Health and medicine blog. Pharmacy news » Cancer

FIGHTING BREAST CANCER

admin — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 16:41:26 +0000

Just a few years ago, cancer experts were enthusiastic about the strong possibility of soon canceling out breast cancer in women. The doctors had learned to use surgery and radiation treatment more precisely to attack the wildly growing cells. They also discovered how to shower the malignancy with strong anticancer drugs. They had new medications to protect healthy tissue from the bad effects of the drugs. Scientists also expected to rout out the cause of the disease, and with that knowledge they had hoped to cure breast cancer or to prevent it, or both.

But it has not happened – yet.

The American Cancer Society reports that, with 183,000 new cases annually, breast cancer kills 46,000 women each year. A woman, who lives to age 85, runs a one-in-nine chance of contracting breast cancer in her lifetime. Despite new therapies, the death rate has hardly changed in 50 years, and 70 percent of new cases are diagnosed in women who have no known risk factors for the disease.

That is dark news. Dr. Samuel Broder, director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda, Maryland, maintains, “No question that we have a basis for optimism, but we should have no illusions about how difficult and formidable a problem breast cancer is. There won’t be a breakthrough tomorrow morning.”

Nobody knows that better than Dabney Allen, 49, a homemaker in MacLean, Virginia. Doctors first found a lump in a mammogram (a breast X-ray) of her right breast in 1990. “The biopsy showed that I had the kind of cancer that was 40 percent likely to recur,” Mrs. Allen tells Parade, “so I had both breasts removed.” After surgery, the doctors treated her with four potent drugs. “But the cancer recurred in March, under my right arm and along the scar,” Mrs. Allen says. “It spread to bone and to a spot on the chest wall. So my doctors say, ‘Let’s treat this as a chronic disease and not a terminal one.’”

Mrs. Allen will take drugs to kill her cancer cells. It is no cure, but she hopes by this method to alleviate the pain and stay comfortable for as long as possible.

The incidence of breast cancer increased by more than 30 percent from 1980 to 1987, prompting some to call the disease an epidemic. However, the American Cancer Society and the NCI believe the increase was due to more women having mammograms, which caught their cancer early. And Dr. Vincent DeVita, Jr., former head of the NCI, notes, “There is a definite decline in the death rate among young women with breast cancer.”

Still, Dr. Daniel Kopans, an associate professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School, believes that the number of new cases is increasing. Is there an epidemic? “Absolutely,” says Dr. Susan Love, director of University of California at Los Angeles’s Breast Center. “There are too many women dying of breast cancer, and we have to do something about it.”

What about mammograms? Dr. Kopans is angry with the NCI for its recent conclusion that women aged 40 to 49 do not benefit from annual mammograms. “If you screened all the women in the U.S. aged 40 to 49, you would save 3,000 lives a year,” Kopans estimates. The American Cancer Society and American Medical Association maintain that there is sufficient evidence to continue screening women in that age group.

However, several studies have shown that mammography screening provides little or no benefit for women under 50. Studies in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Sweden, plus a Canadian study of 90,000 women, all showed that death rates from breast cancer for women in their 40s were the same whether or not they had screening mammograms.

“Mammography screening works great over 50,” says Dr. Love. “It has never really been proved to work that well in women under 50. The answer is: We need to find something that works better, not pay for something that doesn’t work as well.”

*10/266/5*

CONSTIPATION – CAUSES

admin — Mon, 18 May 2009 06:51:26 +0000

Constipation can also be caused by cancer directly, through partial or complete blockage of the bowel. Constipation due to blockage is often accompanied by pain and sometimes by passage of blood and/or small amounts of slimy fluid through the back passage. If the blockage is right down near the rectum you may feel as though you want to open your bowels all the time. This is because a growth inside the rectum or pressing on it can feel just like a motion always waiting there. I think it is easier to cope with this unpleasant symptom if you understand what is causing it. Of course, if you have hard motions in the rectum which you cannot pass without help, you can get exactly the same symptoms—a feeling as though you want to go all the time, but when you do, you pass only small amounts of slimy fluid. These symptoms are sometimes mistaken for diarrhoea, which can be disastrous— obviously treating it as diarrhoea can make it much worse! This mistake should never be made because it is very easy for a doctor or nurse to tell one from the other simply by checking inside your rectum with a gloved finger.

*194/40/1*

TREATMENT OF SYMPTOMS – SYMPTOMS AND NERVOUS TENSION (PART 2)

admin — Fri, 15 May 2009 06:47:44 +0000

While recognising that nervous tension can produce or aggravate physical symptoms, neither you nor your practitioner should jump to the conclusion that this is happening, without first checking other possibilities. If your practitioner dismisses a symptom as being due to nervous tension and you don’t feel this conclusion is right, I suggest you ask for a second opinion.

On the other hand, if you and your practitioner come to the conclusion that a symptom is caused or aggravated by nervous tension, this is not something to be ashamed or embarrassed about. You are under enormous strain and it would be surprising if your nerves did not play up in some way. Symptoms caused or aggravated by nervous tension are no less important, real or uncomfortable than any others. You are a whole person, not just a physical body. All parts of you are important and interconnected. Be kind to yourself — don’t judge yourself harshly, but respect and take care of all of you!

Once you accept that nervous tension is playing a part in producing a symptom, it might then improve or even clear up altogether. If not, there are basically three ways of tackling the situation. You can choose any one, two or even all three.

*161/40/1*

RISK FACTORS FOR BREAST CANCER: GENETIC PREDISPOSITION, GEOGRAPHIC DIFFERENCES AND DIET

admin — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 05:28:49 +0000

Genetic predisposition

Some 5 per cent of breast cancers are related to an abnormal gene. Although this gene is rarely implicated in postmenopausal women who develop breast cancer, it is much more commonly present in pre-menopausal women with this disease, particularly in those under the age of 30.

Your risk of developing breast cancer is higher if you have a close relative with pre-menopausal breast cancer than if an affected relative is older than 50. The risk increases if you have two relatives with pre-menopausal breast cancer or one with the disease in both breasts.

The breast cancer family gene which has been identified is found not only in families with cancer of the breasts, but also in those with ovarian and colon cancer. Families with this gene should be given specialist advice and counseling at clinics run by geneticists or breast surgeons.

Geographic differences

Breast cancer is about eight times more common in Northern Europe, North America and Australia than it is in parts of Asia and Africa. However, women who move from low-risk countries, such as Japan, to high-risk countries such as North America, show a sometimes immediate increase in risk – certainly within one or two generations. Although this does not rule out the possibility of a genetic predisposition, it does seem to indicate an important role for some factor(s) in the environment.

Diet

Some dietary factor(s) may play a part in the increase in risk. Although it is not known how these exert their effects, it may be that they influence hormone synthesis or metabolism.

Many foods contain hormones or hormone analogues, either naturally or otherwise. For example, milk is a hormone-derived substance, as, therefore, are butter and cheese etc. Chickens and pigs are often injected with hormones which may be present in the meat from these animals. The early oral contraceptive pill was made from hormones naturally present in the sweet potato. Ginseng also contains naturally occurring oestrogen. These are just a few examples.

There is evidence to suggest an association between diet and various cancers, including cancer of the breast, although this is not conclusive and some studies have failed to find any such link.

Other studies suggest that a diet high in fat and in animal protein, common in most countries in the more affluent West, may be a significant factor in the development of this disease, although there is as yet no conclusive proof of this. Although the Japanese are now a well-nourished nation, they do not eat a large amount of animal fat, and, as mentioned above, do not have a high incidence of breast cancer when living in their own country.

It is also possible, but unproven, that vitamins A and C, found in dark green and yellow vegetables and in fruit, may have a protective effect.

*18/39/5*