All over the news are the following words this weekend by Patrick Swayze that is hopeful:

“…a miracle, dude.”

I don’t know why. I am juicing every day along with other treatments and all I can say is that it’s working fine and really well.”

The actor, according to reports has been undergoing chemotherapy and the new CyberKnife (robotic radiosurgery system) for the pancreatic cancer he was diagnosed with in March.

It’s really inspiring to see him up and about and getting back to work.  Like I said in my previous post, not everyone that has access and can afford the best treatments are as lucky to be responding wel

Post from: Blisstree

Time For Some Good Cancer Story News: Patrick Swayze

Starving healthy cells helps to differentiate them from tumor cells, a trick that could make cancer treatments more effective.

The new finding may pave the way for higher and more frequent chemo doses that better shrink tumors without harming normal cells.

Any thoughts on the matter? I’d like to hear them.

Find more details from Scientific American.

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Fasting Before Chemotherapy, Beneficial to Cancer Patients

Previously popular treatments – i.e. big-dose chemotherapy – apparently are of no help against breast cancer.

Such were the findings recently reported by a group of Houston researchers.

A grueling and controversial breast cancer treatment that was popular in the late 1980s and the 1990s does not extend the lives of patients in advanced stages of the disease

In releasing their report on a review of existing studies, the researchers said women who received high-dose chemotherapy, followed by transplants from their own bone marrow, fared no better than patients on other therapies.

Donald Berry, head of quantitative studies at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and the review’s lead investigator, said:

“This shows more is not necessarily better. We’re still in the dark ages at recognizing who benefits from which treatment, but we’ve seemed to reach a plateau delivering chemotherapy.”

Oh my God! I wonder how many women have been treated with big-dose chemo in the past for breast cancer?

Find more details from the full report.

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Big Update: Big-dose Chemo, No help in Breast Cancer

Although I know one person in this world (my best friend) who was quite comfortable wearing a shaved head at one time in her life (not because of chemotherapy, she just decided that shaved is the in thing and got away with it), most women wouldn’t be as comfortable with a shaved head or an almost-shaved head, even as a consequence of cancer treatments.

Some cancer patients though, in time have learned to love having less hair, and some look good with it as well.

But if you are one of those who wouldn’t be caught dead in public without your crowning glory, wearing bandannas or wigs are the only solutions (as opposed to not going out at all!).
Somebody (a reader, I think) pointed me to COUTURE FOR CANCER™ – a non-profit organization that donates custom made non-surgical hair replacement systems completely free of charge, to any person suffering hair loss due to cancer and chemotherapy treatments.

For free! I wonder if there is no hitch?

Anyway, you can check out their website www.coutureforcancer.org if you are interested and then tell us if the manes are really free of charge for cancer patients.

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Made-to-Order Manes from COUTURE FOR CANCER™

Such were the findings of the meta-analysis of 5 trials involving more than 13,000 women with operable breast cancer, recently reported at the ESMO Conference Lugano by Issa Dahabreh from University of Athens:

The results showed that combining trastuzumab with chemotherapy results in a -34% reduction in mortality and a 38% increase in disease-free survival. Those survival benefits were accompanied by decreases in the risk of both locoregional and distant recurrences of the cancer.

Taken together, these results confirm that the administration of trastuzumab in combination with chemotherapy should be the standard choice for the treatment of women with HER2 positive early stage disease, especially those with limited cardiovascular comorbidities.”

Trastuzumab is a monoclonal antibody directly targeting part of the HER2 tyrosine kinase receptor.

Read the full report.

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Trastuzumab + Chemotherapy = Improved Breast Cancer Survival

Preoperative chemotherapy reduced chemo-related infections by 4 percent and the need for mastectomies by 17 percent when compared to postoperative chemotherapy.

The said review was led by Sven Mieog, M.D., of Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands.

As rationalized by the experts, the advantages of preoperative chemotherapy are:

• tumors are already shrunk before surgery
• allows the doctors to see if a tumor is resistant to a particular drug and can already adjust the dose or switch to another drug after surgery
• increased breast conservation rate

Although the survival rates in both groups (preoperative and postoperative chemotherapy groups) were not affected, the data from this review revealed a higher recurrence rate in women who had chemotherapy before surgery while chemotherapy side effects (i.e. nausea, hair loss, etc.) were found similar in both groups.

Furthermore, no detectable significant difference in the overall survival rates in both groups.

That been itemized…now I’m wondering whether there really is a big advantage of preoperative chemotherapy over postoperative chemotherapy. I guess aside from breast conservation?

The said review appears in the current issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration.

Find more details from the full report.

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Is Preoperative Chemotherapy More Effective in Breast Cancer Patients?

In patients with stage IIIA non-small-cell lung cancer, radiation may be a better option than surgery after an initial chemotherapy treatment – according to a randomized controlled trial conducted by Jan van Meerbeeck, M.D., Ph.D., of the University Hospital of Ghent in Belgium, and colleagues from the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC).

The researchers found that surgery, compared to radiation, did not improve survival after treatment with chemotherapy.

…radiation was the preferred treatment because of its lower rate of complications and mortality in lung cancer patients.

Surgery and chemotherapy has been previously found to be superior to chemotherapy alone in this particular patient population (stage IIIA NSCLC patients) – the main reason why such combination is routinely used by cancer centers in their treatment strategy.

Now, this study’s findings are telling oncologists and physicians the opposite of what they hypothesized about.

Findings are reported in the March 21 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Read the full report.

[article abstract]

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Chemo+Radiation is Better than Chemo+Surgery in Some Lung Cancer Patients

Such finding has been reported by Michele Corsini, M.D., a radiation oncology resident in Rochester and the study’s lead author, at the recent 2007 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

• in patients who received concurrent radiation and chemotherapy following surgery: 50 percent survived two years and 28 percent surviving at least five years.
• in patients who did not receive additional therapy after surgery: 39% survived two years and 17 percent survived five years.

Currently, Mayo Clinic is using a treatment strategy for most patients that include a combination of radiation and chemotherapy after surgery.

Find more details from the press release.

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Adjuvant Therapy After Surgery Improved Survival Rates in Pancreatic Cancer Patients

We all know that chemotherapy is debilitating in itself and how a patient reacts to it varies:

…on some occasions, chemotherapy can cause permanent changes or damage to the heart, lungs, nerves, kidneys, reproductive or other organs. And certain types of chemotherapy may have delayed effects, such as a second cancer, that show up many years later.

The National Cancer Institite clearly illustrates point by point the following chemotheraphy side efftects:

Fatigue, pain, hair loss, anemia, central nervous system problems, infections, blood-clotting problems, mouth, gum and throat problems, diarrhea, constipation, nerve and muscle effects, skin and nail problems, radiation recall, kidney and bladder effects, flu-like symptoms, fluid retention, effects on sexual organs and changes on feelings on sexuality.

Though I never knew anybody personally who underwent (or is undergoing) chemotherapy, it must really be an ORDEAL.

Going through the list of side effects and I am already thinking in the lines of: You call that treatment? by giving you a whole bunch of many other ailments all at the same time?

That’s no treatment. Another friend thought exactly when we were discussing the issue.

Therefore (answering the question above), IMHO (knock on wood, nobody wants to be slapped with the big C in the face at any point in their life time)…BUT If I had to face it at a time when I’ve lived my life, I’ll just spend the rest of my remaining time in the world doing what I haven’t done yet and just spend time with those that I love.

No qualms, no sulking, no pain, no expenses.

I’d just be happier at the thought that I have  been warned that my time is nearly up so I’d better get my act together before time runs out.  Pardon the morbid thoughts but I really think that that’s a LOT better than just dying without being sort of warned. He he.

But I guess facing the big C earlier in life is whole lot of a different story…

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To Chemo or Not to Chemo?: A Hypothetical Question

Chemotherapy usually lasts for 12 months. In this new treatment regimen, radiation therapy is tailored to the severity of the disease and is then followed by a shorter course of chemotherapy. Stem cells are taken from a child (the patient) before chemotherapy and then implanted back after each round of chemotherapy, making the shorter course possible because the process essentially allowed the child’s body to recover from the damage caused by chemotherapy before the next round begins.

According to Dr. Amar Gajjar of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis and lead researcher of the study:

“Our research focused on understanding the biology of medulloblastoma. We now need to develop a biological system of staging that works in conjunction with the current clinical staging system, to further refine treatment for this disease.

This approach should be feasible in most pediatric oncology units at academic medical centers, but meticulous staging and careful attention to detail during radiotherapy planning and treatment are essential to obtaining similar outcomes.

However, other experts do not agree.

This study appeared in the September 7 online edition of The Lancet Oncology.

Read the full report from Health Day and the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital press release.

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Stem Cells Therapy Improved Child Brain Cancer Outcome, But Not All Experts Agrees