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Alisa

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    I am still here . . .

    in NSCLC GROUP

    Posted

    Great news, Gail! I know exactly what you mean. I was diagnosed when my twin sons were in 4th grade and I didn't know if I would live to see them graduate elementary school. I've been so blessed.

    Well, last year they graduated high school and this year they just completed their first year of college.

    My next goal: their college graduation!!

    Whew .... my latest results ....

    in HOPE

    Posted

    Thank you all so much for your responses and well wishes. It is starting to sink in now and I feel like celebrating!!!! I'm at work, but who cares, I feel like dancing ....

    P.S. I'm working on updating my picture. My twins are now 19 years old and I'm lucky enough to be older myself!

    Whew .... my latest results ....

    in HOPE

    Posted

    Hi all. Well, I can breathe for another six months. I just had a combination PET/CT for follow up (I insisted on the combo because it's been a while since I had a PET, I've been getting CT's for the last few years as follow up) and the report was all is good - still considered Cancer Free!

    I feel so blessed again. I hope this gives hope to others. I was diagnosed with Stage 3a nsclc in 2000.

    We kept it simple

    in GRIEF

    Posted

    Aimee, I am so sorry to hear about your Mom. I've been following Suki for so long I feel like I knew her.

    Your simplicity in the obit was straight to the point and beautiful.

    Love,

    Alisa

    I'm trying Alternative Medicine for SCLC and feeling good!

    in GENERAL

    Posted

    Hi Patti! I too see Dr. Raymond Chang and he is unbelievably smart about botanicals/nutruceuticals and lung cancer. Carol H gave you all his information above. He does phone consults (pricey and not covered, but his in person visits can be submitted to your ins. co. if you have out of network coverage). He is worth every penny.

    By the way, more and more states are passing the medicial marijuana law. There's a lot of studies on THC and shrinking tumors, but unfortunately the average marijuana has too many carcinigens so people need to be very careful.

    Private Message me anytime you care to talk ....

    FYI - Article re: Vit. C and cancer

    in LUNG CANCER IN THE NEWS

    Posted

    Public release date: 5-Mar-2009

    [ Print Article | E-mail Article | Close Window ]

    Contact: Amy Gleason Quarshie

    agleason@liebertpub.com

    914-740-2149

    Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

    Support for adjunctive vitamin C treatment in cancer

    New Rochelle, NY, March 5, 2009—Serious flaws in a recent study, which concluded that high doses of vitamin C reduce the effectiveness of chemotherapeutic drugs in the treatment of cancer, are revealed in the current issue of Alternative and Complementary Therapies, a journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). This report is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/act

    In the Medical Journal Watch column of the latest issue, Jack Challem, a personal nutrition coach and nutrition author from Tucson, Arizona, and a regular contributor to the Journal, challenges the findings of a study published in Cancer Research (2008;68:8031-8038), in which the authors conclude that vitamin C given to mice or cultured cells treated with common anti-cancer drugs reduces the antitumor effects of the chemotherapeutic agents.

    Challem points out two main problems with the study: the oxidized form of vitamin C (dehydroascorbic acid) and not actual vitamin C (ascorbic acid) was used; and in the mouse experiments, the animals were given toxic doses of dehydroascorbic acid, a compound that is not used as a dietary supplement in humans.

    "This study and the subsequent headlines [it generated] were a grievous disservice to physicians and patients with cancer," says Challem. He adds that "considerable positive research…has shown striking benefits from high-dose vitamin C (ascorbic acid) in cancer cells and animals—and in actual human beings."

    High-dose intravenous vitamin C is a common form of alternative and complementary therapy for patients receiving chemotherapeutic drugs and is believed to help bring about tumor cell death. In addition, it may promote postsurgical healing by enhancing collagen formation, and increase tissue resistance to tumor spread.

    Challem suggests that, "The ideal therapeutic approach would be to tailor individual treatment, including IV vitamin C, from a menu of options."

    ###

    Interesting Article (Fat impacts cancer spread ...)

    in GENERAL

    Posted

    Sorry, here's a cut and paste:

    Researchers at Purdue University have precisely measured the impact of a high-fat diet on the spread of cancer, finding that excessive dietary fat caused a 300 percent increase in metastasizing tumor cells in laboratory animals.

    The researchers used an imaging technique to document how increasing fat content causes cancer cells to undergo changes essential to metastasis. Then they used another technique to count the number of cancer cells in the bloodstream of mice fed a high-fat diet compared to animals fed a lean diet.

    The findings suggest that the combined tools represent a possible new diagnostic technique to determine whether a patient's cancer is spreading, said Ji-Xin Cheng, an assistant professor in Purdue's Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Chemistry.

    "It is generally accepted that diet and obesity are accountable for 30 percent of preventable causes of cancer, but nobody really knows why," Cheng said. "These findings demonstrate that an increase in lipids leads directly to a rise in cancer metastasis."

    Researchers have theorized that tumor cells need more lipids than ordinary tissues to provide energy and material for tumor growth and metastasis.

    "Before this work, however, most of the evidence was anecdotal, but here we present a mechanistic study," said Thuc T. Le, a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow at Purdue who is working with Cheng.

    Findings were detailed in a paper published on Jan. 30 in the journal BMC Cancer. The paper was written by Le; Terry B. Huff, a graduate research assistant in Purdue's Department of Chemistry; and Cheng. The research is supported by the Purdue Cancer Center.

    The researchers implanted a cancerous lung tumor under the skin in each of the mice studied, and the animals were separated into two groups: one fed a high-fat diet and the other a lean diet.

    The researchers then used an imaging method called coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering, or CARS, to document how increasing lipids from fat intake induces changes to cancer cell membranes. Those changes, including processes called membrane phase separation and membrane rounding, enhance cancer metastasis.

    "If the cancer cells don't have excess lipids they stick together and form very tight junctions in tumors, but increasing lipids causes them to take on a rounded shape and separate from each other," Le said.

    The change in shape is critical to the ability of cancer cells to separate and spread throughout the body via the bloodstream.

    The researchers then used another technique, called intravital flow cytometry, to count the number of cancer cells in the bloodstream of the mice. The technique works by shining a laser though the skin and into blood vessels, where the dyed cancer cells are visible.

    Results showed the increase in lipids had no impact on the original tumors implanted in the mice. However, the rate of metastasis rose a dramatic 300 percent in the mice fed a high-fat diet.

    The researchers later also examined the animals' lungs and counted the number of cancer cells that had migrated to the lungs as a result of metastasis. Those findings supported the other results showing increased metastasis in animals fed a high-fat diet.

    The researches used the imaging and cell-counting tools to document that linoleic acid, which is predominant in polyunsaturated fats, caused increasing membrane phase separation, whereas oleic acid, found in monounsaturated fats, did not. Increased membrane phase separation could improve the opportunity of circulating tumor cells to adhere to blood vessel walls and escape to organs far from the original tumor site. The new findings support earlier evidence from other research that consuming high amounts of polyunsaturated fat may increase the risk of cancer spreading.

    The findings suggest that combining CARS and intravital flow cytometry represents a possible new diagnostic tool to screen patients for cancer. The tool can be used to count lipid-rich tumor cells circulating in a patient's blood by shining a laser through the skin and into blood vessels. Because lipids can be detected without the need for dyes, the technique might be developed into a convenient method to diagnose whether a patient's cancer is spreading aggressively, Cheng said.

    "These findings open the possibility of an entirely new, relatively simple method for diagnosing whether cancer is metastasizing," he said.

    Future work will focus on not only how obesity increases metastasis but also how it might play a direct role in initiating the development of cancers.

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