brain tumor

[low_delta]

Several years ago, a friend had a brain tumor. It was the kind of (benign) tumor that is something like 95% survivable. He had surgery to remove it. It had grown around some nerves in the side of his head, so he lost hearing in one ear, and slight facial control on one side.

Today on Facebook he posted:

I am at Mayo today with my wife for testing and treatment, my brain tumor has grown aggressively over the past 4 years. I will have MRI's today and a gamma knife treatment tomorrow to try and stop the tumor's growth. I should be home Thursday afternoon with more frequent testing in the future.


Funny, I was just talking about his tumor the other day.

Last week we had a guy over to give us a quote on a new back door. He's done work for us before - really nice guy. He told us that his wife has brain cancer. It's been a year now, so she's doing really well.

Comments

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

I hope he will be ok.

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

Yanno. It was just ten to fifteen years ago that it was discovered that bleach, when it breaks down into its component chemicals causes pancreatic cancer. With the increase in brain tumors/cancers, I wonder if anyone is researching/discovering what it is that causes them?

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Bleach, I'd never heard that.

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

Correction, it is PROSTATE cancer, I mis typed.

[marswalker.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard that about bleach. Interesting.

One of the things I've read - especially about brain cancers - is that the cancers seem in some cases to be caused when a cell undergoes mitosis; the genes may become "tangled" and form a loop, which causes some of the genes that normally aren't so active to go bananas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/24/health/brain-cancers-reveal-novel-genetic-disruption-in-dna.html?_r=0

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

Hmm, so, if treatment with 5-Azacytidine slows the growth, is there something that stops the walls between the loops from dissolving again. I guess what I am saying, is if that cancer drug stops the growth, does that then take care of the cancer? I am glad to see they are testing with other cancers.

I think the reason that bleach WAS considered safe is that it breaks down quickly, and it is no longer bleach any more. This assumption that once a chemical is no longer that chemical, it becomes harmless has always bothered me in man made chemistry. We test the toxicity of the chemical, but not the altered generations.

[marswalker.livejournal.com]

Generally there are two kinds of cells - stem cells and daughters. When a daughter cell gets corrupted and becomes cancer, it can divide a few times, but generally gets dead-ended. If a stem cell gets corrupted, it creates a large mass, some of which are stem cells and some of which are daughters. when the stem cells "break off" it's called "metastases" or metastatic. Those are the ones that go into other organs. By the time they detect a metastatic condition, it's usually way to late to do anything "local" like surgery; sure, you could get the main one and some of the larger metastases, but there are likely thousands too small to be removable, and they will all grow, so at that point, surgery is not an option.

There are a myriad of potential treatments being tested, but some only work on a specific cancer or family of cancers. Treatments are mostly angled at delivering toxins to the cancers, or growth inhibitors; the cancers consume energy more quickly than normal cells, and divide very rapidly, so if you prevent division and give them something that will build up in them, you can knock them off. There are a very few that are designed to make the body aware of the cancers and trigger an immunity reaction (these are the "broken virus" types of treatments, and treatments based on a few kinds of fungi). There are some that they think will possible trigger better "in-cell error detection" and cause the broken cancer cells to kill themselves (which would normally happen).

It's recently been claimed that there may be some treatments that could actually cause the genes to "un-twist" and spontaneously cause the stem cells to revert to being normal stem cells. This isn't a completely proven mechanism.

Back to the question - usually if a drug can stop the growth, there may be a chance to continue treatment or extend it, possibly leading to remission. A drug really needs to not only stop the growth but trigger something causing the stem cells to die or revert to being normal in order for the cancer to be "cured".

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

That is what I thought (in answer to the question) but anything that can stop the growth would give other procedures time to work.

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

Correction, it is PROSTATE cancer, I mis typed.

[marswalker.livejournal.com]

"Pancreas" caught my eye as that was the cancer that took my wife. (sobs.) It's nasty in that it's rarely caught until after other organs are affected, and by then, the current most-effective treatment is off the table (the Whipple Procedure, surgery).

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

I have known several people who have died from it, and I am sorry if I caused you any pain with my mistake. That is the one thing I remember about every single one of those I have known with it, there were no symptoms in the early stages.

*HUGS*

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

Cancer sucks. That's all I know.
:(

[cierrablue.livejournal.com]

Bad news. Cancer news is rarely good. I hope things turn around.