Health News and Information » Cancer

CHARLIE’S STORY – PART

admin — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:48:18 +0000

1Liz contacted me after reading some of my research on the Internet. Her story is heartbreaking. It is a personal account of the horrors of exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals in utero. In her son’s case, it was the use of a type of synthetic progestin. Although, this book is exploring ways to protect our daughters, it is important to realize that all children, males and females are at grave risk. As a tribute to tremendous courage of Liz and her son Charlie and the devotion of their family, I have included story in honor of Charlie.After a miscarriage, Liz was determined to follow her doctor’s guidance to ensure that this pregnancy would be a healthy one. After a series of tests, the doctor reported that she was low in progesterone, which probably accounted for the previous miscarriage. Wanting desperately to have this baby and, totally trusting her doctor, she agreed to weekly intramuscular injections with a progesterone called 17-hydoxy-progesterone caproate during her entire first trimester. When she asked if there were any side-effects, the reply was “Absolutely none. This is the natural progesterone hormone that your body creates.”When her baby son, Charlie, was presented to her after her Caesarian birth, she learned the terrible truth. Charlie was born with a rare birth defect called bladder exstrophy. In bladder exstrophy, the abdominal wall, having never fused together, is opened and the bladder is presented on the outside of the body as a small red mass. Bladder exstrophy occurs during the first trimester when, during the development of the embryo, something goes wrong and results in the failure of the formation of the bladder and lower part of the abdominal wall. The penis is undersized and malformed. The urethra does not form completely and the opening of the penis is on the top rather than the end, which is a condition, called epispadias. Bladder Exstrophy is one of the worse forms f the epispadias defect.*36/165/1*

CANCER: TUMOUR SUPPRESSOR GENES

admin — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 12:17:26 +0000

Tumour suppressor genes, which determine the development of a cancer in some circumstances, have been discovered more recently than oncogenes. It appears that there are within cells many control elements designed to suppress the development of a cancer. They work by acting as negative controls on the process of cell proliferation and the name ‘tumour suppressor gene’ is probably the best one, although they are frequently referred to as anti-oncogenes. Tumour suppressor genes are harder to study than oncogenes simply because they act as suppressors. When they are doing their work, mere are no cancerous changes to study. A tumour suppressor gene has to be deleted from a cancer cell before the cancer pattern can emerge. Examples of tumour suppressor genes are still relatively few but many more probably remain to be discovered. The best known is a gene that suppresses the development of a rare kind of cancer called retinoblastoma which develops in the eyes of children. This is one of the few cancers that clearly runs in families and it does so because abnormal versions of a particular tumour suppressor gene are inherited from parents by their children. The normal cell contains two copies of the tumour suppressor gene and inheriting a single non-functioning copy from parents is not enough to cause the cancer. The other gene has to be inactivated by a process that occurs after the birth of a child. When both copies are inactive, the cancer develops. In the development of commoner cancers it is unusual for inheritance of an abnormal tumour suppressor gene to be the important mechanism and it is probable that several events must occur after birth before the tumour suppressor genes are fully inactivated. Although these genes were initially discovered as a result of studies carried out in inherited cancers, we now believe that abnormalities in these genes can occur without any inheritance from parents.
The most important tumour suppressor gene known to us so far is probably one called P53, discovered by Professor David Lane at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London. It is the gene which is most commonly found to be abnormal in any cancer.
*10\194\4*

WHEN DIAGNOSIS CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM TREATMENT – CONCLUSION

admin — Mon, 18 May 2009 06:59:45 +0000

Remember, any person, including one facing emergency surgery, still has a right to know beforehand what is likely to be found and how the surgeon will probably want to deal with it. Any person also has a right to set limits on what he or she will permit. We discussed this earlier in this chapter. For example, the emergency patient described above may not wish to have a colostomy (bowel emptying through an opening on the abdominal wall). He or she has the right to refuse a colostomy and also the right to know what could happen because of such a refusal. Refusal may not create a problem if the surgeon can relieve the obstruction by some other means, such as removing or bypassing the blocked section of bowel. However, if this is not possible, the person’s refusal to have a colostomy could mean his or her death within a few days of the operation. Knowing this, he or she is still entitled to refuse a colostomy. No surgeon has the right to override an adult patient’s refusal to agree to any procedure, even though that procedure could be temporarily life saving. You know what’s best for you. You know what you can and can’t handle. You may know that you would rather die than have some drastic temporarily life saving treatment. Hold on to what is right for you.

*235/40/1*

WHEN DIAGNOSIS CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM TREATMENT – INTRODUCTION

admin — Mon, 18 May 2009 06:59:17 +0000

There are some cases when all efforts to make a pre-operative diagnosis are either unsuccessful or prevented by the urgency of the situation. Here is an example of the first type of situation. A person has had persistent abdominal pain and weight loss, for which no cause can be found on clinical examination and extensive tests. Cancer is suspected but cannot be proved. An exploratory operation may be recommended. In this case the person must either be prepared to have two major abdominal operations within a few days of each other, or agree to the surgeon immediately performing whatever operation seems best once the diagnosis is made. Fortunately, it is rarely so difficult to make a diagnosis. If such an exploratory operation is recommended to you I suggest that you ask for a second opinion before agreeing to it. Another doctor may be able to think of a way of making the diagnosis without operating.

*233/40/1*