver transplant between April 1990 and December 2009 that showed a survival rate after surgery than three months. To do this used a
a protocol of ‘screening’ which took into account the risk of smoking-related malignancy in each patient.
Participants received cyclosporine-based immunosuppression tarcolimus. Risk factors for developing smoking-related cancers were also analyzed in 135 patients smoking. The objective was to determine if smoking cessation was associated with a lower risk of cancer.
Risk factors to develop SRM examined were age, sex, alcohol abuse before receiving the transplant, infection with hepatitis C, hepatocellular carcinoma in the transplant as primary immunosuppression (cyclosporine or tacrolimus) The history of rejection requiring high dose steroids or antilymphocyte globulin in the first three months, the number of immunosuppressive drugs after three months and smoking history.
A second analysis of risk factors for the development of SRM was performed only in smokers, focusing on assets compared to patients with a history of prior smoking.
After 7.5 years of follow up, 26 patients were diagnosed with 29 tumors related to snuff. Rates after five and ten years were 5 percent and 13 percent respectively.
In a multivariate analysis, smoking and being older were associated independently with an increased risk of developing tumors. In the subgroup of smokers, the variables associated with an increased risk of tumors were recorded in patients who were still active smokers and those who were older.
“Quitting smoking after a liver transplant may have protective effects against the development of cancer,” concluded Dr. Smith, for whom intervention programs targeting against snuff, along with the programs ‘screening’ could help reduce cancer mortality rate of patients who received a liver transplant.

Correspondent: Gabriel Torrecilla Abadia

The study by the U.S. state that only 8% of adults have a second cancer treated with radiotherapy. Most of the cases in which he turns his appearance due to genetic factors and lifestyle.

Research lets you know the benefits that a patient with chemotherapy, with the risk of second cancers may be obtained by large amount of radiation.

Until now it was unknown because radiation therapy was associated with the case of a second cancer, but the study does find that only 8% of them have a second is cancer.

The possibility of having a second cancer is more likely in patients treated at an early age and that have been exposed to high doses of radiation.

In my opinion I feel good that you do these kinds of studies especially for those who have the disease that may be more interested in what can happen.

You can administer chemotherapy in several ways. The most frequent oral and intravenous, but it is also possible or intramuscularly administered through catheters.The oral form when the drug is consumed as a capsule or tablet in the mouth. Oral administration is convenient, as it only requires that the patient swallow a pill. The intravenous, or IV, is when, as a liquid, we introduce the drug directly into circulation by a small needle is inserted usually in the arm.

Chemotherapy given by intramuscular injection into the muscle tissue. Is very similar to receiving a joint injection. The chemotherapy injected into a muscle disperse more slowly in the body if administered by the intravenous route. Read the rest of this entry »

Drugs used in chemotherapy are grouped into five broad categories. They are located in such classes as how the destruction of cancer cells. More specifically, the drugs are placed in a specific category as the cell cycle interrupted. The categories include alkylating agents, nitrosoureas, antimetabolites, antitumor antibiotics, plant alkaloids and steroid hormones.

Alkylating agents are drugs that work by directly attacking the DNA of a cell. These drugs can trade any time of the cell cycle. However, they are more effective for the synthesis of DNA. Used to treat Hodgkin’s disease, lymphoma, chronic leukemia and some lung carcinomas, breast, prostate and ovary. Alkylating agents are administered orally or intravenously. Examples of drugs in this category are: cyclophosphamide, mechlorethamine and cisplatin (Platinol). Read the rest of this entry »

Chemotherapy, which involves using chemicals to kill cancer cells is a major therapeutic technologies used to fight cancer. Chemotherapy is one of the three most important methods used to treat cancer, works by interfering with the ability of the cancer cell to grow. They are also used radiation and surgery, which can be combined with chemotherapy.

The high efficacy of chemotherapy is a result of its ability to treat cancer spread (metastatic), the one that comes in more than one body site. Such capability makes it very important to chemotherapy in a patient’s struggle to overcome cancer since radiation therapy and surgery are only suitable for treating cancer in localized areas. When using these three treatments combined, their complementary route to attack the disease often offer the patient a better chance of beating cancer. Read the rest of this entry »

Antimetabolites

Antimetabolites are types of chemotherapy treatments similar to normal substances found within the cell. When the cells incorporate these substances into the cellular metabolism, lose the ability to divide.

Antimetabolites are cell cycle specific. They attack cells at very specific phases of the cycle. Antimetabolites are classified according to the substances with which they interfere.
* Folic acid antagonist: Methotrexate.
* Pyrimidine antagonists: 5-fluorouracil, floxuridine, cytarabine, capecitabine and gemcitabine.
* Purine Antagonists: 6-mercaptopurine and 6-thioguanine.
* Adenosine deaminase inhibitor: Cladribine, fludarabine, and pentostatin nelarabine. Read the rest of this entry »