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.
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.
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:
Cancer (medical term: malignant neoplasm) is a class of diseases in which a group of cells display uncontrolled growth (division beyond the normal limits), invasion (intrusion on and destruction of adjacent tissues), and sometimes metastasis (spread to other locations in the body via lymph or blood). These three malignant properties of cancers differentiate them from benign tumors, which are self-limited, and do not invade or metastasize. Most cancers form a tumor but some, like leukemia, do not. The branch of medicine concerned with the study, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cancer is oncology.
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