Best Cancer Articles

There have been tremendous advancements in the treatment of all cancers in the last twenty years, but for prostate cancer in particular, because it is quite a slow-growing one, particularly in the early stages.

This requires that it ought to be caught in its early stages. If it is caught early, there is almost a 100% chance of survival for at least five years, but complete recovery is also common.

I hope that what I say below is reliable information, but it is my understanding of the research that I have done. I am not trained in medicine so if you are interested in any of the following therapies, please do your own research, do not trust mine.

The basic chance of survival for five years of longer for the most widespread different types of cancer are: pancreatic cancer – 4%; liver cancer – 7%; cancer of the esophagus – 14%; lung cancer – 15%; cancer of the ovaries – 53%; bladder cancer – 82%; breast cancer – 87%; testicular cancer – 96% and prostate cancer – 98%.

The actual figures above differ somewhat from country to country and from survey to survey. One of the main reasons for the high success rate with prostate cancer is screening. Men are being tested for prostate cancer more frequently nowadays, so it is being diagnosed earlier as well.

Everybody has heard of chemotherapy because it used to be the normal treatment for all life-threatening cancers. Chemotherapy has many unpleasant side effects one of which was for the hair to fall out. Chemotherapy is only used in cases where nothing else is expected to be effective these days.

Chemotherapy is normally only used now if the cancer has spread far outside the place of origin – the prostate gland. Metastasis is the spread of cancer. If metastasis has occurred, the patient may have secondary growths in the bladder, the lungs, the spine and other bones. Chemotherapy is the fastest method of blanket bombing the whole body and tackling all the cancers at once.

Radical peritoneal prostatectomy is the complete removal of the prostate through the area between the penis and the anus. The removal of the prostate may be vital if hormonal and or other treatments have not worked and the cancer has not spread.

Cryotherapy means the use of freezing to kill the growths locally. Cryotherapy is frequently used if the patient may not undergo hormonal or radiation therapy. Some people would rather attempt cryotherapy than surgery too.

Cryotherapy is undertaken by inserting probes through the skin and into the cancer. The ends of the probes then freeze the cancer. Cryotherapy might be used in conjunction with other forms of treatment or on its own, but this is the case of all the treatments.

it is common for a patient to undergo a number of different forms of treatment at the same time or after one another, so that the cancer is being attacked from a number of directions at the same time. This strategy also means that the body does not have to suffer too much of one kind of therapy.

Cryotherapy is a quite new treatment and there are also contemporary external beam therapies. Proton beam radiation has been practiced for 50 years but neutron beams are a more recent variation.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a variety of subjects, but is now concerned with prostate cancer and radiation treatment. If you want to know more go to What is the Treatment for Prostate Cancer?

Millions of people every year ask themselves whether there is the chance of a new prostate cancer therapy on the horizon that will bring the hope of life to the roughly 28,000 men who die of prostate cancer every year in the USA. Not only that, but there are almost 200,000 new cases diagnosed in the USA alone every year as well.

In this article, we will take a brief look at the most modern remedies that are already available now or may be soon. However, by the time you read this piece, it is fairly likely that there will have been further advances, and perhaps set-backs, in the new methods. Therefore, it is wise to do further research if you are interested in any of the techniques raised here.

One of the latest drugs to be approved by America’s FDA is called Provenge, which was invented by a firm called Dendreon. The side effects linked with Provenge range from flu-like symptoms to stroke, but a stroke is very unlikely.

Provenge works by stimulating the patient’s own immune system to attack and defeat the cancer. This means that it is totally different in nature from both chemotherapy and hormonal remedies.

The typical side are quite mild because the treatment uses cells from the patients own body to make the medicine which stimulates the immune system.

The patient has to go to a cell collection centre to give cells before each treatment is given. This may give rise to a possible illness, which is normally mild if it does occur. A temperature and flu-like indications can happen for a couple of days. Three doses of Provenge are required for a complete cure.

Cryotherapy is still in its infancy, but it continues to demonstrate more and more promise. Cryotherapy is the process of freezing the cancer to death. It is most effective if used against prostate cancers in their early stages.

Prostate cancers in their earliest stages are still contained within the margins of the prostate itself and therefore no metastasis has begun. Doctors are able to freeze a very precise region with a ‘cryoneedle’. However, the area that can become frozen at one time is very small, hence its suitability for small, newly-forming cancers.

Cryotherapy is becoming more effective all the time and produces practically no side effects except say a little bleeding. Most ‘healthy’ patients are able to go home after each session, although those with other complications may need to stay in hospital overnight.

As stated above, these are fairly new solutions that are still being improved upon although they are in everyday use. If your physician does not mention them, you could bring them up in conversation or go to another medical doctor for a second opinion.

if you are a male over the age of fifty, it is worth bringing up these subjects with your physician when you go for your next check up, I am certain that he or she will have more up-to-date details on the issue.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a number of topics, but is currently concerned with proton prostate cancer treatment. If you want to kcurrently more go to What is the Treatment for Prostate Cancer?

One in six men in the USA and Canada will require some kind of prostate cancer treatment. This is a frightening thought, but countering it is the knowledge that around 90% of instances of prostate cancer are cured successfully.

Prostate cancers may be cut out, irradiated or otherwise treated. The sole requirement for guaranteed success is an early diagnosis. However, even if diagnosis is a little late, there is still a good chance of recovery, it is only that the cure might be more severe.

Before we go any farther on this topic, I have to warn you that what I am saying is my interpretation of my own research into prostate cancer. I am not a physician; just an interested party being a male who is beginning to enter the age bracket where the rate of prostate cancer begins to rise. I am more than 50.

Prostate cancer is one of the more readily treatable cancers but it is certainly life-threatening. It is a significant disease that will kill you if you do nothing about it. The trick is to diagnose it early. The earlier you diagnose it, the more easily, more painlessly and more quickly it can be dealt with.

After a quick, simple and painless test, you will be told the likelihood that you have prostate cancer, but this test is not decisive, you will have to go for further tests to corroborate the diagnosis. If the check ups prove that you have a problem, your oncologist or urologist will determine a answer.

These are a couple of the terms used when clarifying prostate cancer:

Stage One: cancer is found just in the prostate

Stage Two: a larger cancer but it is still found only within the prostate gland itself

Stage Three: the growth is starting to spread outside the prostate

Stage Four: the growth is growing outside the prostate to a greater extent

Stage Five: the cancer has spread to other parts of the body – metastasis.

Recurrent: the cancer comes back after therapy.

These different stages of prostate cancer might be treated in different methods:

Stage 1: sometimes referred to as localized prostate cancer, the doctor may suggest the following treatments: Wait and see. (Closely monitored) – Radiotherapy – Radical prostatectomy (full removal of the prostate) – Hormone therapy

Stage 2: this is further advanced but still localized within the prostate only: watchful waiting (with increased monitoring activity) – radiotherapy (may or may not be done with hormone therapy); radical prostatectomy (perhaps with hormone therapy or not); hormone therapy

Stage 3: the cancer has progressed outside the prostate to nearby tissue: external-beam radiotherapy (Hormone Therapy or not) – Hormone Therapy – Radical removal of the prostate (possibly hormone treatment or not) – closer monitoring by the doctors

Stage 5: the prostate cancer has metastasized (spread throughout body and bones): hormone treatment – External-beam radiotherapy (with or without hormone treatment) – very closely monitored – chemotherapy

Recurrence of Prostate Cancer: Close monitoring – Possibly all of the above remedies

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a number of subjects, but is now involved with prostate cancer and radiation treatment. If you want to know more go to What is the Treatment for Prostate Cancer?

External beam radiation therapy or radiotherapy is not new-fangled. Electron beam radiotherapy was initially tried in 1915. This beam, the one used in X-Rays was not effective because it caused almost as much damage as it did good.

Proton beam radiotherapy was first proposed in 1946 and was carried out from 1954. This was much more successful because it is possible to retain more control over the point of influence of the beam. This creates less collateral injury to the surrounding healthy tissue.

Apart from these technologies there are also other external beams like the neutron beam and the 3D-CRT beam. There are also other more investigational beams and what is known as seed radiation too.

Except for seed radiation, there is no invasive surgery needed with external beam radiation therapy, there is very little collateral harm and practically no side effect, so you would imagine that this is the best prostate cancer treatment to go for.

However, this is not always the case, because there are so many other factors that need to be taken into account. These factors, such as the phase of the cancer, the general health of the patient and the patient’s point of view make the decision a complex one.

Consequently, if you have questions that have been raised from reading this short article, please take them up with your physician or healthcare provider.

Prostate cancer is like an oil tanker, it can move quickly, but it takes a long time to attain this speed. If you have caught the cancer early, say, in stage one, your medical doctor may make a decision to ‘wait and see’.

This can be upsetting for the patient, but it is a genuine strategy, because not all growths are cancerous and the prostate grows with age anyway. It is better for the doctor to carry out a number of tests and ‘watchful waiting’ to have conclusive proof what the growth is.

The first test will be a rectal examination with a finger (DRE), the physician may then check your PSA count. PSA stands for ‘prostate specific antigen’, This antigen is produced by the prostate and some of it passes into the blood.

A small amount is standard, higher amounts may indicate a problem and its severity. Age is a factor, but if the level reaches 10, then more tests have to be carried out and they may need a biopsy of the prostate to carry them out.

When the medical doctor is certain that you have cancer, then radiation therapy is merely one of the options you have and although you might prefer the sound of it, it may not be the most appropriate treatment in your case.

Radiation therapy is very local in its effect, so if your cancer has not spread, radiation therapy may be used to kill off solitary flecks of growth. However, if it has gone further than that, it is likely that a different treatment will be chosen

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a number of topics, but is currently concerned with the proton prostate cancer treatment. If you want to kcurrently more go to What is the Treatment for Prostate Cancer?

Knowledge is power, isn’t it? information empowers you to be able to do something. Having information on prostate cancer at your finger tips will enable you to have more chance of diagnosing yourself or helping your family and friends. One of the concerns with prostate cancer is that it grows slowly but by the time you notice it, it can be far advanced.

The information that you will find in this article is stuff that I have discovered for my own information and benefit. It is not definitive medical advice. For that depth of knowledge you will have to talk to a physician.

I am not a physician, but my father and a good friend passed away of prostate cancer and as a man, I have a fairly high risk – one in six – of contracting the problem myself, hence my interest.

It seems that there are things that a man can do to lower the likelihood of acquiring prostate cancer and these include eating healthily and doing manly things like sport and manual labour. One of the worst things you can do is sit on your prostate gland all day long – desk jobs and watching TV is not good for the prostate.

If you are not able to help but have a sedentary lifestyle, then you have to become aware of the early signs of prostate cancer so that it can be treated before it becomes life-threatening. The main thing to be on the look out for is issues urinating.

Most older men have problems with their bladder, but once it starts happening to you, go to your GP and have it checked out. It may be nothing except age, but on the other hand …

The bigger the problems, such as pain or bleeding, the more reason that you ought to go to the GP. Frequent urination may be the first sign of prostate cancer but it could just mean that you are getting older too.

I was once told by my Thai optician that the reason why I was losing my sight was because I was ‘prematurely senile’. it can happen, but I asked him to check the wording and he returned with ‘premature senile cataracts’. We had a good laugh about that.

Prostate cancer is curable. About 90% of people are cured (some surveys say 85% others say 95%), however, it very much relies on catching the disease in its infancy. All men more than around 40 should have a check up at least once annually, perhaps twice. The test is disagreeable but quick, painless and simple – a finger up the bum.

Dying of prostate cancer is the result of negligence these days, because it grows slowly in its preliminary stages, but once it gets a hold, it goes like a train and moves to other areas of the body, giving the patient much less opportunity of recovery. If the worst comes to the worst you can do without your prostate gland anyway – after all, women don’t have one.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a variety of topics, but is now concerned with prostate cancer and radiation treatment. If you want to know more go to What is the Treatment for Prostate Cancer?

This question bothers millions of individuals worldwide each year. Although prostate cancer can only affect men, any significant, life-threatening infection has an effect on not merely the sufferer, but also his family and friends. Doctors and surgeons also wonder what the best prostate cancer treatment is each week.

In this piece, we will try to give you some food for thought on the issue so that you may do more research on the Internet later or have some questions prepared to pose to your gp.

It is better to be able to understand the terminology and have some fundamental concept of what the disease is than to remain completely unaware.

Having said that, you should not use this article of around five hundred words to base your medical judgments on. This piece is only meant as a motivation for further investigation.

The first thing to consider is the general health of the sufferer and the phase of development of the cancer. These two issues will establish which treatment is most suitable. The important thing with prostate cancer is to catch it very early on because it spreads so rapidly when likened with most other cancers and spreads early.

If you have been having frequent check-ups and the cancer has been diagnosed early, your GP may decide that he wants to ‘wait and see’. This can be upsetting for the patient as the patient expects cancer to be taken on immediately.

However, if the cancer is in an early stage, it may be better to monitor its speed of development before deciding what to do about it After all, you do not want to go through unnecessary remedies, only to have to be treated again afterwards.

if you are concerned about waiting or the treatment suggested (or combination of remedies), go for a second opinion. You will not offend your physician by doing this, in fact, it relieves him of some responsibility, so he will probably be glad of it.

If the cancer is still small, hormonal treatment may be recommended. Male hormones are partially responsible for the rate of growth of prostate cancer, so if you reduce or cut off these hormones (testosterone in particular), the speed of growth of the cancer should slow down.

It might be possible to do this with medication or surgery may be necessary. This will mean castration either chemical or surgical. Both sound radical, but it might mean less side effects.

Again, if the cancer is small, they might make a decision to endeavour to kill it with external radiotherapy beams. These beams resemble X-Rays, but far less perilous to healthy tissue. That is, they can be tightly targeted on the cancerous cells, causing very little collateral harm.

If the cancer is spreading fast, the team may suggest cutting it out. This may involve a full or partial prostatectomy. This is why waiting and watching it may be a wise tactic in the beginning. You do not want radical surgery if it is not really necessary.

There are quite a number of options for the treatment of prostate cancer and over 80% of sufferers are cured, but it depends on those regular tests to a large extent.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a number of subjects, but is currently involved with the proton prostate cancer treatment. If you want to kcurrently more go to What is the Treatment for Prostate Cancer?