We all know about the important function that our lungs perform i.e. absorption of oxygen into our blood and the expelling out of carbon dioxide into air. Lungs are a very critical organ of our body and lung cancer (or development of malignant cells in lungs) can really be life threatening.

Causes of lung cancer

Most people would know the primary cause of lung cancer (after all there is so much propaganda about what increases the risk of lung cancer the most). Yes, smoking tobacco is the main culprit behind lung cancer (or behind increasing the risk of lung cancer). Even passive smoking can slightly increase the risk of lung cancer. It’s unfortunate that even with all that propaganda and people knowing that smoking can cause lung cancer, people continue to smoke tobacco. People working in industries which involve extensive use of asbestos and other chemical substances/fumes are also at a greater risk of lung cancer.

Symptoms of lung cancer

Most of the symptoms of lung cancer are related to cough conditions. However, the difference is that lung cancer may lead to prolonged cough or blood coming out with cough. Chest infections, difficulty in breathing or a pain in breathing etc. are some of the symptoms of lung cancer. But again, the occurrence of such symptoms should not lead you to concluding that you have lung cancer. Only a qualified doctor through proper examination and tests can deduce whether you have lung cancer or not.

Diagnosis of lung cancer

When there are symptoms of lung cancer, the doctor might start with getting an x-ray and a sputum test done for you. CT scans and biopsies are other specialist means of diagnosing lung cancer. The diagnosis of lung cancer can be done quite definitively.

Treatment of lung cancer

As is the case with most types of cancer, the treatment of lung cancer is pretty much planned based on the type of lung cancer, its size, the stage of lung cancer and your general health. The main treatments of lung cancer include chemotherapy and radiotherapy (and the combination of both is usually used). Surgical procedures are also used in some cases but again the suitability of surgery is determined by the doctor on the basis of a number of other factors. So, the best thing to do is avoid smoking and cut down your risk of lung cancer.

Warren and Karen have been involved in the internet for a number of years and run several websites. They are most interested in providing opportunities for people to connect with information relating to business, health and creativity. Check out their

Related posts

• Your Lifestyle and Your Risk for Bladder Cancer (0)
• What You Should Know About Breast Cancer (0)
• What Is The Diet’s Role In Colon Cancer (0)
• What is Mesothelioma? (0)
• What Every Woman Should Know About Breast Cancer (0)

Tags: chemotherapy, lung cancer

Would you know if you had lymphoma? Do you even know what to look for? Below is a short description of lymphoma and information on the symptoms to look for, how the doctor will diagnose it and the possible treatments available today.

What is lymphoma?
Lymphoma is a type of cancer that affects the lymphocyte cells of the immune system. It generally originates in one or more of the lymph glands and causes them to swell to the point that they become uncomfortable although not painful. The common lymph glands that are first affected include those in the neck, in the armpit area and in the groin. Unfortunately the cancerous lymphocytes can break away from the main growth in the lymph glands and travel around the body in the lymphatic system and in the blood. This means that lymphoma often affects the entire body and causes symptoms in areas far from the original site of growth.

What are the common symptoms of lymphoma?
There are a number of common signs and symptoms that are associated with lymphoma however it must be pointed out that these symptoms can also be caused by numerous, less severe conditions and so anyone suffering with any of the following symptoms should not self-diagnose lymphoma. The common symptoms include:

Swollen lymph glands – although these often develop in the neck, armpit and groin areas they can also develop in the chest and these lymph glands can not be felt externally. This means that they can be swollen for some time without causing any external swelling that can be felt with the fingers.
Fever and night sweats – because cancerous cells are present in the body the immune system launches an attack and this causes the body’s internal temperature to rise, which is felt as a fever.
Unexplained weight loss - lymphoma can affect any system within the body and occasionally it affects the digestive system which then fails to function at its best. This means that food is not absorbed properly and the body begins to lose weight.
Tiredness and fatigue – again this can occur when the digestive system is affected and the impaired food absorption leaves the body with little energy. It also occurs because the body is constantly trying to fight the spread and development of cancerous cells.

How is lymphoma diagnosed?
Usually the doctor will have an idea of the diagnosis from your description of the symptoms and from performing a physical examination i.e. to feel for swelling in the lymph glands. From here he/she will refer you to the hospital for further tests which may include x-rays, CT and MRI scans to see how far the cancerous cells have spread, blood tests and even bone marrow biopsies. These tests will be able to confirm the presence of lymphoma and they will pinpoint exactly what type of lymphoma you have and how far it has progressed.

How is lymphoma treated?
There are a number of ways that lymphoma can be treated however the exact course of treatment will depend on a number of factors including what type of lymphoma is present, how far it has spread, how fast it is growing and your general state of health. The options include chemotherapy, radiotherapy and bone marrow transplants however every case is different and your course of therapy will be individual to your illness so that you have the best chance of recovery possible.

For more information and resources on hodgkin’s and non-hodgkin’s lymphoma, other lymphomaresources.com/Types-of-Lymphomas.html types of lymphoma, treatment, causes, lymphomaresources.com/The-Genetics-of-Lymphoma.html genetics of lymphoma, medication, research, solutions and facts, visit Jeremy Parker’s comprehensive reference guide on lymphoma. Also get your free copy of the “Lymphoma Information Guide” report at LymphomaResources.com LymphomaResources.com

Related posts

• What is Lymphoma? (0)
• What Exactly is Lymphoma? (0)
• Types of Lymphoma and Their Characteristics (0)
• Twin Sisters Help Bring Awareness to Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (0)
• Treatment Options for Mantle Cell Lymphoma (0)

Tags: chemotherapy, lymphoma

In 2004 the UK alone had 153,397 deaths caused by cancer alone. Every year around 38,000 cases of lung cancer are diagnosed in the UK alone.The total population in the UK around that time was estimated at 60.2 million people. A closer look will reveal the true extent of the disease that is slowly being tackled by research. Cancer cases are increasing by 1% per year. Cancer mainly effects people in later life, but is also seen to develop in children and adolescents. More than 75% of deaths from cancer occur in the elderly from the age of 65 and above. With such a high rate of deaths occurring in the elderly, cancer is responsible for 1 in 4 or 25% of all deaths across all age groups throughout the world. This figure is highest in adults under 65 years old, where 1 in every 3, or 33%, of all deaths are caused by cancer.

There are more than 200 different types of cancer but only four of these types were responsible for 48% of all cancer related deaths. Lung cancer was the single biggest type of cancer diagnosed which accounts for 22% of all cancer deaths in 2004. Bowel, breast and prostate cancer were responsible for between 11% and 8% of other cancer deaths. Why is the rate of lung cancer sufferers so high? Simply because of the number of people who smoke cigarettes. Around 80% of all lung cancer deaths are caused by smoking.

Cutting down on smoking or stopping all together would greatly reduce the number of cancer deaths. World-wide, over 1.3 million cases of lung cancer are diagnosed each year. Prolonged smoking is responsible for the greatest number of lung related cancer deaths, with it striking most commonly among those aged 65 years and over. It is very seldom diagnosed in those under 40. Scotland has the highest rate of lung cancer sufferers in the UK. Scotland has a history of high smoking and Scottish men and women have among the highest rates of cancer in the world. Why are the rates so high in Scotland? Exposure to industrial carcinogens and poor diet are believed to contribute to the high rate of sufferers. Asbestos exposure is responsible for around 6% of male lung cancer cases diagnosed. If we look at the whole world, the highest rates of lung cancer in the world are found to be in men in eastern Europe as well as men in North America. The pattern is similar for women with the highest number of sufferers occurring in Denmark, Hungary and Iceland.

In the US, incidences of lung cancer are higher in the black population for men and women while contrastingly, Hispanics and Asians have lower number of cases than the white population.

Children are not immune to smoking with nearly 1 in 4 smoking by the age of 15. How life-time smoking habits are developed occurs in adolescent years, and by 19 they are firmly addicted to smoking. There is evidence that points to the fact that how early on in life someone begins smoking has more of an impact on the likelihood of them going on to develop lung cancer. So the young the habit is formed, the greater the risk of lung cancer. This factor is more prominent than the quantity or length a person smokes from then on after developing the habit or becoming addicted to nicotine.

Some factors that cause children to smoke are having a parent that is a smoker or siblings or friends. Being exposed to cigarette advertising is also a factor that leads children to smoke. Passive smoking by someone, also puts them at risk of developing lung cancer. It can also lead to respiratory disease in children. Children growing up with parents that smoke are also at risk of asthma, middle-ear infections and cot deaths.

The level of risk in the UK becomes more alarming when you take into account the fact that one in every three children grow up in a household with at least one parent that smokes. Smokers that consume up to 14 cigarettes a day are eight times more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers. Alarmingly, smokers consuming 25 or more a day are 25 times more likely to develop lung cancer.

For the sake of your children, if not for your health, give up smoking and you will have more appreciation for life in your later years, with improved personal health and children free from the risk of respiratory diseases that may bring to an early end a wonderful life. If not for yourself, for the sake of your children.

Author: Janie Jonah

perfectdrugrx.com Canada Pharmacy - PerfectDrugRx

(c) 2006, PerfectDrugRx. All rights in all media reserved. Reprints must include
byline, contact information and copyright.

Related posts

• You Do What It Takes To Keep In Shape, But What Do You Do To Keep Your Prostate In Shape! (0)
• Type of Cancer (0)
• Tumor Markers (0)
• The Lung Cancer Epidemic (0)
• Symptoms Of The Common Cancers (0)

Tags: lung cancer, prostate cancer

I have related the sad but not unusual case story of Gene in Part 1 of this three-part article. What had happened to Gene is what I have been seeing happen all too often. After chemotherapy and radiotherapy the cancer spread to the bone. I have often wondered if the treatments had anything to do with the metastasis. Not much information can be obtained from the medical literature. It appears that such question is not important? Or is it a matter of “natural course of event”? I tend to think otherwise.

Read about radiotherapy in any standard textbook and it is acknowledged that radiation itself can cause cancer. In Gene’s case, it is even acknowledged that the increased uptake of tracer seen in L3, L4 and L5 vertebrae is most likely due to DXT. Medical people use medical terms that may be hard for a layperson to understand. So the information written in a medical report often goes unnoticed or not understood. DXT is medical abbreviation for deep X-ray treatment or radiotherapy and this statement above explicitly implicates the disastrous role of radiotherapy in treating Gene’s breast cancer. It has done much harm.

Are we to believe that Gene is just one rare unfortunate victim. I don’t believe that this is so.

Dr. Richard Evans (in The Cancer Breakthrough You’ve Never Heard Of) wrote: “It is my opinion that adjuvant radiation is used more often than necessary … The long-term risks of radiation therapy have not been completely determined.” John Robbins has to say in his book (Reclaiming Our Health) “Radiation is routinely recommended for cancer patients despite the fact that there is no proven benefit to survival … Although cancer specialists know that very few cancer patients are cured by radiotherapy, they continue to recommend it widely because they consider it to be a relatively harmless procedure.”

In the booklet, Radiation Therapy and You, published by the US National Cancer Institute, the following assurances are given: “Although some normal cells are affected by the radiation, most of them appear to recover more fully from the effects of radiation than the cancer cells. Doctors carefully limit the intensity of the treatment and the area being treated so that the cancer will be affected more than the normal healthy tissues. Radiation therapy is an effective way to treat many kinds of cancer in any part of the body.”

This is the official version of the “goodness” of radiotherapy. Do you believe it? Hear what other doctors have to say about radiotherapy.

John Cairns, a professor at the Harvard University School of Public Health (in Scientific American, November 1985) said: “The majority of cancers cannot be cured by radiation because the dose of X-rays required to kill the cancer cells would also kill the patient.” John Lee et. al. (in What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Breast Cancer) wrote: “Radiation reduces (breast cancer) death by 13.2 percent, it increases death from other causes, mostly heart disease by 21.2 percent. The obvious conclusion is: the treatment was a success but the patient died!”

Dr. Seymour Brenner, a radiologist from Brooklyn, New York, said: “After thirty-nine years, I have see no significant progress … I see millions of people dying in five years … I am tired of watching people come to my office and plead for their lives and I have nothing to offer them.

Dr. Ralph Moss (in The Cancer Industry) wrote: “Radiation therapy appears to be of limited value in the treatment of cancer. There is little controversy over the number of patients being cured by radiotherapy – it is small … Some researchers believe that the use of radiation is not only ineffective but also is possibly harmful … It is part of a disastrous national policy that has always downplayed the hazards of radiation, while promoting its spread to every corner of the country.

Dr. Francisco Contreras, director of the Oasis of Hope Hospital described radiation as an act of desperation. In his book, Health in the 21st Century: Will Doctors Survive? he wrote: “Radiation therapy, in which we placed so much faith a few decades ago, has proven to be another medical blunder. My brother, Dr. Ernesto Contreras Jr., an oncologist and radio-therapist said, after twenty-five years of medical practice, “It is really frustrating … The effectiveness of the treatment against cancer is doubtful. I have treated thousands of patients … and I can’t say that more than fifteen percent of them have positive response to an orthodox treatment.”

For more information about complementary cancer therapy visit: cacare.com cacare.com, NaturalHealingForYou.com NaturalHealingForYou.com, BookOnCancer.com BookOnCancer.com

Related posts

• Do Bacteria Cause Cancer? (0)
• Cancer: Healing the Mind and Soul Besides Going After the Tumor (0)
• Treatments May Fuel Cancer’s Spread? (0)
• Some Oncologists Say Honest Things (0)
• Loosing the Breast Cancer War Part 3 (0)

Tags: breast cancer, cancer patient, chemotherapy, healing, treatment of cancer