 Chemotherapy can induce changes in the brain that may affect concentration and memory, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Using positron emission tomography combined with computed tomography (PET/CT), researchers were able to detect physiological evidence of chemo brain, a common side effect in patients undergoing chemotherapy for cancer treatment. The chemo brain phenomenon is described as 'mental fog' and 'loss of coping skills' by patients who receive chemotherapy, Because this is such a common patient complaint, healthcare providers have generically referred to its occurrence as 'chemo brain' for more than two decades. While the complaint may be common, the cause of chemo brain phenomenon has been difficult to pinpoint. Some prior studies using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have found small changes in brain volume after chemotherapy, but nothing definitive.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121127003324.htmINTRODUCTION TO CHEMOTHERAPY CANCER TREATMENT
The term chemotherapy, or chemo, refers to a wide range of drugs used to treat cancer. These drugs usually work by killing dividing cells. Since cancer cells have lost many of the regulatory functions present in normal cells, they will continue to attempt to divide when other cells do not. This trait makes cancer cells susceptible to a wide range of cellular poisons. The chemotherapy agents work to cause cell death in a variety of ways. Some of the drugs are naturally occurring compounds that have been identified in various plants and some are man-made chemicals.
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http://www.cancerquest.org/chemotherapy-introduction.html?gclid=CNifnrjJirMCFe7MtAodE28AWA#
 The quality of a breast cancer patient's personal relationships may be as important as the size of her social networks in predicting survival, researchers report. The new study included more than 2,200 women who were diagnosed with early-stage, invasive breast cancer between 1997 and 2000. After an average of 11 years follow-up, 215 of the women had died from breast cancer and 410 had died from all causes. At the start of the study, the women provided information about their personal relationships, which were characterized as socially isolated (small social network), moderately integrated or socially integrated (large social network). A social network includes spouses or partners, female relatives, friends, religious and social connections, and links to the community through volunteering. Women who were socially isolated were 34 percent more likely to die from breast cancer or other causes than women who were socially integrated, the Kaiser Permanente researchers found. The investigators also discovered that levels of support within personal relationships were important risk factors for breast cancer death. "Women with small networks and high levels of support were not at greater risk than those with large networks, but those with small networks and low levels of support were," study lead author Candyce Kroenke, a research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research, said in a Kaiser news release. Women with small socia networks and low levels of support were 61 percent more likely to die frombreast cancer and other causes than those with small social networks and greater levels of support, the study authors pointed out in the news release. "We also found that when family relationships were less supportive, community and religious ties were critical to survival. http://www.cancercompass.com/cancer-news/article/42783.htm?c=NL20121121
 Norman Lamb orders independent review The government has pledged to set up an independent review of the, after allegations from opponents that elderly people have been put on the palliative care regime without their consent or their families' knowledge. Norman Lamb, the minister of state for care services, made the announcement after meeting medical experts and critics of the LCP. The pathway is intended to help terminally-ill patients into a calm, comfortable death in the place of their choosing. There have been claims that elderly patients have been refused food and water to speed up death and that neither they, nor relatives have been told doctors consider their case to be terminal. Hospitals are said to have received extra local incentive payments for increasing the number of patients on the pathway."It is clear that everyone wants their loved ones' final hours of life to be as pain free and dignified as possible, and the Liverpool Care Pathway is an important part of achieving this aim. However, as we have seen, there have been too many cases where patients were put on the pathway without a proper explanation or their families being involved. This is simply unacceptable," said Lamb, a Liberal Democrat, in a statement.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/nov/26/liverpool-care-pathway-review-pledge Lung Cancer Tumour Tracking Technique
Evidence has shown a survival advantage for lung cancer patients treated with higher doses of radiation. Therefore, there is an increased interest to find novel ways to better track tumours - which are in constant motion because of breathing - in order to up the dosage during radiation therapy without increasing harmful side effects. After proving its success in simulations, researchers have now shown that their real-time tracking technique can achieve such tasks. Not only can it better predict and track tumour motion and deliver higher levels of radiation to lung cancer patients and others with moving tumour targets, it can also successfully be implemented into existing clinical equipment. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/253057.php
Be thorough when checking your breasts. Check for anything that looks or feels unusual – and not just lumps. And remember to check the whole breast area, including your upper chest and armpits
Changes to check for:
TOUCH
Can you feel a lump? Either in the breast, upper chest or armpits.
Is there a lumpy area? Or unusual thickening of the breast tissue that doesn’t go away?
Is there any unusual pain? Either in part of the breast or the armpit
LOOK
Any change in size or shape? For example, one breast might become larger or lower than the other.
Any change in skin texture? Such as puckering or dimpling of the skin of the breast.
Any change in colour? For example the breast may look red or inflamed.
What about the appearance or direction of the nipple? For example, one might become inverted (turned in) when it normally points out.
Any unusual discharge? One or both nipples might have a discharge.
Any rash or crusting? Of the nipple or surrounding area.
CHECK Is anything unusual? If so, get it checked out by your doctor as soon as possible.
You may normally feel breast tissue changes or pain before or during your periods. This is why it’s important to check your breasts regularly so you get to know how they look and feel at different times of the month, and can notice any changes that are unusual for you. If you have signs or symptoms your doctor suspects may be breast cancer, you will be referred to a designated breast cancer clinic in a local hospital within two weeks for an assessment.
http://www.breakthrough.org.uk/breast_cancer/breast_awareness/signs_and_symptoms.html
 Researchers have developed a way to "print" cartilage that could help treat joint diseases and sporting injuries. They say that the new material is more robust and hardwearing than previous efforts to create artificial cartilage. A traditional ink-jet printer combined with a specialised spinning-machine is used to make it. It could lead to bespoke cartilage created for individual patients. But one expert warned it was too early to be confident it would ever be used. The study was published in the Institute of Physics' journal Biofabrication. It marks the latest effort to use 3D printers in medicine following the use of a machine to make a replacement lower jaw and efforts to create 3D-printed scaffolds to support the growth of bone cells. Scientists said they were able to build cartilage made from a chemical compound known as a polymer coated with cartilage cells from a rabbit's ear. They combined the ink-jet printer with a machine that uses an electric current to spin very fine fibres from the polymer solution. It allowed the construction to be easily controlled, meaning scientists could make the artificial cartilage porous. This is key to encouraging real cartilage cells to integrate into the surrounding tissue. So far the printed cartilage has been tested on mice and, after eight weeks, appeared to have developed the properties of real cartilage, suggesting it has potential for insertion into human patients. The scientists said that in the future it could allow medics to create cartilage specific to each patient's needs. They suggest an MRI scan could create a blueprint of a body part, such as a knee, and matching cartilage could be made using the 3D printer.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20444421 Do men and women experience flu differently?
Are men unfairly castigated for having "man flu" and running to their sick beds at the merest sign of a sniffle? Research suggests that women are at greater risk of getting flu than men because they tend to spend more time around children, who are more likely to have a flu-like illness in the first place.A nationwide flu survey carried out by London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine during last winter found that women were 16% more likely to say they had flu symptoms. So is it really women who are making all the fuss about being unwell?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20452192
Cancer Research UK’s Drug Development Office (DDO) has joined forces with academia and industry to trial an experimental drug from AstraZeneca called AZD4547 in combination with existing therapies, to treat post-menopausal women whose breast cancer has spread and is no longer responding to standard treatment. The Phase IIa clinical trial will be run through the Cancer Research UK and NIHR. Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (ECMC) in conjunction with the Imperial Clinical Trials Unit Section on cancer (ICTU-Ca), Imperial College London. It will recruit post-menopausal women with oestrogen positive breast cancer who are no longer responding to either anastrozole or letrozole – standard treatments for this patient group.
http://ecancer.org/news/357 NICE recommends new treatments for advanced melanoma Two new treatments for advanced melanoma skin cancer have been recommended for use by NICE, the healthcare guidance body for England and Wales. Final draft guidance documents have now been issued for both vemurafenib and ipilimumab. Manufacturers of the treatments have agreed to provide discounts. Vemurafenib, which is also known as Zelboraf and is manufactured by Roche, has been recommended for the treatment of melanoma that has spread. And ipilimumab, marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb under the name Yervoy, is recommended for the treatment of advanced melanoma in people who have previously received chemotherapy. http://ecancer.org/news/3580
A pilot study, published in the October 2012 issue of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer's (IASLC) Journal of Thoracic Oncology, showed that breath testing could be used to discriminate between benign and malignant pulmonary nodules. The study looked at 74 patients who were under investigation for pulmonary nodules and attended a referral clinic in Colorado between March 2009 and May 2010. Researchers collected exhaled breath from each patient, analyzing the exhaled compounds. The patients also underwent a bronchoscopy, wedge resection and/or lobectomy, whichever was required for final diagnosis. Nodules that either regressed or remained stable over a 24-month period were considered benign. The two techniques accurately identified that 53 pulmonary nodules were malignant and 19 were benign. Furthermore, the nanoarrays method discriminated between adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma and between early versus advanced disease. This kind of testing could help solve some of the problems computed tomography screening has created. While low-dose CT screening has reduced the mortality rate by 20 percent, many people have to undergo invasive procedures only to find out their pulmonary nodules are not cancerous. The false positive rate is 96 percent. Authors say, "the reported breath test in this study could have significant impact on reducing unnecessary investigation and reducing the risk of procedure-related morbidity and costs. In addition, it could facilitate faster therapeutic intervention, replacing time-consuming clinical follow-up”.
Source:
International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer CT scanner is 'merged' with A&E in hospital first
Doctors at a hospital in London are pioneering the use of rapid CT scans in an attempt to save the lives of seriously injured patients. Some are being taken straight from the ambulance to a CT scanner at King's College Hospital, instead of A&E. Doctors hope detailed images of the inside of a patient will help them pick the correct treatment more quickly. The scanner also combines features of A&E so doctors can resuscitate patients without moving them. About 20 of the hospital's patients have been treated this way so far.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20174883
Checks have not reduced number of deaths from cardiovascular disease or cancer. Researchers have found that routine general health checks, which have become common practice in some countries, do not reduce the number of deaths from
cardiovascular disease or cancer. They do, however, increase the number of new diagnoses. Health checks were defined as screening for more than one disease or risk factor in more than one organ system offered to a general population unselected for disease or risk factors. Health checks were introduced with the intention of reducing morbidity and prolonging life and there are many potential benefits, including: detection of both increased risk factors and precursors to disease (thus preventing cancer from developing); counselling on diet, weight and smoking; reassuring healthy people thus reducing worry about potential disease. However, screening healthy people can be harmful and can lead to over diagnosis and overtreatment, a topic which was featured in the BMJ in October. The researchers also point out that invasive diagnostic tests may cause harm. Being labelled as having a disease may also negatively impact healthy people's views of themselves and their health behaviour. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/253083.php Is Grief an Illness? The loss of a loved one can trigger deep emotional turmoil, but is the grief that follows a normal part of being human or “She has pneumonia and she is pretty sick. The cancer is metastatic, so I assume she is DNR?” “No, she isn’t a DNR. Just because her cancer is metastatic doesn’t imply she is terminal. You understand this right? Patients with cancer get pneumonia too. Please do all that you can to get her through this,” I replied. I have learned to emphasize a patient’s clinical status first, then their diagnosis. I have also made it a point to teach our fellows that it is our patients who have cancer, and they should not be perceived as “cancer patients.” Cancer is a noun, not an adjective, and perhaps it should not be used as such. On a practical point, I have discovered doing so makes a difference. When sending patients to urgent care, I describe them functionally first, then give the history: “Mrs. ___ is a 48-year-old mother who works part-time, with a performance status of 80%. She is being treated for metastatic ovarian cancer.”I find I argue less with those on the other end of the phone call to get the appropriate level of care for my patients with cancer. In an ideal world, all of us are defined by who we are, who we love, our passions, and our accomplishments. I do not believe any of us should be described by whatever medical condition we happen to face. In oncology, it is an ideal that we should embrace, to ensure quality care for those who have entrusted us, literally, with their lives.
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2012/08/unspoken-sentiment-patients-advanced-cancer.htmlPS- Had a pretty miserable couple of days due to severe side effects with my second dose of chemo and I will be kept in hospital till Sunday 25th. My first dose I was kept in for 4 days this time 6 days, looks increasingly unlikely I will get my third dose.
I was speaking to the nurses and they all said they preferred to nurse men, as women were terrible to care for. Seems men complain all the time when at home but in hospital they are less self-centered and much, much easier to manage. So that explains why men always have a soft spot for nurses.
Almost a third of cancers in the over-70s are only diagnosed when a patient is admitted to hospital as an emergency, a study suggests. The National Cancer Intelligence Network looked at nearly 750,000 patients' experiences between 2006-08 in England. Brain and lung cancers were among the most likely to be found this way, the British Journal of Cancer paperaid. Experts said the figures were "shocking" and "appalling". The NCIN "worked ackwards" for each patient in the study to see what the sequence of events had been leading up to their diagnosis. Shorter life expectancy in what is believed to be the first analysis of its kind, found that around 38,300 cancers a year among the over-70s, and around 58,400 cancers a year in total were diagnosed through emergency hospital admissions. We don't yet know the reasons that lie behind these stark figures but, although we might expect higher numbers of older patients to have cancer detected as an emergency, we urgently need to understand why there is such a great proportion. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19662456 Right to die letter angry at MPs 'cowardice'
What happens when life becomes a horrendous continuing existence rather than a privilege? A British woman who travelled to Switzerland to die has condemned the "cowardice of politicians" which forced her to spend her last hours away from home. Geraldine McClelland, 61, a former BBC producer who was diagnosed with lung and liver cancer, said she was relieved she would not be forced to suffer any longer, and said her dying wish was for people to talk about her death. In a letter published just hours after her death at the Dignitas clinic in Zurichyesterday, Ms McClelland, from west London, said she was not sad, but "angry that because of the cowardice of our politicians I can't die in the country I was born in". "I would like to be able to choose to take medication to end my life if my suffering becomes unbearable for me, with my family and friends around me," she wrote. She urged readers of the letter not to feel sad for her, but to "turn it into a fight to ange the law so that other people don't have to travel abroad to die".
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/righttodie-suicide-letter-angry-at-mps-cowardice-6273833.html
Independent MSP Margo MacDonald is to launch a fresh attempt to give terminally ill people in Scotland the right to choose when to die. Ms MacDonald's previous End of Life Assistance Bill fell in a free vote at Holyrood just over a year ago. The Lothian MSP, who has Parkinson's disease, claimed there was wide public support for the legislation.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-1669
The court case of a severely disabled man seeking permission for a doctor to "lawfully" end his life should not go ahead, the Ministry of Justice says. At the High Court, the ministry's lawyer said only Parliament can decide such a request - not a court.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16692351
Many people with incurable lung cancer mistakenly believe that radiation therapy is meant to ease their pain and may cure their disease, researchers report. Palliative radiation therapy can improve a patients' quality of life, but will not cure their cancer. The researchers looked at data from nearly 400 patients over the age of 21 with incurable lung cancer who received or were scheduled to receive palliative radiation therapy. Findings from surveys completed by the patients four months after their lung cancer diagnosis showed that most of them believed that palliative radiation therapy could help them. The investigators found that 78 percent of the patients believed that palliative radiation therapy was "very" or "somewhat likely" to help them live longer, and 67 percent believed that it was "very" or "somewhat likely" to help them with cancer-related symptoms or problems. However, 64 percent did not understand that palliative radiation therapy was not at all likely to cure their cancer.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_130769.html INTRODUCTION TO RADIOTHERAPY CANCER TREATMENT
Radiation therapy is one of the many tools used to combat cancers. Radiation treatments utilize high-energy waves such as x-rays to kill cancer cells. Radiation can be used alone or in conjunction with other treatments (e.g. chemotherapy and surgery) to cure or stabilize cancer. Like other therapies, the choice to use radiation to treat a particular cancer depends on a wide range of factors. These include, but are not limited to, the type of cancer, the physical state of the patient, the stage of the cancer, and the location of the tumour.
VIDEO-
http://www.cancerquest.org/radiation-therapy-introduction.html#Ps- Had chemo yesterday and not feeling too good. Sick for half an hour and feeling very seedy, fluctuating . alright one minute, sick the next .
Might be an uncomfortable day.
Robert
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