50% chance of prostate cancer?
My Husband is 72 he was diagnosed with prostate cancer 5 years ago and decided to do nothing about other than have monthly tests. He had the choice to have it removed. In January this year he became very ill and was rushed into hospital with acute renal failure. He was in and out of hospital for the next 5 months and in late June they removed his kidney, bladder, prostrate and lymp nodes all with stage 3 to 4 cancer. I'm pleased to say he is a survivor but just goes to show what could happen if your dad leaves it.
What are the reasons for some cancers being harder to treat than other types? e.g. (Pancreatic cancer and small cell lungcancer etc.)
There are good cancers and there are bad cancers!Cancer is basically one of our cell (organ) becoming selfish and not caring for the rest of the body! Cancer is caused by many reasons but in all there is a DNA defect.Good cancers are breast, thyroid, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, prostate, colon and in all of these we still need to have the cancer caught in the early stage.Bad cancers are lung, liver, pancreas, acute myeloid leukemia, gliobalstoma (brain tumor).One of the reasons bad cancers are bad is because they are in large organs and by the time they are diagnosed it is usually late. That is they would have spread to other parts. Stage 4 cancer, that is cancer which has spread is always difficult to treat and has poor prognosis.Why should a cancer which is diagnosed late be difficult to treat?Not just because they have metastases but also because they have more bad mutations accumulated in them , making it difficult to eliminate them.Having said that patients with breast and prostate cancer metastases , 10% of them can survive for 10 years! The reason being these are hormone dependent cancers and if you cut off the supply of hormone , the growth of the cancer cell is halted.So coming back to the question why pancreatic cancer is difficult?Pancreatic cancer evolves in a tough environment. Cancer cells which have to grow in difficult environment have more resistance to treatment and also to immune surveillance. Those who grow in tough environment with adverse conditions survive tougher conditions better. Pancreatic cancer grows accumulating mutations which help it survive any attack. Also it grows evading detection by immune cells.Similar are poorly differentiated cancers and glioblastoma.Cancer evolution happens based on the number of times cell divides. So repeated cell injury, repair and chronic inflammation increase risk of cancer in general.We are now trying to see how best we can detect these difficult cancers at an early stage. This is the next frontier for us to crack.
Which cancer diagnoses are the hardest to treat?
Pancreas and lung cancer.
Why is advanced cancer so hard to treat?
I know these cancers can still be treated, but for many, the treatment is strictly palliative and not curative or controlling. why is it that advanced cancers are so hard to control and uncurable? do they become resistant to therapies as they develop? do they undergoe changes at the micrscopic level that causes them to become unresponsive to treatment? I wish we had some kind of answers to these questions, advanced cancer has wrecked my life by stealing my mother from this world, and robbing her quality of life in the months she had left before she passed away. I know the key to cancer treatment is to catch it early, but many cancers are asymptomatic until they are in advanced stages and too late to do anything in terms of curative approaches. I hope some day there will be an effective treatment that can at least control growth in these advanced cancers, and then I hope to see a cure to these cancers. Noone should have to suffer such unholy suffering.
Why does breast cancer get so much more attention than prostate cancer, even though they affect comparable numbers of people?
In the 1970s and earlier, cancer was not discussed much, and breasts were still not as used in marketing to the extent they are today. Mastectomies were much more disfiguring, and women didn't admit to them. In the 1980s, charities like Susan G Komen were born, and the idea of cause marketing began. Breasts have been used to sell everything, from cars to hamburgers, and are also used to encourage people to donate to charities. Unfortunately, the marketing done by Komen and others have led to a lot of misinformation about breast cancer. In the past 30 years, science has made great strides in the understanding of both breast and prostate cancer, but the pink charities have not changed their marketing information, leading to misunderstanding. We now know that in many cases, finding breast cancer early does not prevent a metastasis-in fact, 90-96% of women who have had a metastatic spread were first diagnosed early stage (including me). The pink charities have also created hysteria surrounding breast cancer-like with prostate, there is a slow-growing, potentially harmless form of disease called DCIS that may never spread. It is not considered cancer, but a pre-cancer. And yet, women routinely have double-mastectomies for something that may never have hurt them. The watch and wait that men do for prostate cancer may be appropriate for DCIS, but is not being done. The success of the pink charities has led to the "fame" of breast cancer over other types, including prostate, and yet that has not been the blessing for breast cancer one might think. Komen only gives about 17% of their money to research-the rest goes to awareness, aka education. In the 1980s, we thought early detection was the way to stop breast cancer but we know better now yet the messaging hasn't changed. Research over awareness is what will solve the problems of all cancers.
If you have colon cancer and leave it untreated, how long will you last?
Really poor prognosis. Usually by the time it is caught, it has metastesized which is a really bad sign. If not, they can just remove the colon w a colectomy.
Why is there so much attention to breast cancer awareness/treatment but very little to lung cancer? More people die from lung cancer than breast cancer, colon cancer and prostate cancer combined.
Money. In the health industry, it’s all about how makes what money and the most powerful side wins. So Big Pharma are very powerful and have lobbied governments to have laws changed in their favour and healthcare structured to support only their medicines. Big Pharma have done everything they can to ensure that anyone that stops them from making money is silenced, banned or locked away (e.g. alternative health).But with lung cancer, Big Pharma meets its match with Big Tobacco. It would seem that the tobacco industry have managed to suppress awareness of lung cancer because it harms their profits. Hence much more public information and charities supporting breast cancer, colon cancer, etc since there are no powerful vested interested parties trying to suppress awareness.
Do I have symptoms of Colon Cancer?
I had colon cancer and I am in my 40's. I had no sign except for one night I saw blood in my stool (I was on a blood thinner for a blood clot in my let. It was the firt time I saw blood and went to the ER for it. They didn't think it was anything and they (dr) were all stocked I had stage 1 cancer. I was constipated all the time too, just went little nuggets. Please have it checked. Please read below. Common symptom of colorectal cancer is a change in bowel habits. Symptoms include: Having diarrhea or constipation Feeling that your bowel does not empty completely Finding blood (either bright red or very dark) in your stool Finding your stools are narrower than usual Frequently having gas pains or cramps, or feeling full or bloated Losing weight with no known reason Feeling very tired all the time Having nausea or vomiting Most often, these symptoms are not due to cancer. Other health problems can cause the same symptoms. Anyone with these symptoms should see a doctor to be diagnosed and treated as early as possible. Usually, early cancer does not cause pain. It is important not to wait to feel pain before seeing a doctor. < Previous Section | Next Section > I had colon cancer and only saw blood one night and went to the hospital with no other sign. Stage 1 colon cancer. All removed and taken care of. Cancer does not recognise anyone's age, please have it check out.l This information about is from the National Cancer Institute, very helpful sight. Source(s): http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/wyntk...