Cancer

1. Processed and Red Meat: contribute to colorectal cancer, the most common cancer in Singapore and one of the top 5 cancers in India as well as to stomach, breast, endometrium, oesophagus cancer. Regular consumption, even in small quantities increase your risk because of presence of nitrates and nitrites. 2. Cured and Salted Fish: Preserved fish are high in nitrates and nitrites and increase the risk of nasopharyngeal cancer.  Opt for oily fish like salmon, sardines and tuna which are…

By Paul Kalanithi, M.D., a neurosurgeon and writer. Though never a smoker, he was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer in 2013. Paul died in March, 2015. He is survived by his wife Lucy and their daughter Cady. A few paragraphs that stood out for me: Six years passed in a flash, but then, heading into chief residency, I developed a classic constellation of symptoms — weight loss, fevers, night sweats, unremitting back pain, cough — indicating a diagnosis quickly confirmed: metastatic lung cancer…

He was diagnosed with colon cancer in his first year of junior college, which kept him away from school for four months. But that did not stop Hwa Chong Institution student Ng Yi Pin from catching up with his studies. He also managed to find the time and energy to tutor his older twin brother, Yi Yang, who studied in the same school. Yesterday, the 18-year-old scored eight As for his A levels. Yi Yang also made a marked improvement from his usual results. Yi Pin was in Secondary 4 when he…

Instead of poisoning a tumuor or destroying it with radiation, Dr. James P. Allison, chairman of the Immunology Department at the University of Texas, M.D Anderson Cancer Centre, Houston has pioneered ways to unleash the immune system to destroy a cancer He proposed to develop drugs that unleashed the T-Cells. T-Cells of the immune system which are attack cells, latch onto the cells infected with viruses and bacteria and ultimately kill them. The first drug developed was Yervoy against…

Chemotherapy and radiation failed to work on Erika Hurwitz's rare cancer of white blood cells. So her doctors offered her another option - a drug for melanoma. Within 4 weeks, her cancer was undetectable.  Mrs. Hurwitz is part of a new national effort in the United States to try and beat cancer basednot on what organ it startedin, but on what mutations drive its growth. There are now an increasing number of drugs that block mutations in cancer genes and can halt a tumour's growth. The…

Choo Mei Sze from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia surprised doctors with her condition and then even more with her fighting spirit. The TV host/columnist/blogger/emcee shares her tips for coming back stronger than ever.  Please tell us a bit about your condition. I had stage 1b/2 colon cancer. The tumour was 1/3 the size of my colon and I had to remove 2/3 of my rectum and 12 cm of my colon, total of 18 lymph nodes. I had complications during the surgery as I had low blood…

Oliver Sacks, professor of neurology at the New York University of Medicine. He had an ocular melanoma (a rare tumor of the eye), the treatment of which with lasers and radiations left him blind in that eye. On discovering that he had multiple metastases in the liver, he wrote this lovely piece.   "It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me. I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can" "Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking…

However bad you thought smoking was, its much worse. A new study adds 5 more diseases to the existing 21 diseases and 60,000 more deaths to the existing toll of half million deaths attributed to tobacco in United States alone. Death rates of smokers are 2-3 times higher than those who have never smoked and they die a decade earlier than smokers. Stopping smoking helps reduce risk over time. In addition to existing hazards of lung cancer, artery disease, heart attacks, chronic lung disease…

Dr Shital Raval answers all that you want to know about oral contraceptives, how they work, when you should use them, side effects, do they increase the risk of cancer? What are Oral Contraceptives? Oral contraceptives are hormonal preparations that may contain progesterone or combination of oestrogen and progestin. The combination drug prevents pregnancy by inhibiting the release of the hormones - luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) from the pituitary…

The difference between conventional X-ray therapy and proton therapy – and why we are re-examining the way we treat left-side breast cancer.  The majority of breast cancer patients today are able to preserve their breasts as they undergo a lumpectomy followed by post-operative radiation. However, research shows that left-side breast cancer patients treated with radiation have an increased risk of radiation-induced heart problems. Here, Dr. Brian Chon writes about the connection…