Archive for January, 2008

Gall bladder cancer is an uncommon cancer, a condition in which cancer (malignant) cells are found in the tissues of the gall bladder.

As you all know that gall bladder is a pear-shaped organ that lies just under the liver in the upper abdomen.

Gall bladder stores the bile, a fluid made by the liver. The bile duct that connects the gall bladder and liver to the first part of the small intestine releases bile. The bile helps to digest fat.

Believe It Or Not! Gall bladder cancer is more common in women than in men. It is also more common in people who have hard clusters of material in their gall bladder like gallstones.

Being female and being Native American can increase the risk of developing gall bladder cancer.

Researchers believe that DNA in the cells of your biliary tract may be damaged by toxins that are routinely metabolized by your liver, although the exact cause of gall bladder and bile duct cancers isn’t clear.

These toxins are released into bile so that they can be eliminated from your body. But if bile empties more slowly than normal, it increases the amount of time your cells are exposed to cancer-causing substances (carcinogens).

The doctor wants to know the stages of your mouth cancer that are shown by the biopsy method in order to provide the best treatment.

The stage depends on the area where it has spread, the size of the tumor and to which parts of your body it has spread. The mouth cancer treatment is done by staging.

Staging by lab tests: In order to check your wind pipe, lung and the throat, the thin lined tube is used. This process is known as endoscopy.

The tube is inserted through your mouth or nose. It is done under local anesthesia to prevent the gagging and discomfort. Some imaging tests are done to know where the cancer has spread.

Dental x-ray: To know whether the cancer has spread to your jaws or not, mouth x-ray is done.

CT scan: The detailed pictures of your body can be shown by linking the x-ray machine to the computer. This is done by giving the injection of dye to the patient. CT scan can show the tumors of the throat, mouth, neck or anywhere in the body.

Chest x-ray:  The images of lungs and chest are taken to shown whether the cancer has spread or not.

Esophagus cancer is common in the world but it occurs only 1% of all other cancers in the United States. The exact cause for this is not known.

The esophagus cancer is found in many people of age 55 years old.

Men are affected twice than the women. The black people are mostly affected than the white.

The excessive usage of alcohol and smoking are the risk factors for cancer development. If you use more tobacco for smoking and more alcohol consumption, then there is higher risk than the non-smokers and those who will not drink.

The symptoms are not caused due to the small tumors. The common symptom of esophagus cancer is difficulty in swallowing. This occurs when the tumors grow in size.

You may feel some pressure and burning when the food passes through esophagus. The esophagus cancer can also cause vomiting, heart burn, indigestion and weight loss.

The other symptoms are hoarseness and coughing. If these symptoms persist, then you are advised to take some tests and x-rays.

Esophagram (barium swallow) means series of esophagus x-rays. This test is conducted by making you to drink the barium solution. The esophagus coated by the barium is shown on x-rays. The shape of esophagus is changed by esophagram.

Genes! This is one of the causes of the dreadful disease breast cancer.

You will find good information on how genes are responsible for mutations and herewith the causing the disease.

This is for your information that BRCA1 is the breast cancer gene 1 and BRCA2 is the breast cancer gene 2. BRCA1, stands for Breast Cancer gene one, and BRCA2, or Breast Cancer gene two.

These are two tumor suppressor genes that, when functioning normally, help repair damage to DNA.

Researchers discovered that women who carry mutations of BRCA1 or BRCA2 are at higher risk of developing both ovarian and breast cancer rather than women who do not have these genetic mutations. 5% of all breast cancer cases are comprised of women with BRCA1 mutations.

You better know this! Almost 20% of women who carry BRCA1 mutations will develop this disease by age forty, age fifty-51%, and age sixty-87%. Abnormal BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes may account for up to 10% of all breast cancers.

Who should consider genetic testing?

Only women whose family histories place them at high risk of developing breast or ovarian cancers are eligible for genetic testing BRCA1 and BRCA2.

The journey with cancer is a long, stressful and strenuous one.

The treatment procedure itself may be detrimental to the emotional well-being of the patient.

This is where holistic cancer treatments have stepped in to offer treatment.

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) - also referred to as integrative medicine - includes a broad range of approaches, healing philosophies and therapies for holistic cancer treatment.

These therapies are used in an effort to prevent or reduce side effects and symptoms, prevent illness, reduce stress and control or cure the disease. The holistic cancer treatments include both the complementary and alternative treatments.

The complementary therapies such as counseling, massage, meditation, acupuncture, aroma therapy, art therapy etc. are given alongside conventional treatments. However, these therapies do not replace each other. They play a supportive role and are only used in addition to standard treatments.

Alternative therapies of holistic cancer treatment, on the other hand, are used instead of conventional treatments. Electromagnetic therapy, essiac (a mixture of herbs), iscador (mistletoe extract) and gerson therapy are some examples of alternative treatments.

The holistic view of the many natural ways that have been used to heal this disease can be found on many web sites.

Here some information you have been looking for on the medullary thyroid cancer.

First of all let’s know some facts about thyroid cancer itself and later about the types of this diease.

You must know this! In the United States, thyroid cancer represents approximately 1% of malignancies occurring, accounting for an estimated 33,550 cancer diagnoses and 1,530 cancer deaths per year. Of these cancers, 2% to 3% are medullary thyroid cancer.

For medullary thyroid cancer the average survival is lower than that for more common thyroid cancers. The survival is 83% for medullary thyroid cancer and 90% to 94% 5-year survival for papillary and follicular thyroid cancer.

Decreased survival in medullary thyroid cancer can be accounted by a high proportion of late-stage diagnosis and is correlated with stage at diagnosis.

Characteristics of Medullary Thyroid Cancer

• Usually originates in the upper central lobe of the thyroid
• Poor prognostic factors include age >50, male, distant spread (metastases), and when seen in patients with other endocrine tumors due to MEN II-B syndrome.
• Spread to distant organs (metastasis) occurs late and can be to the liver, bone, brain, and adrenal medulla
• Not associated with radiation exposure

Shocked? Yes, this is what is called the Eye cancer or the cancer of the eye.

There are various types of eye cancer.

Some of them are retinoblastoma, melanoma and primary intraocular lymphoma.

Primary intraocular cancers are eye cancers that start inside the eyeball and secondary intraocular cancers are eye cancers that spread from some other part of the body (metastasize).

Both of these cancers more often start in other parts of the body. Over 90% of melanomas start in the skin, while lymphomas are more likely to begin in lymph nodes.

Age No Bar!! It is found that primary eye cancers can occur at any age, but most cases occur in people over age 50. Over the last 25 years the incidence of eye melanomas has been stable or may have dropped slightly.

Primary eye cancers are less common than cancers that spread to the eye from another part of the body (secondary eye cancers).

Watch Out! The various symptoms experienced by the patients of eye cancer are:

• A change in position of the eyeball within its socket
• bulging of the eye
• A change in the way the eye moves within the socket

Listening to this might be very excited to you and doubtful as to how can xango can fight cancer or first of all what is xango?

Xango is made from the mangosteen fruit juice with powerful xanthone!

The scientific name for the mangosteen fruit is Garcinia Mangostana and it belongs to the botanical family Guttiferae.

Two relatives, Hypericum Perforatum (St John’s Wort) and Garcinia Cambogia are already known as medicinal plants. Mangosteen fruit is not related to the mango in any way at all.

What is unqiue is that despite its popularity as a folk remedy in Asia, South America, India and Africa the mangosteen has not been used until recently in North America or Europe.

Xango is the dietary supplement that is taking the health industry by storm. In just under 4 short years in business, Xango has broken every network marketing record in sales and has poised to be the first company public or private to reach 1 billion in sales within their first 6 years of business.

You’ll be really surprised to know this but it is true Microsoft took 12 years to reach this mark.