Alternative Cancer Website Contributes to the Breast Cancer Awareness Efforts, Photo: Claudia Regina, Flickr

Breast Cancer Fact #1: One in Eight Women Will Get Breast Cancer in Her Lifetime

According to the latest statistics on Breast Cancer from Cancer Research UK, this type of cancer is getting more and more common among women. The risk of getting breast cancer used to be one in nine only a few years ago, but it has grown to be one in eight today. This however doesn’t mean that if you look outside the window, ten out of eighty women you will have seen will have a tumor growing in their breasts. This is not quite what this statistic tells us.

Fact of a matter is, breast cancer is a disease of old age. If you go back to those 80 women you will have seen by taking a look outside, you will be able to instantly strike all school girls out of the risk group, and you could also forget about virtually all women in their 20′s and 30′s. It is also very rare for a woman in her 40′s to develop breast cancer and as such, it is not until the woman reaches 50 years of age when invitations for mammography start coming.

The statistic which states that one in eight women will develop breast cancer at some point in her life takes into consideration that said women will live until the age of 70. When it comes to the 70+ demographics, that’s when you’ll find one in eight women who presently have, or had breast cancer in the past.

Australian pop singer Kylie Minogue was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 35 year old but she’s the exception rather than the norm. As was said before – breast cancer is a disease of old age. It’s very rare for someone this young to grow a tumor in their breasts and as any cancer expert would confirm, age is by far the most important risk factor.

To be a little more specific, below is a little chart to show the relation between the age and the breast cancer risk factors:

• Risk of Breast Cancer at the Age of 29 – 1 : 2,000
• Risk of Breast Cancer at the Age of 39 – 1 : 215
• Risk of Breast Cancer at the Age of 49 – 1 : 50
• Risk of Breast Cancer at the Age of 70 – 1 : 8

Aging is a process none of us can revert. And since chances of developing breast cancer grow with every year added to women’s lives, it is essential that the importance of regular screening after the age of 50 is not underestimated.

Breast Cancer Fact #2: Any Woman Can Take Measures to Reduce the Risk of Getting Breast Cancer

This may (and will) sound like beating of a dead horse, but it must be said over and over again – the risk of getting cancer (any cancer, not just breast cancer) can be greatly reduced by simple lifestyle changes. However before I get any further, I would need to clarify that I do understand that certain aspects of our lives are more difficult to control than others. Some may even be entirely out of our control – such as age mentioned in Breast Cancer Fact #1, the fact that you are a female or genetically predisposed to cancer.

All cancers are genetic (it’s the mutation of genes that causes the cells to fail to die at their pre-programmed times, resulting in out of control growth of tissue that should not be there), but it’s the lifestyle and the environment that triggers them. Take the triggers away or suppress them by adopting healthy lifestyle choices and the chance of developing cancers diminishes strikingly.

While diet does affect some cancers (red meat for example has been linked to bowel cancer), there has been no evidence to suggest that it would have any effect on breast cancer. There are other risk factors that do however so let’s take a look at them.

Risk Factors That Increase Chances of Getting Breast Cancer:

• Alcohol – even a small dose of alcohol if consumed daily increases breast cancer risk by 6%
• Extra Pounds – oestrogen and several other hormones affect the cells’ ability to grow and divide. Carrying excess weight after the menopause results in fat pumping these hormones out
• Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) – it helps to diminish the distressing symptoms of the menopause, but it also contributes to increased risk of breast cancer
• Fewer Children Later in Life – read Breast Cancer Fact #3 for additional info

Exercise on the other hand is the best lifestyle change a woman can take in order to reduce the risk of developing breast cancer. It truly does reduce a chance of developing breast cancer but it can also help in diminishing other potential health problems so it should be on the radar of everyone looking to enjoy a healthy life.

It is important to understand that by eliminating the risk factors from your life and by adopting the healthy lifestyle which involves exercise, you still won’t get a 100% guarantee that cancer will not develop in your breasts. History shows us that many breast cancer patients were women who didn’t drink, had children early and breastfed them for a long time. Even if you do adopt positive lifestyle changes, it is important that you undergo regular screenings to ensure that if you do develop breast cancer, it is caught in its early stages so your chances of fast and uncomplicated recovery increase.

Breast Cancer Fact #3: Each Birth Decreases the Risk of Breast Cancer by 7%

Occurrence of breast cancer in developing countries, where women start to have babies at a much younger age and have more children than women in the west is significantly lower. It is because pregnancy and breastfeeding suppress ovulation which results in reduced amount of circulating hormones (such as Oestrogen) which are known triggers of breast cancer. Oxford collaborative group on hormonal factors in breast cancer published a study in 2002 the results of which state that every year of breastfeeding cuts the risk of developing breast cancer by 4.3%.

Breast Cancer Fact #4: Breast Cancer is a Disease That Most Women Survive

Nowadays, there are several treatment methods that can rid a woman of breast cancer effectively. Combined with the ability to diagnose the disease early, it is very rare to find a woman who would be dying because of breast cancer. On top of conventional breast cancer therapies, there are also ways to prevent and/or treat breast cancer through alternative healing methods.

Even though I was able to squeeze the breast cancer facts into 4 main points, a lot of information was provided in this article so I hope you were able to find answers you were looking for. Breast cancer can be a debilitating disease, however despite seemingly grim outlooks, we now have tools to make breast cancer less of an issue for women who do care about their wellbeing and take their health seriously.

Further Reading:

• Breast Cancer Alternative Treatment That Works?
• Breast Cancer Screening: Thermography as The Best Alternative
• How Cruciferous Vegetables and Brassica Plants Protect Against Cancer
• How to Reduce Exposure to BPA (Bisphenol A)?
• 8 Cancer Fighting Foods That Are Widely Available
• Health Benefits of Garlic

This is a very rare opportunity for all of us to see what cancer cells inside a human body actually look like. The image above was captured using Photomicrography technique called Deconvolution and later color enhanced for better definition and depth of the image. The photograph shows two Telophase HeLa cancer cells just before division.

As you know, cancer cells are cells with compromised DNA which causes them to fail to die naturally. Such mutated cells gain an ability to multiply uncontrollably and this process of cancer cell multiplication is captured in the rare Photomicrography image above.

The cancer cells image was submitted to the Nikon sponsored Small World Photomicrography Competition 2010 by Paul D. Andrews from the University of Dundee, Scotland, UK.

Further Reading:

• Skin Cancer Alternative Treatment
• Prostate Cancer Alternative Treatment – Latest Therapies
• Latest Cancer Treatment Methods
• Cervical Cancer Alternative Treatment
• Cancer in the USA – Facts and Numbers
• How Cruciferous Vegetables and Brassica Plants Protect Against Cancer

Many men are afraid of the dreaded colonoscopy, but that is just one of several tried-and-true techniques for performing a colon cancer screening. Here are the basic methods of screening for colon cancer:

Colonoscopy Colon Cancer Screening

The silver standard. A bit of anesthesia will relax you (and the muscles of your anal sphincter), and make you a little sleepy. The doctor will then insert thin, flexible line with an attached video camera into your rectum and look around at your entire colon. Sometimes, the doctor can remove polyps or tumors using the same tool as part of the exam. The process is rarely painful, but is uncomfortable and for some men can be embarrassing.

Flexible Sigmoidoscopy Colon Cancer Screening

Flexible sigmoidoscopy is much like a traditional colonoscopy, but rather than a thin, flexible line, a thicker, not-as-flexible instrument capable of taking much better pictures of the body is used. This less-flexible tool can only view the sigmoid – the last third of the colon – and so isn’t as useful in detecting all forms of colon cancer. On the other hand, it can catch sigmoidal colon cancer much earlier than even a colonoscopy. Oftentimes the two are used in conjunction, along with a fecal occult blood test.

Rigid Sigmoidoscopy Colon Cancer Screening

Rigid Sigmoidoscopy is like its flexible counterpart, but uses a rigid tool in place of a flexible one. It’s much less comfortable, and thankfully rarer.

Fecal Occult Blood Test Colon Cancer Screening

In a fecal occult blood test, no insertion of machinery into your rectum is necessary. Essentially, this test checks your stool for microscopic amounts of blood. You simply take a stool sample – at home, and put into a special kit and bring it to your medical provider. They will examine it for blood, and if they find any…well, there’s more insertion of machinery in your future.

It’s possible to get a false positive on a fecal occult blood test, so before you go in for this type of colon cancer screening, you must go for 48 hours without eating red meat, horseradish, aspirin, and most vegetables.

Double-Contrast Barium Enema Colon Cancer Screening

Not technically machinery, the barium enema still involves an insertion – but this time the doctor is injecting a barium-laced fluid into your rectum. The liquid shows up easily on an X-ray, and allows the shapes and contours around it to show up as well. This will give your doctors a chance to see any unusual growths quickly. If they do show up, it’s time for the colonoscopy!

If you have even the slightest notion that you might have colon cancer, immediately schedule an appointment to have a colon cancer screening – remember, the longer you give it to grow, the more deadly it becomes.

Further Reading:

• Colon Cancer Alternative Treatment
• Detoxify Your Body Naturally with Broccoli
• Health Benefits of Garlic

Several lung cancer symptoms that might not be considered cancer-related if you don’t know about them can give you an early lead on potential lung cancer.

Lung Cancer Symptom #1 – Back, Chest, or Shoulder Pain

Unexplained chronic pain in the back, chest, or shoulders can be caused by a tumor pressing on the lung lining. If you have chest pain, it can be mistaken for heartburn in some occasions – and if you have back or shoulder pain that doesn’t go away with massage or chiropractic work, it’s worth mentioning to do your doctor.

Lung Cancer Symptom #2 – Swelling on your Face or Neck

Pressure from a tumor in a certain part of the lung can block the veins that take blood from the head and neck, leading to swelling and redness in that area. Lymphatic drainage can also be affected, so if a minor injury on the head or neck becomes unexpectedly infected or fails to heal, lung cancer can be at fault.

Lung Cancer Symptom #3 – Chronic Pneumonia and/or Bronchitis

Tumor cells can trap bacteria and viruses inside the lung, which frequently leads to pneumonia or bronchitis. Because smoking cigarettes can also lead to these diseases, it can be easy for a doctor to miss this symptom in smokers.

Lung Cancer Symptom #4 – Gynomastia

In laymen’s terms – man-boobs. Some forms of lung cancer produce significant amounts of an estrogen-like hormone that can cause the development of breasts in males.

Lung Cancer Symptom #5 – Hoarseness

Particularly upwardly situated tumors can press on the voice box, resulting in hoarse speech. Rarely, a tumor can also interfere with the nerves that control the vocal cords, with a similar result.

Later in the progress of lung cancer, more symptoms surface that doctors have an easier time recognizing.

Lung Cancer Symptom #6 – Persistent Cough That Gets Worse Over Time

While there are many potential causes for a persistent cough, coughs that consistently become nastier and nastier are a major warning sign of lung cancer.

Lung Cancer Symptom #7 – Coughing Up Blood

Similarly, coughing up blood is merely indicative of internal bleeding into the lungs. When paired with a few of the early warning signs above, however, it can point toward a tumor.

Lung Cancer Symptom #8 – Unexplained Weight Loss

Unexplained weight loss is a warning sign that points toward cancer, especially if your appetite is still healthy. Again, if you find that this is affecting you, it’s time to look for the earlier warning signs and inform your doctor.

After cancer has taken a firm hold – and most hope of treatment has passed – more common symptoms come up.

• Bone pain
• Aching joints
• Blood clots
• Bone fractures not related to injuries
• Inability to walk steadily
• Intermittent memory loss

All of these symptoms come from the various tissues and internal structures that the tumor(s) commonly impact as they develop.

Your doctor has many options to screen for lung cancer, and it is always wise to remain optimistic until a diagnosis can be proven. If you read through this list and you notice several of these symptoms that apply to you, don’t worry yourself until a diagnosis has been given.

Further Reading:

• Fight Cancer with Papaya – Treats Every Type of Tumor
• Lung Cancer Alternative Treatment
• Rare Photomicrography Image of Cancer Cells
• 8 Cancer Fighting Foods That Are Widely Available
• Anti-Angiogenesis Foods – Agents That Fight Cancer Naturally
• Skin Cancer Alternative Treatment

There are three major forms of skin cancer. Each of these has been proven to be caused by exposure to sunlight (though many other causes can be at root). When caused by sunlight, the microscopic view shows this: ultraviolet radiation causes a disruption in the cell’s normal genetic operations, which break down and, under the right circumstances, change the cell into a precancerous or cancerous cell. The three forms of skin cancer are basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and melanoma. Melanoma is by far the most dangerous of the three.

What is Melanoma?

All three forms of skin cancer begin in the epidermis, where sunlight’s ultraviolet rays most easily penetrate. Melanoma has symptoms that are unique, easily distinguishing it from its brethren.

The first indication of melanoma is usually a change in color of a mole or a small patch of skin. Melanoma is named as such because it produces brown or black pigments — thus “melan” (Greek for black) and “oma” (a tumor). As such, it is wise for anyone who spends an appreciable amount of time in the sun to keep an eye on their skin for dark spots, patchy skin, or moles. Specifically, bleeding moles, new moles, and rapidly-changing dark spots are always worth reporting to your doctor right away.

Melanoma’s Principal Causes

Reportedly, those people who have lighter skin — and oddly lighter eyes — burn more easily than others. As such, they are also considered to be at a higher risk for skin cancer. Over the years, regular exposure to sunlight can progressively increase your risk for skin cancer. Sunbathing is the most common way to get melanoma from sun exposure, though prolonged outdoor work in a zero-shade environment — such as farming — is thought to be almost as bad. A sunbather that burns to the point of blistering is at a markedly higher risk than otherwise.

Other Causes of Melanoma Cancer, Explained.

Of course, sun exposure is not the only cause of melanoma — in fact, many melanomas are discovered at the bottom of the feet! Other known causes are mutagens, which can alter your DNA structure and cause a cell to become cancerous; long-term injuries, in which cells try to heal an injury but for whatever reason fail — sometimes the new cells created on the site of such an injury simply malfunction and become cancerous; and a variety of birth defects such as xeroderma pigmentosum that make the skin very fragile and sensitive to environmental changes, effectively mimicking the effects of a mutagen.

Melanoma Cancer Prognosis

Melanoma is the most deadly of the skin cancers, because is spreads much more quickly than its brothers. Detected and treated early enough, almost seventy-five percent of patients treated with traditional medicine survive. Several known alternative treatments are particularly effective against melanoma as well — and there are even stories of people who conquered melanoma entirely on their own, with no treatment at all. Personally, I’d really like to see that aspect of melanoma cancer explained.

Further Reading:

• Skin Cancer Alternative Treatment
• Latest Cancer Treatment Methods
• Rare Photomicrography Image of Cancer Cells
• 8 Cancer Fighting Foods That Are Widely Available
• Fight Cancer with Papaya – Treats Every Type of Tumor
• Anti-Angiogenesis Foods – Agents That Fight Cancer Naturally

Pancreatic cancer is very hard to detect early. The symptoms of early-stage pancreatic cancer are very generic: fatigue, nausea, vomiting, lack of energy, and sometimes fever. Doctors hear those symptoms a dozen times a day, and it’s almost never pancreatic cancer. By the time it’s been established as the cause of symptoms, it’s often too late for modern medicine to deal with it.

That said, there are a few symptoms to keep a close eye on. Dark urine, pale stool, and yellowing of the skin — combined with the above flu-like symptoms — are signs that your doctor needs to hear about immediately.

Only if your cancer is caught early enough — before it spreads to any other nearby organ — can a massive surgery, called a Whipple operation, have any chance of removing it from your body. In a Whipple surgery, the doctor removes the entire pancreas, adjoining sections of the intestine, and all local lymph nodes. It’s a hideously invasive and extensive operation that nonetheless is the only known way that modern medicine has found to provide a life expectancy beyond a few years.

Sounds like a technicality. If I have it already, is pancreatic cancer always fatal?

Only if you try to fight it with modern medicine. There are a few dietary pancreatic treatments that have had much more success. Most are quite hard to adapt to, but very worth it.

Diet is the single most important overriding factor in determining the survival rate of a patient with pancreatic cancer. Not only does your diet power your every organ, but the pancreas is the organ that produces the enzymes necessary for food digestion — so changing your diet has a more profound effect on your pancreas than it does on almost any other organ in your body.

The anti-cancer diet that I have personal experience with is called the Kelly Cancer Diet, and it is easy to research. My mother-in-law had a profound experience with melanoma and the Kelly diet, and swears by it today. That said, there are a few programs in use right now that utilize the Kelly diet as one element of an overall program for overcoming pancreatic cancer. Perhaps the most widely accepted (and successful) is the Gonzalez Program, which has just completed a set of clinical trials with the FDA.

The Gonzalez Program adds two more elements to the Kelly Cancer Diet that make it specifically applicable to pancreatic cancer. The first element is the addition of massive supplementation with pancreatic and other enzymes, to take the load off of the pancreas and to attack the cancer directly (cancer cells protect themselves with a protein ‘shell’ that several different enzymes can attack and break down, making the cancer vulnerable to the immune system). The second element is a daily detoxification regimen including, among other things, daily enemas of coffee. Coffee enemas bring huge amounts of caffeine directly into the bloodstream, which stimulates the immune system and provokes the body to eliminate toxic buildup of dead or dying cancer cells which can otherwise have a dire impact on health.

The Gonzalez Program is quite likely to be the most effective single treatment regimen for pancreatic cancer. In one study, patients who actually followed the difficult diet, swallowed the literally hundreds of pills-per-day required to get all of the enzyme and other supplementation, and performed two hour-plus coffee enemas every day increased their average survival rate to an unprecedented nine years — and some of those patients had Stage IV pancreatic cancer when they began the program.

So the answer to the question ‘is pancreatic cancer always fatal’ is ‘absolutely not — so long as you’re willing to take extreme measures to ensure your survival.’

Further Reading:

• Pancreatic Cancer – Alternative Treatment with Diet
• Recommended Cancer Diet
• How to Reduce Exposure to BPA (Bisphenol A)?
• Health Benefits of Garlic
• Fight Cancer with Papaya – Treats Every Type of Tumor
• Cancer Survival Rates

For example, depending on where you look, you could find out that up to sixteen percent of lung cancer patients survive for at least five years… or as little as five percent do. In order to get cancer survival rate numbers we can all agree on, we would have to all first agree to use a specific abstract to use to get those numbers.

Even with an agreement as to how to collect and process cancer survival rates information, the usefulness of the statistics may be questionable. Particularly for insidious cancers such as lung cancer and pancreatic cancer that are difficult to detect early, the survival rate isn’t a measure of how effective our countermeasures are — it’s a measure of how little we as a culture engage in preventative medicine. That doesn’t really help anybody who is already looking up the cancer survival rates statistics; they want to know how to get better, not what they should have done but didn’t.

What people really want when they look up cancer survival rates is information on survival rates brought on by specific treatments. For example, they want to know “how long will I survive if I get acupuncture therapy vs. nutritional therapy for my esophageal cancer?” (Statistics say use acupuncture, but go to China to get it.)

Unfortunately, few people — and even fewer unbiased sources who aren’t vested in the final numbers — actually keep track of things like this. The most common scenario is that a pharmacist who is testing a new treatment will keep careful track of the survival rates for that treatment; again, he is vested in the final outcome because he wants his treatment to work. That kind of thing leads to a bias that can skew the final numbers in a variety of ways.

Conversely, there is no way for any major corporation to profit significantly from unpatentable cures such as acupuncture or nutritive therapy — and as such, there is no profit to be found in tracking their efficacy, either. So finding cancer survival rates for treatments such as those are next to impossible.

Realistically, even if they were available, these rates are meant for scientific use only. They are statistics, which means that no one person should ever expect that the number should apply to them. Just because only twenty-three out of one hundred people survived esophageal cancer for five years doesn’t mean you should necessarily expect to die sooner. That just creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. A patient that expects to die is much more likely to do so.

These cancer survival rate numbers were never intended to be used by patients as a diagnostic tool or a psychological crutch. A much better way to assess your actual, individual prognosis is to talk to an expert — such as an oncologist — and to do your own research and find a treatment that you can put your trust in and stick to. Cancer survival rates should be treated as an interesting numerological phenomenon, and nothing more.

Further Reading:

• Health Benefits of Garlic
• Fight Cancer with Papaya – Treats Every Type of Tumor
• Alternative Lung Cancer Treatment Options
• How Cruciferous Vegetables and Brassica Plants Protect Against Cancer
• How to Reduce Exposure to BPA (Bisphenol A)?
• Prostate Cancer Alternative Treatment – Latest Therapies

Since different people have different needs, it makes sense that the same cancer insurance plan won’t be appropriate for everyone. Here are a few questions you should always ask as you investigate:

• Where on the National Underwriter’s List is the company offering the plan listed?
• Does A.M. Best give the company at least an “A” ranking?
• How have their rates increased in the recent past?
• Does the representative of this company seem trustworthy?

Why are these questions important?

The first two questions are designed to establish an insurance company’s financial strength. In today’s economy, with even major, long-lasting business crumbling, this is a much more important factor than it was a decade ago.

The National Underwriter’s ranking is a comparison of the company’s income and outgo: the premiums paid in minus the claims paid out. A company’s base assets are also taken into consideration. The result is a good estimate of how long the company can stay in business if business proceeds as it has recently been going. A company that can’t stay in business as-is will either collapse or have to put out major rate hikes to stay solvent.

A.M. Best also examines a variety of financial factors and distills them into a simple letter grade. Their formula is complex, but the result is simple: if a company doesn’t get an “A” or “A+” from A.M. Best, you don’t want to risk dealing with them.

Examining the rate-hike history of a cancer insurance company can give you warning about their potential future behavior. Many companies have the right to increase rates on a class of policyholders, but few can do so to an individual. Regardless, there are companies out there who have literally never raised the rates of current policyholders — so you can count on whatever rate you receive being your rate for life barring a major economic disaster. Other companies hike rates so regularly that you can practically time the point at which you would be better switching to a different company.

Finally, you should personally feel like you can trust the representative the cancer insurance company sends you. This will be the person with whom you will share personal information about your health, finances, and more. If you can’t trust him, you’ll never feel comfortable doing the business that you need to do.

Like every aspect of modern consumerism, purchasing cancer insurance is an area that benefits immensely from a bit of research and a bit of knowledge — use the above as a starting point, but be smart on your own feet, and you’ll be able to make a decision you’ll never regret.

Further Reading:

• How Cruciferous Vegetables and Brassica Plants Protect Against Cancer
• How to Reduce Exposure to BPA (Bisphenol A)?
• Detoxify Your Body Naturally with Broccoli
• Rare Photomicrography Image of Cancer Cells
• 8 Cancer Fighting Foods That Are Widely Available
• Health Benefits of Garlic

Cancer Growth and Spreading

As you remember from What is Cancer lecture, cancer starts with one cell the genetic structure of which gets altered due to mutations. The progress of gene’s mutations could develop into uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells resulting in formation of a tumor. In order to better understand cancer staging and grading, we must first take a closer look at three stages of tumor development and progress:

Growth of Tumor
Cancer cells multiply at a high rate. Overtime, they form into a lump that is caller “a tumor”. Tumor is literally a mass of tissue made up entirely from cancer cells. As the tumor grows, cancer cells within release chemicals that cause imbalances in surrounding blood vessels until they branch off to supply tumor with blood. This is referred to as angiogenesis. This newly obtained blood supply delivers oxygen and nourishment to the cancer cells, allowing the tumor to grow. Without this ability, a tumor would not grow larger than the size of a pin head, but with supply of blood, cancer cells will continue to divide and push through surrounding tissue which causes damage to these (normal/healthy) cells.

Spread of Tumor to Lymph Nodes
As a tumor continues to grow, some of the cancer cells may enter lymph nodes – glands found all over the body where pathogens and germs are filtered. Lymph nodes are an important part of overall immunity as they also contain white blood cells. Cancer cells may enter lymph nodes through a network of lymph channels and start multiplying there, developing into a secondary tumor. Test results from lymph nodes are therefore an important factor in determining cancer staging.

Metastasis
When cancer cells get into blood vessels, they get carried to other parts of the body and may start multiplying there, creating secondary tumor at the new location. This process is called metastasis.

Cancer Staging

Further Reading:

• Rare Photomicrography Image of Cancer Cells
• 8 Cancer Fighting Foods That Are Widely Available
• Fight Cancer with Papaya – Treats Every Type of Tumor
• Anti-Angiogenesis Foods – Agents That Fight Cancer Naturally
• Skin Cancer Alternative Treatment
• 13 Foods Full of Pesticides – Avoid or Buy Organic

Researching Cancer Types and Stages

If you’ve been diagnosed with cancer, make sure you clarify the following with your doctor:

• What’s the cancer type I have (what’s its name)?
• What is the stage of my cancer?

If you can, try to also find out the following:

• What’s the grade of my cancer?
• Are there any other prognostic factors?

To initiate a successful research on your cancer, you need to get answers to the above mentioned questions from your doctor. Ask him what the medical name of your cancer is and what stage of your tumor is. The stage will likely be a Roman numeral between I and IV (Roman numeral one to Roman numeral four), of your stage could be “recurrent”. If the grade of your cancer is known, ask to learn about that. If there were any special tests done on your tumor, ask about results of those as well.

It’s also helpful to obtain copies of biopsy and pathology reports as well as any operative reports there might be. These will be particularly helpful if you get serious about studying your type of cancer and get yourself more technical literature.

Cancer Types

Cancer treatment methods vary and depend on cancer type you have. What cancer type you have will be determined by which organ this cancer starts in, which cells it derives from and what appearance this cancer cell takes. As you have learned from article that explains what cancer is and what causes it, cancer starts with one cell which begins to divide uncontrollably. As an abnormal cell multiplies at high speed, eventually this form of abnormal cells develops into a tumor.

Tumor which forms around the cell which started this uncontrolled division is called the “primary” tumor. Cells from the primary tumor can break off and travel to other parts of the body and start the growth of secondary tumors there. This is called “metastasis”. However, metastasis does not change the cancer type. That means that if your cancer type is “colon cancer” (cancer which started in the colon) which has spread through metastasis to form a secondary tumor on your liver, the cancer type of that tumor will not be “liver cancer”. It will be a metastatic colon cancer. Similarly, if your cancer type is breast cancer and it spreads to your bones, cancer type will not change to “bone cancer”, it will be “metastatic breast cancer”.

It is not uncommon for different types of cancer to start in the same organ. For example there are three different cancer types that start in the kidneys, each of them requiring different method of treatment. Renal cell cancer is the most common kidney cancer, Wilm’s tumor is common in kidneys of children, transitional cell cancer is a kidney cancer type similar to bladder cancer. Just because they all originated in kidneys, it doesn’t make them all the same cancer type. They are each different and each require different therapy. That’s why it is so important to know your cancer type otherwise you could be researching the options which are ineffective for the cancer type you have.

Another common mistake when performing a research on your cancer type is to search for broad class of cancer. For example if you have adenocarcinoma cancer which is the cancer of lining cells derived from cells of glandular origin, research on proper treatment would not return relevant results as there are several classes of this cancer. There is an adenocarcinoma of the lung and there also is an adenocarcinoma of the pancreas. These are both different cancer types, each requiring different treatment.

Further Reading:

• Latest Cancer Treatment Methods
• Alternative Prostate Cancer Treatment
• How Cruciferous Vegetables and Brassica Plants Protect Against Cancer
• Rare Photomicrography Image of Cancer Cells
• 8 Cancer Fighting Foods That Are Widely Available
• Fight Cancer with Papaya – Treats Every Type of Tumor