Cancer
A NEW 10-second test for skin cancer will soon revolutionise diagnosis of the disease and possibly save thousands of lives. The computer-based technology for the test can help detect melanoma, the most dangerous form that kills 1,600 people a year in the UK.
The SIAscope-2 - developed by Astron Clinica, Birmingham University and Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge - uses a unique form of "smart" spectral imaging. This gives the doctor some maps of different components such as blood, collagen and pigment and which can increase clinicians' confidence in their diagnosis.
Thermal Treatments of Cancer are Remarkably Effective
Even as some scientists are seeking to understand how cancer works, in order to treat it more effectively, others prefer a more robust approach. They are exploring ways of killing cancer cells by heating them up without damaging surrounding healthy tissue. Al-though various such treatments have been tried in the past, advances in medical-imaging technology (which allow surgeons to see inside a body without opening it up) and improvements in the treatments themselves, mean that such treatments are receiving more and more attention.
Practitioners of so-called hard sciences-those backed up by the math-ematical rigour of formulae and equations-have traditionally looked down on the squishy end of research. That disdain has evaporated a bit over recent years, as government money has migrated from physics to biology and medicine. But it is disappearing as biologists show that they can be just as quantitative as their hardedged colleagues.
The liver is the largest organ in the body, and extremely important organ that has many functions. This includes producing proteins that circulate in the blood. Some of these help the blood to clot and prevent excessive bleeding, while others are essential for maintaining the balance of fluid in the body. Hepatoma, or hepatocellular carcinoma is the most common primary liver cancer and related to chronic viral hepatitis B and C. This section gives more information about this kind of liver cancer.
What is liver cancer?
What causes liver cancer?
Experts who study the causes of cancer believe that a large number of cancer deaths could be prevented by making sensible changes to our diet. In fact, many scientists believe that up to 70 percent of all cancers are caused by diet-related factors.
Dietary Fat and Cancer
Back in the 1860s, renowned pathologist Rudolf Virchow specu-lated that cancerous tumors arise at the site of chronic inflammation. A century later, oncologists paid more attention to the role that various genetic mutations play in promoting abnormal growths that eventually become malignant. Now researchers are exploring the possibility that mu-tation and inflammation are mutu-ally reinforcing processes that, left unchecked, can transform normal cells into potentially deadly tumors.
Of all the gynaccological causes. ovarian malignancies are the most difficult to treat, as different types of cancers originating from one organ. Epithclial ovarian malignancies are most common and are usually asymptomatic until they have metastasized. Patients have advanced disease in more than two-third of the cases.
The cervix is the lower end of the uterus, which extends into the vagina. Of cancers of the female reproductive system, cervical cancer (cervical carcinoma) is the second most common in all women and the most common in younger women. It usually affects women between the ages of 35 and 55. This cancer may be caused by a virus (human papillomavirus) which may be transmitted during sexual intercourse.
Researchers here have pioneered a special endoscope that they hope will help reduce the high mortality rate for stomach cancer.
The endoscope - a flexible, thin tube used to look inside the body - allows doctors to examine the stomach lining in microscopic detail for abnormal cells that sound the alarm on cancer.
Prostate cancer is the commonest cancer in men, with over 27,000 new cases diagnosed each year in the UK. Here we review the management of men with the early (localised) form of the disease.
Diagnosis
What is Prostate Cancer ?
Prostate Cancer is one of the commonest cancers in men. The general statistics imply that this is predominantly a disease that affects the Western world and studies do show a wide difference in clinical incidence between that of the Western and Asian populations. With the expected doubling of the elderly population by the year 2020, it is likely that prostate cancer will be more evident in Malaysia in the coming years.
An increasingly popular prostate cancer treatment also makes bones brittle and may be responsible for over 3,000 fractures each year in the United States, researchers reported recently.
A new treatment with the help of a new drug is offering a glimmer of hope to patients whose cancer of the lymph nodes keeps coming back.
Known as radio-immunotherapy, the treatment at Mount Elizabeth Hospital has helped a 52-year-old to get back on his feet and return to work. The hospital is now helping another man.
Both men, who are Malaysians, were in the advanced stages of the disease and were not responding to conventional treatments, such as radiation or chemotherapy.
More people in Singapore are diagnosed with colorectal cancer than any other types of cancer. On a global scale, it is the third leading cause of cancer, and accounts for 10 per cent of cancer deaths worldwide.
Oral cancers develop in 30,000 Americans and cause 8,000 deaths each year, mostly in people over age 40. This represents about 2.5 per cent of cancer cases and 1.5 per cent of all cancer-related deaths - a high rate considering the small size of the mouth in relation to the rest of the body. Along with cancers of the lungs and skin, cancers of the mouth are more preventable than most other cancers.
In Western countries, cancer of the large intestine and rectum (colorectal cancer) is the second most common type of cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death. The incidence of colorectal cancer begins to rise at age 40 and peaks between ages 60 and 75. Cancer of the large intestine (colon cancer) is more common in women; rectal cancer is more common in men. About 5 per cent of the people with colon or rectal cancer have more than one cancer of the colorectum at the same time.
An experimental vaccine has extended the lives of men with advanced prostate cancer in a clinical trial, according to the therapy's developer, Dendreon.
The test results appear to represent the first time that a cancer vaccine has extended lives in late-stage clinical trial. But unlike conventional vaccines, cancer vaccines - also called cancer immuno-therapy - do not prevent disease. Rather, they harness the immune system to fight the disease after it has developed. Many companies have stumbled trying to develop such treatments, and no treatment has reached the U.S. market.
GPs are being urged to boycott the Government's screening-on-demand policy for prostate cancer after US research found the PSA test was 'useless' for predicting cancer. The authors declared the PSA era 'over' after their 20-year study of tissue samples found PSA testing could do little more than indicate the size of a man's prostate.
One of the government's own advisers on prostate cancer called for GPs to stand firm against patient requests for a PSA test and said digital rectal examination should be the diagnostic test of choice for symptomatic patients.
The pancreas, a small gland located deep in j the abdomen, has two vital functions: It sup-plies the intestines with digestive juices; and it secretes hormones-including insulin-that regulate the body's use of sugars and starches. Endocrine cells in the pancreas are devoted to hormone regulation; they form clusters called islets and are found mostly in the tail and body sections of the gland. Exocrine cells, which outnumber endocrine cells 99 to 1, are spread throughout the gland and perform the digestive functions.
Liver tumors may be noncancerous (benign) or cancerous (malignant). Cancerous tumors may originate in the liver, or they may spread (metastasize) to the liver from other parts of the body. Cancer originating in the liver is called primary liver cancer; cancer originating elsewhere in the body is called metastatic cancer. The vast majority of liver cancers are metastatic.
