Hugo: Preparing for Hell, packing lite.

Hugo Chavez weeps and calls on God to spare his life

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez wept and asked God to spare his life during a pre-Easter Mass on Thursday after returning from his latest session of cancer treatment in Cuba.

9:47AM BST 06 Apr 2012

Very little is known about the 57-year-old socialist leader's condition, including even what type of cancer he has. Chavez has undergone three operations in less than a year, and received two sessions of radiation treatment.

He says the latest surgery was successful, that he is recovering well and will be fit to win a new six-year term at an election in October. Yet big questions remain about his future, and on Thursday the strain appeared to show.

In a televised speech to the Catholic service in his home state of Barinas, Chavez cried and his voice broke as he eulogised Jesus, revolutionary fighter Ernesto "Che" Guevara and South American independence hero Simon Bolivar.

"Never forget that we are the children of giants ... I could not avoid some tears," the former soldier said, his parents and other relatives looking on from the church rows.

"Give me your crown, Jesus. Give me your cross, your thorns so that I may bleed. But give me life, because I have more to do for this country and these people. Do not take me yet," Chavez added, standing below an image of Jesus with the Crucifix.

[To read more, click on the link above]


Hugo, sorry old chap, He is not inclined to give you anything.  Not the crown, not the thorns, and he certainly will not listen to anyone who invokes political bullshit with his egocentric tirade about being saved so he can continue the revolution.

You can save some money on  your campaign - you will not be around in October to be elected by the few who stuff the ballots and chase away those who would vote contrary to your wishes.

Good luck in Hell and enjoy your time with Che and Saddam, Osama, and Adolph, along with the other dictators of history.

Processed meat 'linked to pancreatic cancer'

By James Gallagher Health reporter, BBC News

12 January 2012

A link between eating processed meat, such as bacon or sausages, and pancreatic cancer has been suggested by researchers in Sweden.

They said eating an extra 50g of processed meat, approximately one sausage, every day would increase a person's risk by 19%.

But the chance of developing the rare cancer remains low.

The World Cancer Research Fund suggested the link may be down to obesity.

Eating red and processed meat has already been linked to bowel cancer. As a result the UK government recommended in 2011 that people eat no more than 70g a day.

Prof Susanna Larsson, who conducted the study at the Karolinska Institute, told the BBC that links to other cancers were "quite controversial".

She added: "It is known that eating meat increases the risk of colorectal cancer, it's not so much known about other cancers."

The study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, analysed data from 11 trials and 6,643 patients with pancreatic cancer.

Increased risk

It found that eating processed meat increased the risk of pancreatic cancer. The risk increased by 19% for every 50g someone added to their daily diet. Having an extra 100g would increase the risk by 38%.

Prof Larsson said: "Pancreatic cancer has poor survival rates. So as well as diagnosing it early, it's important to understand what can increase the risk of this disease."

She recommended that people eat less red meat.

Cancer Research UK said the risk of developing pancreatic cancer in a lifetime was "comparatively small" - one in 77 for men and one in 79 for women.

Sara Hiom, the charity's information director, said: "The jury is still out as to whether meat is a definite risk factor for pancreatic cancer and more large studies are needed to confirm this, but this new analysis suggests processed meat may be playing a role."

However, she pointed out that smoking was a much greater risk factor.

The World Cancer Research Fund has advised people to completely avoid processed meat.

Dr Rachel Thompson, the fund's deputy head of science, said: "We will be re-examining the factors behind pancreatic cancer later this year as part of our Continuous Update Project, which should tell us more about the relationship between cancer of the pancreas and processed meat.

"There is strong evidence that being overweight or obese increases the risk of pancreatic cancer and this study may be an early indication of another factor behind the disease.

"Regardless of this latest research, we have already established a strong link between eating red and processed meat and your chances of developing bowel cancer, which is why WCRF recommends limiting intake of red meat to 500g cooked weight a week and avoid processed meat altogether."

cancer

Men: 20 Years of Progress Undone (How many must die)

About a year ago, a panel of 'experts' determined it was un necessary for women to get pap smears done regularly.  The reason - unnecessary costs and since the cancer caused by unchecked and untested women is as low as it csan get, the panel found it a wasteful process.

Now, a panel has determined that men should not get a simple test for prostate cancer.

20 years of progress would be undone for men and women and that low cancer rate noted for women, will rise dramatically (the same for me) and we will die off. 

How coincidental to Obama's health and death plan - the funding is not available for EVERYONE to be checked and tested, so ... cut out those areas deemed unnecessary!

Death panels indeed.








Healthy men don’t need PSA testing for prostate cancer, panel says




By Rob Stein, Published: October 6
Washington Post

Most men should not routinely get a widely used blood test to check for prostate cancer because the exam does not save lives and leads to too much unnecessary anxiety, surgery and complications, a federal task force has concluded.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which triggered a firestorm of controversy in 2009 when it raised questions about routine mammography for breast cancer, will propose downgrading its recommendations for prostate-specific antigen (PSA) for prostate cancer on Tuesday, wading into what is perhaps the most contentious and important issue in men’s health.

Task force chairwoman Virginia Moyer said the group based its draft recommendations on an exhaustive review of the latest scientific evidence, which concluded that even for younger men, the risks appeared to outweigh the benefits for those who are showing no signs of the disease.

“The harms studies showed that significant numbers of men — on the order of 20 to 30 percent — have very significant harms,” Moyer, a professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine, said in a telephone interview Thursday.

The 16-member independent panel is organized by the Department of Health and Human Services to regularly assess preventive medical care. Its recommendations have a widespread impact, especially on what services Medicare and private insurers pay for. The group’s influence was enhanced by the new federal health-care law, which will base some of its requirements for coverage on the group’s ratings.

The proposed recommendations come as doctors, researchers and policymakers are increasingly questioning whether many tests, drugs and procedures are being overused, unnecessarily driving up health-care costs and exposing patients to the risks of unneeded treatment.

Prostate cancer strikes more than 218,000 U.S. men each year. About 28,000 die of it, making it the most common cancer and second-leading cancer killer among men.

Although prostate cancer can be detected with a physical examination of the prostate, PSA testing has become the most common way that a diagnosis is made. The test measures a protein in the blood produced by prostate tissue and has significantly increased the number of prostate cancer cases being diagnosed at very early stages. But it has been a matter of intense debate whether that translates into a reduction in the death rate from the disease. Prostate cancer often grows so slowly that many men die from something else without knowing they had it.

Because it is not clear precisely what PSA level signals the presence of cancer, many men experience stressful false alarms that lead to unnecessary surgical biopsies to make a definitive diagnosis, which can be painful and in rare cases can cause serious complications.

Even when the test picks up a real cancer, doctors are uncertain what, if anything, men should do about it. Many men are simply monitored closely to see whether the tumor shows signs of growing or spreading. Others undergo surgery, radiation and hormone treatments, which often leave them incontinent, impotent and experiencing other complications.

In its last report, in 2008, the task force began to back away from PSA testing, saying that the potential harms clearly outweighed the benefits for men older than 75 and that there was insufficient evidence to recommend for or against the testing for younger men. Other groups have also increasingly been questioning the value of PSA testing.

The proposed recommendations were reported Thursday by CNN, the New York Times and the Cancer Letter, a Washington newsletter that tracks federal developments related to cancer.

As part of the task force evaluation, a team of researchers at the Oregon Health and Science University conducted an exhaustive review of the scientific literature about PSA testing, including five studies of screening and 26 studies of treatment.

“After about 10 years, PSA-based screening results in small or no reduction in prostate cancer-specific mortality and is associated with harms related to subsequent evaluation and treatments, some of which may be unnecessary,” the 116-page review concluded.

The task force plans to recommend downgrading of PSA testing to a “D” rating. The D rating means that “there is moderate or high certainty that the service has no net benefit or that the harms outweigh the benefits,” according to the task force Web site.

The task force’s new proposed recommendations drew immediate criticism from those convinced that routine screening is necessary.

The “decision of no confidence on the PSA test by the U.S. Government condemns tens of thousands of men to die this year and every year going forward if families are to believe the out-of-date evidence presented by the USPSTF,” said Skip Lockwood, chief executive of Zero, a patient-advocacy group. “A decision on how best to test and treat for prostate cancer must be made between a man and his doctor. This decision is coming from a panel that doesn’t even include a urologist or medical oncologist.”

Several other experts agreed.

“The bottom line is that we should encourage screening because it will give men the full range of options to avoid death from prostate cancer,” said William J. Catalona of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

J. Brantley Thrasher of the University of Kansas Medical Center said, “It appears to me that screening is accomplishing just what we would like to see: diagnose and treat the disease while it is still confined to the prostate and, as such, still curable.”

But others praised the new report, saying it would save many men from unnecessary suffering.

“Unfortunately, the best evidence is that while some men might be helped by screening, others would be harmed, and on balance the test is not useful overall,” said Howard Brody of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

Otis Brawley, chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society, would not comment on the task force’s recommendations but said: “I have long been concerned, and it has been very apparent for some years, that some supporters of prostate cancer screening have overstated, exaggerated and, in some cases, misled men about the evidence supporting its effectiveness. We need balanced, truthful information to be made widely available to physicians and patients when making important health decisions. Sadly, that has not happened with this disease.”

Staff writer Brian Vastag contributed to this report.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
medical

Chavez: Colostomy Bag and then Death

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.



Chavez Has Colon Cancer, Infected Abdomen, El Periodico Says




By Daniel Cancel
Jul 2, 2011 5:30 PM PT .

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is battling a colon cancer that has perforated his intestinal wall and infected his abdomen, Spanish newspaper El Periodico said, citing unidentified Venezuelan diplomats.

Chavez will have to use a colostomy bag for at least three months, the Barcelona-based newspaper reported. Chavez, who is recovering from two surgeries in Cuba, isn’t able to begin chemotherapy due to the infection, the paper said. The situation is serious because the tumor may have metastasized, El Periodico reported, citing the diplomats.

The first operation for a pelvic abscess was performed by a Cuban surgeon while the second operation to remove the tumor was performed by a Spanish surgeon in Havana the newspaper said.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
chavez

Women and Breast Cancer

Women aged 20-24 in the U.S. had the lowest incidence rate of breast cancer from 2002-2006, at 1.4 cases per 100,000 women. The 75-79 age group had the highest incidence rate, 441.9 cases per 100,000 women.

Provided by The World Almanac 2010



I do have a question on the above stat as it relates to women 20-24. 

Why?

What is it about that group, or what condition/s exist that they have the lowest rate?

Buehler, Buehler, Buehler ...

Regular testing!  Both personal and by their doctor!!  The personal examination will catch anything they can feel while their doctor's exam will catch what they can't see.

Yea.

Women today have the lowest rates for breast cancer (when you factor in how low it is for the young and then insert the increased incidence for older females, you still come out with a lower figure than existed for women in general in the 1970s and 1980s.

Yea.

Except Mr. Obama's healthplan just cut out your yearly visit to the gynecologist.  The medical system reevaluated the frequency of women seeing their doctors and decided that it is recommended women see their gynecologist every couple years (you see how you can do a negative by doing a positive).

It had been recommended you go yearly.  So women went yearly and the rate for breast cancer dropped.
Now because the rate is so low, the medical system has decided it is no longer necessary for women to go with such frequency, and they are now recommending a 100% increase in the time, before it is recommended young women see their gynecologist for an exam.

And before you go geezing, the medical system (the gynecologists on the committee recommending the change) do not practice medicine, and or have retired from the practice - yet they were installed on the committee. 

Yes, I know, just because X, does not make Y.  They did what they did doesn't mean it has any connection to Obama - except it does.  His health plan was being debated at that time and part of it includes the absolute necessity to minimize costs (because he knows unlike the Useful Idiots who defend his system as not having a death panel) - you must keep the costs down and part of the costs in a socialized system will be - all of you going to the doctor too often. 

They read the political tea leaf in their cup and got out in front of the bus.  Unfortunately, they threw women under the bus as they ensured their survival under the Obama death march.

Prognosis:  An increase in the next 5 years of cancer in young women, but it may not be reflected in actual statistics for 7-10 years.  Why?  Initial cases will always be attributed to: environment, living conditions, and lifestyle, and the big one - genetics.

Many women will have to die needlessly, before this by-product of Obamacare is modified.  The modification will be made for young women, but older women will still be given the heave ho.  Self exams will be regularly encouraged, perhaps frequent personal service announcements on television urging women to do self-exams.  Many of the older females will be on Medicare - they are already broke, and underr Obama - less frequent doctor visits!  

Hello Mortuary - I know you've been waiting!












obamacare

Warning: Sun can cause cancer, smoking can cause cancer, burned BBQ can cause cancer ...

....  everything can cause cancer - wait, we all have cancer cells in our bodies so nothing causes cancer, rather it flips the switch that turns cancer production on.  Or something like that.

In any case, a new study -  sunscreen causes cancer.





Some Sunscreens Accelerate Cancer, Research Says




Monday, May 24, 2010



JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- New research show that some popular brands of sunscreen may actually accelerate skin cancer, instead of protecting your skin.

For years, experts have been telling people to apply and reapply sunscreen, especially when facing the sun's harmful rays. According to a new study by the Environmental Working Group released Monday, almost half of the most popular sunscreen contain ingredients that could actually speed up cancer.

Those like Ashley Rolling, who said she uses sunscreen religiously, said despite the new research, she will continue using the product.

"I don't know how much I believe that, I mean, have they tested the study thoroughly or what evidence do they have to back it up? That's what I would ask," she said.

Researchers said that sunscreen containing Vitamin A or its derivative seemed to be the cause.

Dr. Sanjiba Goyal, a local dermatologist said do not put that bottle down just yet.

"Based on the study, at least at this point, it's too early to draw any significant conclusions," he said.

In fact, he said Vitamin A derivatives found in a lot of sunscreen products could be used in anti-aging products. In some cases, he said, they can be used as treatments for certain types of skin cancers.

Goyal said until more studies can prove the new claims, he will continue telling his patients what he has been for years.

"The key is if you can avoid sun exposure completely, followed by clothing, and then sunscreen is the final step, then it's probably the least effective," he said.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
cancer

Cancer, Cancer, Everywhere - Sue, Sue, and then Die.

A dramatic increase in cancer will occur in the next 10-30 years, and ... we won't have the resources.  The best you will do is be told to go home and die quietly [that by the way is not the scary part].




Americans "bombarded" with cancer sources: report


Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON
Reuters
Thu May 6, 2010 6:08pm

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans are being "bombarded" with cancer-causing chemicals and radiation and the federal government must do far more to protect them, presidential cancer advisers said on Thursday.

Although most experts agree that as many as two-thirds of cancer cases are caused by lifestyle choices like smoking, poor diet and lack of exercise, the two-member panel said many avoidable cancers were also caused by pollution, radon gas from the soil and medical imaging scans.

"The incidence of some cancers, including some most common among children, is increasing for unexplained reasons," wrote the two panel members, Dr. LaSalle Leffall, professor of surgery at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington and Margaret Kripke, an emeritus professor at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Cancer is the No. 2 killer of Americans, after heart disease. Kripke and Leffall, both appointed by President George W. Bush, decided in 2008 to focus a report on potential environmental links to cancer.

"The American people -- even before they are born -- are bombarded continually with myriad combinations of these dangerous exposures," they wrote in a letter to President Barack Obama at top of the report.

"The panel urges you most strongly to use the power of your office to remove the carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water, and air that needlessly increase healthcare costs, cripple our nation's productivity, and devastate American lives."

A White House spokesman indicated he had not yet seen the report and the National Cancer Institute declined comment.

KNOWN RISKS

The American Cancer Society said the report downplayed known risks that cause most cases of cancer including tobacco, obesity, alcohol, infections, hormones and sunlight.

"The report is most provocative when it restates hypotheses as if they were established facts," the society's Dr. Michael Thun said in a statement.

"For example, its conclusion that 'the true burden of environmentally (pollution) induced cancer has been grossly underestimated' does not represent scientific consensus."

The American Chemistry Council, an industry group, agreed and said the report underemphasized prevention efforts.

The report, available at pcp.cancer.gov, offered some of its own advice to consumers.

For instance, the report said that although large studies have found no links between cell phone use and cancer, people would be prudent to wear headsets and make calls quickly.

The report delighted environmental groups that have been pressing for more regulation of chemicals. "It is very gratifying to see this remarkable report that addresses those concerns," said Julia Brody, executive director of the Silent Spring Institute.

"The 40-year war on cancer has been called for what it is ... a failure," Jeanne Rizzo, president and chief executive of the Breast Cancer Fund, which advocates about links between chemicals and breast cancer, told reporters in a telephone briefing.

New Jersey Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg said he hoped the report would help boost support for a bill requiring closer regulation of chemicals.

"My Safe Chemicals Act will require testing of all chemicals, and take substances off the market if the manufacturer cannot prove they are safe," he said.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
cancer

Breast Cancer - Repair is Possible

Australian scientists to start 'breast regrowth' trial


Scientists in Australia are preparing to begin trials of a revolutionary surgery that could enable cancer victims to regrow their breasts after undergoing a mastectomy.



By Bonnie Malkin in Sydney
12 Nov 2009
The Telegraph




It is hoped that if successful, the experimental stem cell breast-growing technique - called Neopec - could replace breast reconstructions and implants within three years.

Dr Phillip Marzella from the Bernard O'Brien Institute of Microsurgery in Melbourne, said a prototype trial of five to six women would start in the next three to six months "to demonstrate that the body can regrow its own fat supply in the breast".

Cancer patients with dense breasts 'at greater danger of disease returning' During the world-first trial surgeons will implant a chamber containing a sample of the woman's fat tissue into the chest, which will act a "scaffolding" into which new breast tissue will grow.

"What we are hoping to do in the next two years is develop a biodegradable chamber so that the fat can grow inside the chamber and then the chamber will vanish naturally," Dr Marzella said.

"Nature abhors a vacuum, so the chamber itself, because it is empty, it tends to be filled in by the body."

Dr Marzella said the new breasts would feel normal to the patient.

The trial is believed to be just the second time in the world tissue engineering has been carried out in a human.

Prof Wayne Morrison, a Bernard O'Brien director, said using the stem cells from the patient's own fat to regenerate body parts was a huge advancement on current techniques, which try to repair or cover-up damage.

The regrowth process involves surgeons implanting a biodegradable synthetic breast-shaped chamber beneath the skin.

They then connect a blood vessel from the woman's underarm to the fat tissue allowing it to grow to fill the chamber within six to eight months.

The fat tissue stops growing when it reaches the chamber walls to ensure the desired shape and size.

The technique has already been proved in pigs, which grew new breasts in just six weeks.

Dr Marzella said the process could take longer in women because humans stop growing at adolescence.

However, his team has already developed a dissolvable gel to stimulates fat growth in the chamber and speed up the formation of the new breast.

Dr Marzella said the technique could also be used to regrow other organs.

"We are hoping to move on to other organs using the same principle - a chamber that protects and contains cells as they grow and they restore their normal function.

"So it is a pretty major leap for regenerative surgery and medicine."

He said the procedure could replace breast reconstructions and implants within three years if it works.

"Certainly it doesn't relieve [patients] of the trauma of the cancer but certainly it could be offering patients an alternative and some sort of relief from the diagnosis of breast cancer to know that they can regrow the breast."

The procedure also has potential in reconstructive therapy for defects in the future, but Dr Marzella said he did not envisage it being used for cosmetic purposes in the next 10 years.

All of the women taking part in the trial have had a mastectomy or partial mastectomy. The trial will not seek to grow a whole breast, but grow fat in the defected area to prove the procedure is viable.

Breast cancer is the most common form of the disease among women worldwide and the leading cause of female cancer fatalities.







cancer

Breast Cancer Treatment?

Japan scientists identify enzyme that may suppress cancer

Mon Feb 9, 2:21 pm ET

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Scientists in Japan have identified an enzyme which appears to suppress breast cancer and they hope the finding will spur new therapies to control the second most common cancer in the world.

At issue is the enzyme CHIP, which experts say can stunt cancer growth by degrading a number of cancer-causing proteins. The enzyme occurs naturally in human breast tissue.

In an article published in Nature Cell Biology, the scientists said they injected two kinds of human breast cancer cells into mice. One set carried the CHIP enzyme and the other was without the chemical.

Tumors in the first group of mice with the CHIP enzyme were far smaller than the one without the enzyme, Junn Yanagisawa at the University of Tsukuba's Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences in Japan told Reuters.

The same results were seen in a parallel experiment using a more aggressive line of human breast cancer cells, he added.

"Our conclusion is that we have found that CHIP protein prevents breast tumor growth and metastasis," Yanagisawa said.

Metastasis occurs when cancer spreads from its site of origin, which challenges therapy and may even result in death.

"In breast tumor treatments, measurement of the CHIP protein levels in the tumors may be valuable information for the treatment. Furthermore, designing a new therapy that increases CHIP protein levels or its activity could be useful for breast tumor treatment," Yanagisawa said.

Breast cancer is the second most common form of cancer, after lung cancer. In 2005, it killed 502,000 people worldwide, or almost 1 percent of all deaths.




Cancer

Get cancer - just die and save money.

Socialized medicine - and this is what you get:


The Daily Telegraph
By Kate Devlin Medical Correspondent

Cancer drugs ruled as too costly for NHS


CANCER patients are to be denied drugs that could keep them alive after the NHS rationing watchdog ruled that they are too expensive.

Patient groups said the decision, announced today by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), would condemn many sufferers of kidney cancer to an “early death”.
The four prohibited medicines include Sutent, which can prolong life in kidney cancer patients by up to two years. The draft guidance also rejects Avastin, Nexavar and Torisel.

Nice said the drugs were too expensive, at about £24,000 a year per patient, for the benefits they offered and would mean the health service was less able to afford more costeffective drugs for other illnesses. However, the decision reignites the debate around how the NHS prioritises which drugs are approved for use.

It comes just a week after Andrew Dillon, the chief executive of Nice, said smokers and the obese should not be denied NHS medication because of their lifestyle.

Following Nice’s latest decision, one surgeon said there would be no point in accepting kidney cancer patients if he was not able to prescribe Sutent because so few respond to other treatments.

Prof John Wagstaff, from the South West Wales Cancer Institute, in Swansea, said: “The possibility that we clinicians may be prevented from offering Sutent to our patients is an outrage. This decision will mean that the UK will have the poorest survival figures [for the cancer] in Europe.”

Prof Peter Littlejohns, Nice’s clinical and public health director, said: “Although these treatments are clinically effective, regrettably the cost to the NHS is such that they are not a cost-effective use of NHS resources.” He added that the organisation had to make some of the “hardest” decisions in public life.

Around 7,000 patients are diagnosed with kidney cancer in Britain every year. The disease progresses to the advanced stage in around 1,700 cases annually.

Approximately 3,600 patients in Britain would be eligible for Sutent, which acts against the growth of advanced kidney cancer and is available more widely in France and Germany.
Campaigners said patients would be left with just one other option, Interferon, but many sufferers do not respond to the drug. Otherwise they would have to pay for the drugs privately.

Nice previously faced controversy over its advice that Herceptin, the breast cancer drug, could only be used for advanced cases. Following a sustained campaign and legal battles, the drug was allowed for early stages of the disease.

In May, the Court of Appeal ruled that Nice had been procedurally unfair in refusing to give anti-dementia medicines such as Aricept, costing about £2.50 a day, to thousands of Alzheimer’s patients. They have so far been denied the medicines, and are awaiting Nice’s economic reasoning.

James Whale, the broadcaster who was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2000, said Sutent had given many families “hope for the future” and urged Nice to think again.

He said: “If final guidance remains as it currently stands it will certainly mean an early death sentence for many.”

Some local health care trusts have been offering the drug to small numbers of patients.
William James Lloyd, 62, was given Sutent after being diagnosed with cancer three years ago, and says it allowed him to see the birth of his two youngest grandchildren.

The retired headmaster from Llanddewi Brefi in Ceredigion, west Wales, said: “This drug has let me live to see things I could not have seen otherwise.”

Nice does not intend to offer a final decision until January. Patients already on the medication should continue to receive the drugs until they and their doctor think it is appropriate to stop treatment, according to the guidance.

Pat Hanlon, from Kidney Cancer UK, said that the decision would have a “devastating impact on patients” .






medical




british French canadian


socialized medicine

The War Against Cancer

Let science do what science does, without laws and mandates, and technology will provide the tools we need to survive - whether carbon emissions or cancer,




Cloned immune cells cleared patient's cancer

Ian Sample, science correspondent
The Guardian
Thursday June 19, 2008

A patient whose skin cancer had spread throughout his body has been given the all-clear after being injected with billions of his own immune cells.

Tests revealed that the 52-year-old man's tumours, which spread from his skin to his lung and groin, vanished within two months of having the treatment, and had not returned two years later.

Doctors attempted the experimental therapy as part of a clinical trial after the man's cancer failed to respond to conventional treatments.

The man is the first to benefit from the new technique, which uses cloning to produce billions of copies of a patient's immune cells. When they are injected into the body they attack the cancer and force it into remission.

Campaigners and scientists in the UK yesterday welcomed the breakthrough. "It's very exciting to see a cancer patient being successfully treated using immune cells cloned from his own body. While it's always good news when anyone with cancer gets the all-clear, this treatment will need to be tested in large clinical trials to work out how widely it could be used," said Ed Yong at Cancer Research UK.

Peter Johnson, chief clinician at the charity, added: "Although the technique is complex and difficult to use for all but a few patients, the principle that someone's own immune cells can be expanded and made to work in this way is very encouraging."

Cassian Yee at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle extracted immune cells from the patient and found that a small proportion of them, called CD4 T cells, naturally attacked a protein found on nearly three-quarters of the cancer cells. Using cloning techniques, Yee's team replicated these cells until they had more than 5bn of them.

When the cells were injected into the patient they immediately began attacking the cancer. Intriguingly, the patient's immune system gradually began a wider offensive, attacking all the cancer cells in the body, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. Two months later medical scans failed to pick up any signs of cancer in the patient.

[To read the rest of the article click on the link in the title]






Science


medical


cancer


treatment



life threatening




technology

Mobile Phones more dangerous than smoking or asbestos

Brain expert warns of huge rise in tumors. Growing evidence that suggests ten years of cell phone usage leads to brain tumors and cancer. This means potentially tens of millions of people will have cancer in the next twenty years. Tens of millions of people who will overwhelm our medical systems with their medical surgeries and treatments. The Independent, March 30, 2008

Tens of millions who will die.

That fact is as evidenced as global warming and potentially more destructive.

Cancer and Genes

According to European scientists, cell phone usage is more deadly than smoking.

Now comes a report that informs us that lung cancer may be genetic.

People who have the gene variant face at least a 30% greater chance of developing the disease, three studies find. The discovery may help to explain why some smokers will never be afflicted.

April 3, 2008, LA Times, Genetic Link to Lung Cancer