Healthcare Costly

25/01/2022

BREAST CANCER
Breast cancer is a disease in which cells in the breast become abnormal and grow out of control.
There are different kinds of breast cancer and this depends on which cells in the breast turn into cancer.
Most breast cancers begin in the ducts (tubes that carry milk to the ni**le) or lobules (glands that produce milk). Breast cancer if not detected early, can spread outside the breast through blood vessels and lymph vessels. When breast cancer spreads to other parts of the body, it is said to have metastasized.
The spread of breast cancer is most dangerous because it can destroy major organs it spreads to like the lungs, and eventually lead to death.
Don’t Let Breast Cancer take you by surprise…
Stay alert and abreast with any abnormalities in your breast through routine self-exams, clinical screening and mammograms.


***es

25/01/2022

Prostate Cancer Awareness
Learn, relearn and take action.
Cancer is closer to us than we may think.
Share and Save a Live.

20/01/2022

Prostate cancer mortality
The mortality rate of this type of cancer has been declining since the 1990s: that’s good news, but there are many open questions on the reason behind this downward trend. A recently published article in the New England Journal of Medicine tries to take stock of the situation, arguing why a national screening for prostate cancer by PSA is currently unwarranted.

In order to fully understand this statement, some epidemiological aspects need to be considered. Until the 1970s, mortality due to prostate cancer remained stable, then increased until it started to decline from the 1990s onwards. The rise between the 1970s and 1990s was essentially due to increased diagnosis. From the 1970s, the use of transurethral resection of the prostate, also known as TURP, a surgical technique to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia, has become more common. In fact, urologists thought they were treating a benign pathology, but then, when they sent the resected piece to the laboratory for analysis, it was seen that there actually was a tumour hidden in the prostate. The diagnosis was, therefore, mostly random: that tumour was not giving obvious symptoms, but it was there.

In short, the term prostate cancer began to be used more frequently and, as a result, since the diagnosis was certain, mortality in older people (the age group in which this type of cancer is most lethal) was also attributed more to this tumour, increasing – on the graph – mortality. Then, in the late 1980s, PSA assays began to be done in a more consistent and uniform manner, thus facilitating new diagnoses. Logically, one can think: more “official” diagnoses, even more mortality due to that cause. But instead, what you can actually see from the graphs is that since PSA assays were introduced into common practice, mortality from this cause has started to fall.

20/01/2022

PSA and prostate cancer: why is there no national screening programme?

Prostate cancer is the most frequent among males over the age of 50, but then why is there no national screening programme as for breast cancer?

For many cancers, as we have seen, there are national screening programmes that make early detection possible in order to start treatment immediately and reduce mortality. But why is prostate cancer not one of them even though it is the most frequent types of cancer among men over the age of 50?

Let ‘s start from the bottom: what is PSA?

Surely men, especially if later in life, have often heard about it. PSA is a protein that is mainly produced by the prostate and normally secreted in seminal fluid: under normal conditions this molecule is in semen and is found in the blood only at very low concentrations. There are some situations in which PSA is produced in larger quantities and can be found in the blood at greater concentrations. In addition to certain conditions that can cause an increase in transient PSA (such as recent sexual activity, intense exercise or certain diagnostic manoeuvres), its increase can be caused by benign conditions (such as prostatic hyperplasia – that is, an “enlargement” of the prostate that occurs in men over a certain age – or inflammatory conditions) or malignant conditions, such as prostate cancer.

20/01/2022

Stem cells: a rough diamond that regenerates our tissues

What are stem cells? What are they for? When were they first discovered? We will explain it today on Medical Facts also with very clear images.

I still vividly remember that autumn day seven years ago. After months of encouraging results on simpler models, we had arrived at the moment of truth: testing our technology on the real therapeutic target, blood stem cells. I remember my tutor’s explanations at the time, marked at a pace that seemed incredibly dilated to me, on how I should thaw and handle them, on how I was supposed to be fast, but at the same time precise, and above all delicate. I especially remember that vial, my first vial of stem cells, thawing in my hands. And then, once thawed, you had to rush to look at them under the microscope. I had heard so much about them. I could finally observe them, too, live. It was so exciting. Regardless of how that experiment would go, I was already grateful that I could be there to watch them, or rather contemplate them. For a researcher, and for medicine in general, stem cells mean a lot. I will try to explain why today.

20/01/2022

Prostate cancer and new diagnostic imaging techniques to assess its extent

Prostate cancer is the most common in men over 50 years of age and a clear, early diagnosis can make a huge difference.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men and tends to be diagnosed from the age of 50. As for all types of cancer, determining their extent precisely is crucial: a cancer located entirely within the affected organ can, in fact, be completely removed by surgery; on the contrary, if it leaves the confines of the affected part of the body or, even worse, if it spreads with distant metastases through the blood, for example, other therapeutic strategies need to be considered. We can therefore understand that defining the extent of cancer, through reliable diagnostic means, is absolutely important. For example, in the case of the prostate, investigations such as CT scans and bone scinti scans are usually carried out to decide on the therapeutic pathway and, if these show that the tumour is localized, surgery or radiation therapy can be performed.

Alternative diagnostic imaging techniques

Despite a very high level of attention to patient selection and the choice of the best treatment for each patient, recurrences of the neoplasm are frequent, and this may be partially due to an insufficient ability of the tests used to detect non-localized prostate cancer. To overcome these possible limitations, some more recent diagnostic imaging techniques could help us with their increased ability to define the extent of the disease. We are talking about “PMSA PET-CT”: a test that detects the presence of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PMSA), a protein that only prostate cancer cells express in an increased way. In other words, if greater expression of this molecule is detected on the cell membrane, it is most likely to be prostate cancer. The most recent evidence suggests that this technique does indeed have great advantages, but the data mostly refer to cases of recurrent cancer (i.e., cancer that has already been treated once but then, for different reasons, comes back). We do not know though whether it is actually superior to the methods generally used for the staging of first-diagnosis prostate cancer. In short, understanding whether the use of this technology is advantageous in this disease even for the first diagnosis of the disease could be very important, all the more so considering the fact that, as we said, some recurrences most likely result from an insufficient ability of conventional methods to understand how widespread the disease diagnosed for the first time actually is.

20/01/2022

20/01/2022

20/01/2022

20/01/2022