Brain Cancer - Symptoms of Brain Cancer

By Corwin Brown

Brain cancer is a disease of the brain where cancer cells (malignant) grow in the brain tissue. Cancer cells grow to form a mass of cancer tissue (tumor) that interferes with brain tissue functions such as muscle control, sensation, memory, and other normal body functions. Tumors composed of cancer cells are called malignant tumors, and those composed of noncancerous cells are called benign tumors. Cancer cells that develop from brain tissue are called primary brain tumors. Statistics suggest that brain cancer is not rare and is likely to develop in about 20,000 people per year.

There are two main types of brain cancer. Primary brain cancer starts in the brain. Metastatic brain cancer starts somewhere else in the body and moves to the brain. Brain tumors can be benign, with no cancer cells, or malignant, with cancer cells that grow quickly.

Primary brain cancer rarely spreads beyond the central nervous system, and death results from uncontrolled tumor growth within the limited space of the skull. Metastatic brain cancer indicates advanced disease and has a poor prognosis.

Metastatic brain tumors are made of cancerous cells from a tumor elsewhere in the body. The cells spread to the brain from another tumor in a process called metastasis. About 25% of tumors elsewhere in the body metastasize to the brain.

Symptoms of Brain Cancer

Brain tumors can damage vital neurological pathways and invade and compress brain tissue. Symptoms usually develop over time and their characteristics depend on the location and size of the tumor.

Cancers are typically painless at first. As they grow, the first symptom is often a mild discomfort, which may steadily worsen into increasingly severe pain as the cancer enlarges. The pain may result from the cancer compressing or eroding into nerves or other structures.

The symptoms are caused by the tumor pressing on or encroaching on other parts of your brain and keeping them from functioning normally.

A sign is also an indication that something is not right in the body. But signs are defined as things that can be seen by a doctor, nurse, or other health care professional. Fever, rapid breathing rate, and abnormal breathing sounds heard through a stethoscope may be signs of pneumonia.

As the skull is made of bone, there is a fixed amount of space for the brain to take up. The growing tumor increases the pressure inside this fixed space. This is called 'raised intracranial pressure'.

Motion sickness is a very common disturbance of the inner ear that is caused by repeated motion such as from the swell of the sea, the movement of a car, the motion of a plane in turbulent air, etc. In the inner ear (which is also called the labyrinth), motion sickness affects the sense of balance and equilibrium and, hence, the sense of spatial orientation.

Brain tumors can often present different symptoms depending on the location of the tumor. There are general brain tumor symptoms that need to be checked out by a doctor if they are experienced.

Fits are one of the commonest symptoms of brain tumors. About 1 in 4 people with a brain tumor first go to their doctor because they have had a fit. A fit can just be jerking or twitching of a hand, arm or leg.

At the late stages of the disorder, dramatic changes in blood pressure may occur. Seizures are a common symptom of benign brain tumors and slow-growing cancers. Tumors can cause a part of the body to weaken or feel paralyzed. Hearing, sight and the sense of smell can be affected.

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Vomiting of Blood in Esophageal Cancer

By David Hensley

Vomiting of blood is called as hematemesis in medical terms. Vomiting of blood could be because of any major or minor health problems. The blood found in vomit can be in minimal amounts or in larger amounts. Vomiting of blood can be caused by peptic ulcer, stomach cancer, disease and due to anti inflammatory nonsteroidal ulcers and drugs. Other causes for blood in vomit might be due to esophageal varices, Mallory weiss tear, hereditary telangiectasia and gastritis. Some medicines prescribed for curing vomiting blood includes ranitidine, tagamet, cimetidine and zantac.

Vomiting of blood in disease is considered as a main symptom. Esophageal cancers are developed in the lining of the cell wall due to extensive use of tobacco, alcohol, infections of certain kind, disorders and various other types of cancers and exhibit typical symptoms including weight loss, swallowing difficulty and pain. The diagnosis of disease is based on the findings of endoscopy. Almost all types of esophageal cancers tend to be fatal as they are only found in the advanced stages. Chemotherapy, surgery and other types of therapies might help in relieving the symptoms like vomiting of blood in esophageal cancer.

The disease can be developed in any place of the esophagus and can narrow the esophagus tube as flat plaques or lumps or as fistula or abnormal connection between the airways which supply air to the lungs and esophagus. Apart from the normal types (adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma), rare esophageal types include esophagus's smooth muscle cancer or leiomyosarcomas and cancer which spreads from and to anywhere of the body called metastatic cancer.

Nearly fifty thousand people are affected by disease every year and the number is raising day by day and is found more in men than in women. Studies have revealed the fact that adenocarcinoma is found commonly among white skinned people and squamous cell carcinoma among black skinned people. People already suffering from esophageal disorders like esophageal webs or plummer Vinson syndrome, achalasia or strictures because of swallowing corrosive food stuff like lye might also develop esophageal cancer. Repeated backflow of acid in to the stomach called as gastroesophageal reflux can cause prolonged irritation and also a precancerous health condition known as barrett's esophagus. Even though the development of disease from barrett's esophagus was rare, it is now becoming prevalent.

Early symptoms and stages of disease can go unnoticed as they might be misunderstood for throat infection or irritation of a normal kind. After some time even swallowing of soft food items can become difficult and then even saliva and liquid swallowing would become hard. This is the main reason for weight loss as sufferers might not be eating good quantities of food. Some might even get chest pain. Spreading of cancerous cells to the intestines might result in vomiting of blood and stools with blood.

Natural Remedies:

There are certain natural remedies that offer a promising cure for esophageal cancer. Along with the natural remedies and a well-researched different diet pattern, a few simple adjustments to your lifestyle can make a huge difference to your efforts for prolonging the life for several years.

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Blood Test For Breast Cancer

By Abdullah Salim

Breast Cancer: Some Statistics
Every year, over 1.1 million women worldwide receive the unwelcome diagnosis of breast cancer, a figure which has virtually doubled since 1975 and appears to be likely to increase in the foreseeable future. In the Unites States, breast cancer is the second most common form of cancer (preceded only by skin cancer), affecting 250,000 women annually. It is the second most common cause of cancer death, accounting for 40,170 deaths each year - only deaths from lung cancer are more common in the US population. It undoubtedly constitutes a most pressing public health priority and, with epidemiological data like this, many have argued that universal breast cancer screening for all women at least annually should be the norm. However, on closer inspection, this may not be the best or the safest means of preventing the disease.

The Disadvantages of Mammograms
This may seem like a rather callous assertion, and anyone who has received successful treatment for cancer after a mammogram-detected tissue abnormality is likely to think it bizarre, but the fact of the matter is that mammograms themselves are neither wholly reliable nor risk free, and may be especially risky for women who have a higher risk of developing the disease due to genetic factors. Frequently, an ambiguous result emerges suggesting a 'probably benign' lesion, an outcome which places both physician and patient in a real quandary. Such patients are often referred for repeat mammographies. Mammograms also are prone to produce both false positives (causing unnecessary distress and alarm) and false negatives (with an even worse predicament for the patient who believes that they are healthy when, indeed, they may not be).

Mammograms use ionizing radiation to detect tissue changes in the breast which physical examination alone would not be able to find; that is their strength and also their weakness. For example, one study has suggested that some women with a genetic predisposition for breast cancer who are subjected to quite low doses of ionizing radiation during mammogram screening may be significantly more at risk of developing cancer as a result. Young women aged between 25 and 29 who carried a variant of the BRCA gene (which mutates its normal function and predisposes the bearers of the gene to breast cancer) were found to receive no benefit from mammography but an increased risk of setting the illness off.

This was a mathematical modeling study but other physicians share the concerns about the indiscriminate use of mammograms as a screening instrument, with one specialist claiming that as many 75% of cases of breast cancer could be prevented by reducing or wholly avoiding mammography and X-rays amongst women vulnerable to the illness. Clearly, if a means could be devised which permitted accurate early diagnosis of breast cancer with none of the harmful effects of ionizing radiation, it would be a most welcome and valuable development in the fight against this dreadful disease.

A Diagnostic Alternative
Thankfully, such a means appears to be on the very brink of being available on a widespread scale. It replaces mammography with a blood test. Specifically, the test seeks traces of certain proteins (tumor antigens) in the blood. These proteins are uniquely correlated with specific types of breast cancer. The new test may well prove to be considerably more reliable than mammography, promising to detect cancerous tissue changes at the very earliest stages, when treatment is most likely to be effective. Any elevation of these blood markers above normal concentrations is likely to be a sign that early changes are underway, and the test appears to be highly sensitive in detecting these alterations in blood biochemistry. Researchers who are developing the test are optimistic that it will detect cellular abnormalities significantly earlier than mammograms, by sensing miniscule shifts in cancer protein marker levels.

The test is known as 'BC-SeraPro' and is already yielding impressive results in clinical trials, showing a 95% success rate. To be precise, it measures the presence of no less than 22 tumor antigens (or 'biomarkers') in serum, providing a reliable differentiation between breast cancer sufferers and healthy patients. Developed and evaluated by Power3 Medical Laboratories, the test appears to be highly accurate, safe and non-invasive. By contrast, women usually find mammograms painful and uncomfortable, as the procedure necessarily involves squeezing and flattening the breast in order to obtain a clear image; more body conscious individuals also find exposing the breast an awkward and embarrassing ritual. The blood test clearly dispenses with these problems and totally protects women from exposure to potentially harmful ionizing radiation. It is expected that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will approve the test for use during the early part of 2010, after which it should quickly become available to the general public.

A closely allied test, developed by Provista Life Sciences, is already available and is known as the Biomarker Translation Test (or BT Test for short). Similar to Power3's BC-SeraPro, it detects multiple serum-based biomarkers for breast cancer in blood samples. Used in conjunction with a medical profile of the patient, the individual test result is analyzed by a proprietary data analysis procedure which produces a score (known as the BT Score) which accurately indicates the presence or absence of breast cancer. Presently, the results suggest that the test is somewhere in the vicinity of 80% accurate, and efforts to improve this accuracy rate are currently ongoing.

Is This a Significant Step Forward in the Fight Against Breast Cancer?
Designed originally simply to be another 'tool in the physician's box' to complement prevailing imaging techniques, the test is promising to become a major new diagnostic asset. It may be a little too early to say at this point - the BT Test is available in 41 States, in 27 of which the test can be sent directly to consumers without physician prescription - but these new blood tests for breast cancer may prove to be a substantial asset in the ongoing battle to beat this terrible, distressing and all-too-often tragic illness.

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Blood Test For Cancer - AMAS - The New Cancer Test For Early Screening Nips Cancer in the Bud

By Andy Kahn

For a healthy and long life threatening diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart diseases have to be prevented or treated effectively. Risk of developing such diseases can be reduced by taking upstream measures ( i.e.) take corrective action well before the disease strikes.

Cancer is one such life threatening disease. Even if effectively treated it can severely reduce the quality of life and impose severe costs. Periodic testing for cancer has to be done at least once a year for all those who are above 30 years of age. This may seem too early but alarmingly cancer seems to strike young now. Not only cancer the other so called old man's diseases like diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, Type 2 diabetes (diabetes strike even those in their teens now) seem to strike those in their twenties and thirties increasingly.

Traditional cancer testing includes CAT scan (computerized axial tomography), physical exam, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), X rays and biopsies. There are also tests that are designed to detect specific type of cancer like mammography for breast cancer, PAP smear for cervical cancer, bone scans for bone cancer and PSA test for prostate cancer. While the above are conventional tests that detect whether a person has cancer these are of limited use when it comes to taking early upstream prevention steps. There are other tests that help do this.

AMAS test: This stand for Anti Malignin Antibody Scan. Just as our body produces antibodies when it fights against external infections it also produce a type of antibodies when it fights against cancer cells. Anti malignin is the antibody that acts against the inner protein of the cancer cell called malignin. When these antibodies have the upper hand the cancer remains benign or harmless. When these antibodies are not able to kill the cancer cells it becomes malignant form of cancer. The very fact that anti malignin antibody is present in the body indicates that there is a likelihood of some type of cancer formation in due course. Thus by screening for Anti Malignant Antibodies susceptibility to cancer can be determined well in advance and preventive steps taken.

AMAS test is a simple non invasive test which needs only your blood sample. Reliability of AMAS test is as much a 99% and is far less expensive. AMAS can screen for cancer in any location. If you are contemplating any preventive steps against cancer talk to your doctor about AMAS test and get it done. It can save a lot of pain, money and even life.

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