After liver cancer is found and staged, your doctor will recommend one or more treatment options. Choosing a treatment plan is a major decision. Take time and think about all of your choices.
When planning your treatment, it is important to take into account is the stage (extent) of the cancer. But you and your cancer care team will also want to think about your age, general state of health, and personal preferences.
It may be a good idea to get a second opinion, especially from a doctor experienced in treating liver cancer. A second opinion can give you more information and help you feel more confident about the treatment plan that you pick. Some insurance companies want a second opinion before they will agree to pay for certain treatments. Almost all will pay for the second opinion.
Surgery
At this time surgery offers the only likely chance to cure liver cancer. Surgery is done either to remove the tumor or do a liver transplant. If all of the cancer that the surgeon can see at the time of the operation can be removed, you have the best outlook for survival. But complete removal of most liver cancers is not possible. Often the cancer is large, is found in many different parts of the liver, or has spread beyond the liver. Also, many people with cirrhosis do not have enough healthy liver left to make surgery an option.
Your liver is the largest organ inside your body. It filters harmful substances from the blood, digests fats from food and stores the sugar that your body uses for energy. Primary liver cancer starts in the liver. Metastatic liver cancer starts somewhere else and spreads to your liver.
Risk factors for primary liver cancer include
* Having hepatitis
* Having cirrhosis, or scarring of liver
* Being male
* Low weight at birth
Cancer symptoms can include a lump or pain on the right side of your abdomen and yellowing of the skin. However, you may not have symptoms and the liver cancer may not be found until it is advanced. This makes it harder to treat. Liver cancer treatment options include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy or liver transplantation.
Modern three-dimensional radiation therapy has been proven to be more successful at curing lung cancer than older two-dimensional radiation therapy for some patients with early stage lung cancer, according to a new study in the September 1, 2006 edition of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology * Biology * Physics, the official journal of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO).
Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for 87 percent of all lung cancers diagnosed. Currently, the best treatment for stage I NSCLC is surgery or stereotactic radiation therapy (SRT), often followed by chemotherapy if the lesion was larger than 3 cm or radiotherapy and chemotherapy if the surgical margin or hilar or mediastinal nodes were positive at the time of operation. The five-year survival outcomes are very high, with 50 to 67 percent of these patients living at least five years after diagnosis if patients had a well staged stage I NSCLC. When surgery is not an option because the patient has heart problems or other complications, treatment options include varying types of radiation therapy and chemotherapy, alone or in combination.
In this study, doctors at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston wanted to see if conventional radiation therapy worked as well as the newer three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (also called 3D-CRT) at curing patients with early stage non-small cell lung cancer. 3D-CRT was created to improve upon older types of radiation therapy by allowing doctors to aim several radiation beams at the tumor to shape or “conform” the radiation to the lung. The idea is that tailoring each beam allows doctors to give more radiation to the tumor while keeping it away from nearby healthy tissues.
Between 1978 and 2003, 200 patients with medically inoperable stage I NSCLC were treated with radiation therapy alone. Eighty-five received 3D-CRT while 115 received conventional therapy. Thirty-six percent of patients who received 3D-CRT lived five years after diagnosis compared to 10 percent who received the conventional therapy. Their causes of deaths were more related to intercurrent disease rather than cancer. Local failure was significantly reduced by 3D-CRT compared to conventional RT.
“This study proves that three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy improves outcomes for patients with medically inoperable stage I non-small cell lung cancer,” said Ritsuko Komaki, M.D. “Patients with this type of lung cancer should ask their radiation oncologist about 3D-CRT.” Dr. Komaki is a radiation oncologist and professor at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
The cervix is the name for the lowest part of the uterus. The uterus is an organ that only women have, and it is where a baby grows and develops when a woman is pregnant. During pregnancy, the uterus has an enormous increase in size. When a woman is not pregnant, the uterus is a small, pear-shaped organ that sits between a woman’s rectum and her bladder. The cervix connects the uterus with the birth canal (the vagina). The cervix can both be visualized and sampled by your doctor during a routine pelvic examination in his or her office.
The narrow neck of the uterus is called the cervix. This is where cervical cancer may develop
G. Edward Griffin the famous author of “World without cancer” talking about new cancer therapy methods and about the science and politics of cancer. Stories about unapproved but effective cancer treatments.
There are three types of common radiotherapies used as prostate cancer treatments: the conventional electron beam radiation therapy (EBRT), and the newer 3-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3D-CRT) and intensity modulated radiation (IMRT). Electron beam radiation therapy was the first external radiation therapy used as a prostate cancer treatment. The type of particle used for these three therapies is called photons which have no charge and no significant mass. Photons are the same type of energy used in diagnostic x-rays.
3D-CRT is an advanced form of EBRT, and IMRT is an advanced form of 3D-CRT. Therefore, the way radiation oncologists prepare their patients for the procedure is similar. Patients receiving external radiation therapy usually receive treatments Monday through Friday for 5 to 9 weeks depending on the doctor’s prescription. Radiotherapy usually begins with a CT (computer tomography) scan of the prostate gland and the surrounding organs. The CT scan takes a 3D-picture of the prostate gland and the surrounding organs and a team of radiation physicists and dosimetrists plan a target area for the radiation beam. The target area conforms to the shape of the patient’s prostate gland and, to ensure correct positioning, the patient will have his target area marked with permanent ink. The team will further use alignment lasers to direct the radiation beam. The patient, who is lying on his back, receives therapy from the linear accelerator which moves up, down, and around to hit the target area from different angles.
The prostate is a glandular organ present only in males. Only men develop prostate cancer.
The prostate is normally about 3 cm long (slightly more than 1 inch) and lies at the neck of the bladder and in front of the rectum.
The prostate surrounds the urethra, which is a tubular structure that carries sperm and urine out of the penis.
It produces a thin, milky fluid that is added to the sperm at the time of ejaculation.
Older men often have an enlarged prostate, which is a noncancerous condition called benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH) that causes urinary symptoms.
Cancer occurs when normal cells undergo a transformation in which they grow and multiply without normal controls.
As the cells multiply, they form a mass called a tumor.
Tumors are cancerous only if they are malignant. This means that they invade neighboring tissues because of their uncontrolled growth.
They may also travel to remote organs via the bloodstream.
This process of invading and spreading to other organs is called metastasis.
Tumors overwhelm surrounding tissues by invading their space and taking the oxygen and nutrients they need to survive and function.
Almost all prostate cancers arise from the secretory glandular cells in the prostate. Cancer arising from a glandular cell is known as adenocarcinoma. Therefore, almost all prostatic cancers are prostatic adenocarcinomas.
In the United States, cancer of the prostate is a common malignant cancer in men, second only to lung cancer. About 200,000 new cases are diagnosed each year, and about 30,000 men die of the disease each year.
Prostate cancer is a form of cancer that develops in the prostate, a gland in the male reproductive system
What is asbestos?
Asbestos is the name given to a group of minerals that occur naturally in the environment as bundles of fibers that can be separated into thin, durable threads. These fibers are resistant to heat, fire, and chemicals and do not conduct electricity. For these reasons, asbestos has been used widely in many industries.
Chemically, asbestos minerals are silicate compounds, meaning they contain atoms of silicon and oxygen in their molecular structure.
Asbestos minerals are divided into two major groups: Serpentine asbestos and amphibole asbestos. Serpentine asbestos includes the mineral chrysotile, which has long, curly fibers that can be woven. Chrysotile asbestos is the form that has been used most widely in commercial applications. Amphibole asbestos includes the minerals actinolite, tremolite, anthophyllite, crocidolite, and amosite. Amphibole asbestos has straight, needle-like fibers that are more brittle than those of serpentine asbestos and are more limited in their ability to be fabricated
Smokers who are also exposed to asbestos have a greatly increased risk of lung cancer
Cancer gives you no symptoms or signs that exclusively indicate the disease. Every complaint for cancer can explain a harmless condition as well. If you have symptoms, however, you should see a doctor for further evaluation. Some common symptoms are as follows:
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