News and Articles on Health

Cancer is a disease that weakens a person once they hear it. It is a disease wherein there is only a fifty-fifty chance of getting well. It is sad to know that more and more people across the globe are dying every single day because of cancer. If we are not precautious with regards to proper care of our bodies, then we might be candidates of this disease.

Who gets cancer? Anyone can get the disease. It is not only a hereditary disease but it may also be acquired or develop by itself if we have poor immune system. Lifestyle attributes to the development of this type of illness. For instance, if an individual is a chain smoker, he is at high risk of getting lung cancer. If he loves to eat carcinogenic food preparations or perhaps have irregular bowel movement, then he is at high risk of colon cancer. There are still so many types of cancer that we really need to know about. Unfortunately, due to having busy lives, some people have taken learning important facts for granted not knowing that it will be very helpful to them.

Treatment of cancer depends upon the severity. There are several options for a cancer patient to consider. We all have heard of the treatment chemotherapy. Chemotherapy works through the use of chemotherapeutic drugs that will destroy cancer cells. This treatment does not really cure the disease but it helps in alleviating the symptoms. One advantage of chemotherapy is that it has the ability to reach cancer cells that have already metastasized in other parts of the body.

Another popular treatment is through undergoing surgery. Through surgery, the cancerous part or the tumor is surgically removed. Like for example in breast cancer, the patient undergoes mastectomy which is the removal of the affected breast. Through the surgery, it will prevent the cancer cells from affecting other parts of the body. Cancer surgery will help in removing localized tumors so that follow-up treatment like radiation and chemotherapy will be more effective.

And lastly, there is radiation therapy. Radiation therapy can be a curative treatment for cancer or it could also be a palliative one. In radiation therapy, the DNA of cancer cells is damaged through the help of protons, electrons and neutrons that will ionize the DNA cells and thus will break its chain. In other words, it helps destroy cells and shrink the tumor. To prevent damage of normal tissues, radiation oncologist will make sure that the external beam radiation are focused on several angles of exposure that will intersect at the tumor and will then receive a much larger and absorbed dose. This type of treatment is proven effective in some childhood types of cancer.

Before a cancer patient is treated, he needs to briefly talk with his physician in order for him to know the different options that he can take to survive. It is hard to accept that our loved ones or perhaps a dear friend has this disease. Our support and our presence will always be the best treatment that they will ever receive.

Blood cancer is a condition where cancerous cells have attacked the blood, bone marrow or lymphatic system. This type of cancer is malignant and has the ability to spread and destroy tissues. In the case of leukemia, the cancer interferes with the body’s ability to make blood. Leukemia attacks the bone marrow and the blood itself, causing fatigue, anemia, weakness, and bone pain.

It is diagnosed with a blood test in which specific types of blood cells are counted. Treatment for leukemia usually includes chemotherapy and radiation to kill the cancer, and in some cases measures like bone marrow transplants may be required. There are several different types of leukemia, including chronic myelogenous leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and hairy cell leukemia.

Symptoms of Blood Cancer: –

* Weakness, Fatigue, Malaise and Breathlessness * Excessive or easy bruising * Bleeding gums or frequent nose bleeds * Recurrent infections or fever * Excessive sweating of body during night * Weight loss * Frequent vomiting sensations * Anorexia * Lumps or abdominal distension due to enlarged abdominal organs * Delirium and confusion * Headaches with occurrence of visual difficulties * Decreased urination and difficulty while urinating

Natural Cure for Blood Cancer: -

Chemotherapy: – There are several types of chemotherapy, and each has worked for some people as a real cure even for some with advanced blood cancer. Systemic chemotherapy entails injecting drugs into one’s bloodstream or ingesting through the mouth to disperse it through the patient’s body to fight a cancer that has spread (metastasized) beyond the organ in which it began. * Watch for the symptoms of blood cancer in order to aid in the early diagnosis and treatment of the condition. Common symptoms include high fever and chills, frequent infections, swollen lymph nodes, tiny red spots on the skin, easy bruising and extreme tiredness. * Diet is also considered a very important part of treatment. Visiting an ayurvedic practitioner is important in order to develop the proper diet for your body. The practitioner will determine which of the three humors is the predominant one in your body, and then based on this information, can develop a diet for you that will bring the three humors back in balance.
Raw Foods: – One way that breaks with traditional cancer cures is through changing the diet into nothing but raw foods. Dr. Jerry Lee Hoover, a proponent of natural cancer cures, suggests that raw diets are easier for your body than chemotherapy. He also says that people should maintain a raw diet until cancer is in remission, because cooked foods exacerbate cancer cell growth, while raw food is still alive and will fight cancer cells. * Consider radiation therapy, also called radiotherapy. It involves the use of high powered beams like gamma rays and X rays to focus on the malignant cancer cells. Radiotherapy is typically administered in a hospital and may be used in combination with surgery and chemotherapy or may be administered alone.

The treatment had made use of radiation therapy since 1915. During those times the results have not been very acceptable because the radiation rays did not infiltrate deeply in irradiating the cancer cells and instead to skin tumor and morbidity. However, in 1980 equipments such as linear accelerators were utilized by oncologists. These helped to get to targeted areas better and added the pace of the elevated energy elements being delivered.

There are three types of radiation which rely on the kind of high energy elements being delivered in the treatment of cancer. – 3D-CRT (3 Dimentional Conformal Radiation Therapy) – uses subatomic electrons on aiming elevated energy particles/waves some photon radiation – Neutron Beam Therapy which uses neutrons – Proton Beam Therapy which uses protons

Fractionated radiation cure for cancer

This external ray radiation is delivering little doses of radiation to targeted part of the patient’s body over 9 weeks or more, relying on the case. The normal and healthy prostate cells can recover easily from these little doses rays while the tumor cells can not recover.

Patients with tumor in the prostate who want to be treated through external radiation therapy must have the following: 6 or lower Gleason score; 10 or lower PSA scale; Contained or localized tumor in prostate gland; No abdominal mark tissue because of previous surgical operation.

PSA scale of ten or lower and Gleason score of six or lesser means that tumor is enclosed in the prostate gland itself and was not able to scatter in the tissues or organs around. Medication for prostate tumor such as IMRT and 3D-CRT are good because they destruct the tumor in the prostate gland while the organs and tissues surrounding it are unaffected and unattached. If the tumor had spread already then the danger is greater in the surrounding area.

When the patients have scar tissues in the abdominal region because of surgical operations done earlier, the intestines and colon will be open to extra radiation. All patients who have undergone radiation cure for prostate cancer cannot be given again.

Salvage medication for prostate cancer.

This kind of cure involves brachytherapy. However, radiotherapy is not recommended as salvage treatment for cancer of the prostate if brachytherapy is not successful because prostate gland was treated already of elevated doses of radiation. Radiotherapy is given to patients with benign hyperplasia of the prostate. Cryotherapy is also a cure for tumor of the prostate that is suggested as salvage treatment when radiotherapy is not successful. Cryotherapy involves the chilling of the tumor cells from the prostate gland to destroy them.

Cutaneous lymphoma is a type of Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma involving the lymphocytes within the skin, specifically T-cells and B-Cells. This is a rare type of Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma where the tumor growths are seen mostly as numerous lumps beneath the skin’s surface and not in just a lymph node.

The lumps formed beneath the skin cutaneous lymphoma are due to a collection of the malignant cells in the skin. In an attempt to purge the system of the mutated cells, the body pushes the clustered malignant cells towards the surface of the skin. The most common type of cutaneous lymphoma is the cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. The disease manifests itself in several stages:

• Pre-tumor stage – the skin is presented with raised, red patches that appear on the breasts or buttocks and somewhat mimics the appearance of other skin conditions such as eczema or psoriasis. ?>
• Plaque stage – the patches are now irregularly shaped and can appear anywhere in the body. Hair loss in the affected skin area is also noted, and can be permanent if the condition is not treated.
• Tumor stage – the incidence of people progressing to this stag is quite small. The plaques can now form lumps and even ulcerate. Lymph nodes are also affected. The liver, lungs, and spleen is also at risk of being affected by the cutaneous lymphoma, but the cases are quite rare.
• Sezary syndrome – this is when the malignancy has spread and covers a large skin area. The malignant cells have also metastasized in the blood stream. Some patients have no plaques or tumors, but the entire integumentary system may be swollen, red and sore (l’homme rouge). The skin can also manifest desquamation or peeling off of skin.

Cutaneous lymphoma of T-cell origin is treated through a specific or a combination of treatment modalities that can range from topical or local to systemic. PUVA treatment is a combination of psoralen and UVA. After taking psoralen, the patient enters an enclosed room where rays of UVA is applied on the skin. However, extra care must be given for it is known that exposure to UV rays can predispose a person to skin cancer. Radiation therapy and chemotherapy is also done to help cure cutaneous lymphoma.

Cutaneous lymphoma can be hard to deal with for it can cause some severe changes in your appearance. A support group can help you combat the disease both in its physical and psychological aspects. Talk to your friends and family during hard times, and ask your doctor to refer you to a cancer support group to help you understand and cope with the effects of cutaneous lymphoma.

It begins with the uninhibited expansion of epithelial cells that line the inner surface of the colon. The colon in most mammals is the final portion of the gastrointestinal tract. Its chief task is to get hold of water and other materials from solid waste products before these are eliminated from the body.

It has been established that majority of colon cancer cases begun with polyps which are hyperplastic masses. But these small balloon structures may undergo a succession of alterations into pre-tumorigenic (e.g. Tubular adenoma) and finally tumorous metastatic (e.g. Colorectal adenocarcinoma) growth.

For many years, colorectal cancer still remains as one of most regularly diagnosed cancers throughout the world with hundred of thousands of newly diagnosed cases each year. The elevated cancer incidence is often accompanied by high mortality rates. Colon cancer is among the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide.

There are a variety of risk factors linked to the dvelopment of colorectal cancer. Age being one of them. Cancer risk rises proportionally with age. And males constitute a higher risk group than females. A further group at great risk of getting colon cancer are people with personal or family history of Hereditary genetic mutations (HNPCC: Hereditary nonpolyposis colon cancer or FAP: Familial adenomatous polyposis). People with inflammatory bowel disease have greater risks of developing colon cancer as well.

Further major risk factors included

• obesity
• extreme consumption of red meat
• elevated fat diet
• diet low in calcium, vitamin D, selenium and folate
• inadequate uptake of vegetables and fruits,
• inadequate exercise
• smoking
• aging of the immune system

Conversely, studies have found that nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as aspirin and ibuprofen, estrogen-containing medications and cholesterol reducing drugs may protect against colon cancer.

These drugs are however not endorsed at this point in time as alternative prevention.

While several symptoms may indicate the presence of this cancer, many of these symptoms are not unique to colon malignancy and are in fact, quite analogous to other ordinary illnesses and diseases. These symptoms may possibly appear suddenly or may grow little by little over a period of time. Symptoms include bowel movement alterations; continuous diarrhea; constipation; total bowel blockage (with extreme pain); bloody stools; sudden or chronic abdominal cramping and pain, just to name a few.

Surgical intervention is still the most effectual treatment if the tumor have not become invasive and metastasize. This is done by eliminating the tumor along with a portion of normal colonic tissues and adjacent lymph nodes.

Other types of treatments also include chemotherapy, radiation therapy and immunotherapy. Individual or combinatorial therapies may take place depending on patient’s physical condition and stage of disease.

Mesothelioma is a serious disease that mainly affects those who have been exposed to asbestos. At the early stage, it is very difficult to identify mesothelioma disease, this disease only identified only when its symptoms appear. This can be more to whom those are not aware of its symptoms.

Mesothelioma can affect important parts of body such as organs, including the heart, abdomen and lungs. This disease can cause cancer of these parts if proper treatment is not taken on time. Malignant tumor is one of such mesothelioma disease which can obstruct body’s normal functioning. As a result, pleural mesothelioma might cause a tumor to obstruct the air passage causing difficulty breathing. Pleural mesothelioma might cause fluid to build in the lungs which not only makes it hard to breathe but can also cause significant chest pain.

If any symptom of mesothelioma is found in you then it is necessary to check up yourself to a doctor to be sure. A doctor has a number of tools to correctly diagnose mesothelioma or determine if your symptoms are due to another condition. In the diagnosis stage of mesothelioma, your doctor will start by examining the affected area with a MRI, CT-scan or even just an X-ray. If mesothelioma is found after the preliminary treatment, a medical oncologist will then perform a biopsy to make sure. A biopsy is performed in order to collect a small tissue-sample which does involve minor surgery.

There are two major factors on which mesothelioma treatmentis dependent: where the cancer is located and how far it has progressed. The types of mesothelioma treatment can, generally, be classified into the three categories of surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy.

• Surgery for mesothelioma involves removing all or part of the affected organs along with the lining that surrounds them.
• Radiation therapy is another common treatment for mesothelioma. The cancer is exposed to radiation either from a machine that radiates high-energy rays or from radioactive materials that are encased and inserted next to cancerous tissue in order to shrink it. This is often combined with chemotherapy. When treating mesothelioma, chemotherapy is generally administered by way of an IV. However, researchers are looking into the effectiveness of injecting directly into the affected area.
• Chemotherapy is almost never the sole treatment for mesothelioma. Instead, it is often combined with both radiation therapy and surgery to help control the cancerous cells from multiplying and spreading. Treatment that combines chemotherapy, radiation and surgery is called tri-modality therapy and is the most effective, as well as the most invasive, care available today for those who suffer from mesothelioma.

There are some diseases that occur without much of the fault of the sufferers. One of the most horrible diseases is Cancer and among Cancer if there is anything that is quite dangerous, it is the Leukemia. It is the Cancer of the blood or bone marrow. Its quite dangerous and difficult to cure.

There are two main types of Leukemia, the Acute and the Chronic. When the immature blood gets weight age in the body and it is increased more than the mature blood, it gets converted into Leukemia. In this type an immediate treatment is must as if the blood gets circulated in majority of the parts of body, it becomes difficult to handle the situation and that results into the blocking of bone marrow to produce healthy blood cells. So, the curing should be deadly faster. Also the lymphocytes Leukemia and myelogenous Leukemia are also the other types of this disease.

Leukemia Symptoms are difficult to find outer as it is totally internal process. If in any of the reports it is found to have the damage of bone marrow or even the lack of platelets can be the reason of this cancer. Other symptom can be the suppressing or dysfunctional behavior of White Cells in Blood without any reason. Leukemia prevents the immune system so if there are complains of frequent infections or even the tonsils, sores in mouth are felt, diarrhea, pneumonia or even the opportunistic infections are felt than there are bright chances of converting the diseases into Leukemia.

• Causes of Leukemia

There are no visible reasons of Leukemia as such but still artificial ionizing radiation, different type of viruses that cause the blood platelets balancing problem and also the smoking or tobacco habit is the reason of this disease to occur to certain extent.

There are some of the people in whom the maternal-fatal transmission has become the reason for the Leukemia occurrence. Also some of the people are found to have the genetic predisposition as the reason of this disease to happen.

• Treatment of Leukemia

The treatment is difficult yet not impossible as some of the medication treatment are required to get cured and beside this there are also the radiation therapy and bone marrow transplantation are the treatments of this diseases. But still nothing gives guarantee as the diagnosis has no outer symptoms and the stage in which the diseases are approached is also important.

So, have the best treatment and better curing of the diseases that is quite difficult to handle, Leukemia.