Lung Cancer - RADIATION As A Treatment Option

Because of the advanced stages of some lung cancer, surgery is not an option. This depends on the location of the tumor/tumors or the overall health of the person. In these types of cases, an oncologist will most likely advocate radiotherapy for the treatment. Even though surgery may be an option, you may find the doctor suggesting this type of treatment either before surgery to help shrink the tumor or after the surgery to help eradicate any of the remaining cancerous cells.

Radiation therapy - what is it?
Radiotherapy - is high powered x-rays that are 'beamed' at the location of the cancer cells which in turn destroys the rapidly dividing cells. Unfortunately, during this process the radiotherapy kills off both the healthy cells as well as the cancerous cells in that location. However, there are methods of delivering the radiotherapy that will minimize the side effects on the healthy cells.

EBT - external beam therapy or radiotherapy, is a highly focused beam of radiation that is aimed directly at the edges of the tumor site. Due to the concentration, EBT minimizes the chance of damaging the healthy cells. EBT is delivered in 'fractions', i.e. short durations of radiation that are spread out over several weeks time. According to current studies, the best effects are achieved when there are more frequent, shorter fractions than in larger fractions spread out over a longer period of time. Talk with your doctor about which will be the best timing for you.

Often times this therapy will be used to alleviate symptoms even though it won't actually cure by itself. Doctors may prescribe radiotherapy before or after a surgery and is designed to shrink the tumor or make it less active. Doctors may suggest brachytherapy instead of using an external beam. Brachytherapy is a procedure which implants small radioactive seeds directly at the site of the cancer. Brachytherapy can open up blocked airways by reducing the size of the tumors blocking the bronchi or windpipe. Brachytherapy can also help stop bleeding in tumors.

Conformal radiation therapy is another type of therapy. With this therapy a CAT scan helps create a 3-D image of the tumor and shape the x-ray beams precisely to the size and shape of the tumor. When using conformal radiation therapy, the damage to the surrounding tissues is nearly eliminated completely. Intensity modulated radiation therapy can be fine tuned so that it only affects certain areas of the tumor. This form of precision therapy works with a CAT scan to target only the cancerous cells.

Any suspicion that the tumor may have spread, as is often the case with small cell, your oncologist will very likely suggest a course of chemotherapy either before, after or concurrently with radiotherapy. Radiotherapy is localized therefore the beam is focused directly at the cancerous cells. Using radiotherapy in conjunction with chemotherapy, will normally offer a better chance of clearing up the tumor completely and preventing a recurrence. Radiotherapy is rarely recommended as the sole treatment.

About the Author:
Carlie Edwards publishes online articles & useful information for Women. For more info visit Resource Tips For a variety of related topics visit Health-And-Beauty-Worx.Com
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What Is Cancer?

Cancer does not just happen. Normal healthy cells don't just spontaneously, metamorphose into abnormal cells unless deprived, debilitated, poisoned and damaged.

Cancer! The BIG C! The very word strikes fear into the patient who has been told that he or she has it. People say, "I got cancer," as if some cancer bacteria or virus had decided to settle into their body at random. They were picked. Bad luck!

Cancer is looked at as a death sentence. And because cancer is not understood, that is often the end result.

What is cancer? If disease is not something we "catch," how does cancer fit into this understanding? Can cancer actually be cured, or avoided altogether?

Cancer is not the beginning of a disease. Cancer is the result of a disease process that has been going on in the body for a long time. Cancer does not just happen. Normal healthy cells don't just spontaneously, metamorphose into abnormal cells unless deprived, debilitated, poisoned and damaged.

Nobody develops cancer, except that over many years their health slowly and progressively succumbed to 20-40-60-80 such causes interacting and working together.

Cancer is the result of the body storing toxins in its effort to survive longer. If the body did not store the toxins, encased in a tumor for example, they would be free to range throughout the body in the bloodstream, thereby causing the death of vital tissues and organs much sooner.

Cancer has a multitude of contributing factors, such as: heredity, beliefs, attitudes, habits, excesses, nutrition, environmental pollutants, and stresses, as well as various carcinogens like radiation, pesticides, toxic chemicals, dioxins, and asbestos - to name a few.

It is an enzyme deficiency and an autointoxication disease. It is a failure of the body's cells to obtain all the building materials essential for their construction and functioning.

It is also the result of excess toxicity, which affects and eventually destroys cells, or transforms them into abnormal, wild, growing cells.

Cancer's Common Denominators

After he lost his brother to cancer, Ron Gdanski began to research the subject, and eventually wrote a book entitled CANCER Cause, Cure, and Cover-up. His research concluded that fermentation of sugars at the cellular level is present in all cancers: Cancer is caused by the cellular environment.

Genetic defects do not create the capacity for human cells to metabolize nutrients without oxygen. Limiting the oxygen supply or disrupting the citric acid cycle leads to fermentation . As soon as oxygen reaches the cells, the citric acid cycle can be reestablished, fermentation stops, and microbial life destroyed.

Cancer, above all else, is a cellular oxygen deficiency disease. The research of Dr. Otto Warburg, a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist in the 1930s, concluded that the prime cause of cancer is impaired cell respiration.

Cancer, above all other diseases, has countless secondary causes.

Almost anything can cause cancer. But, even for cancer, there is only one prime cause. The prime cause of cancer is the replacement of the respiration of oxygen (oxidation of sugar) in normal body cells by fermentation of sugar.

All normal body cells meet their energy needs by respiration of oxygen, whereas cancer cells meet their energy needs in great part by fermentation.

In every case, during the cancer development, the oxygen respiration always falls, fermentation appears, and the highly differentiated cells are transformed into fermenting anaerobes, which have lost all their body functions and retain only the now useless property of growth and replication.

Thus, when respiration disappears, life does not disappear, but the meaning of life disappears, and what remains are growing machines that destroy the body in which they grow. Lack of cellular oxygen is directly related to acidity of body systems.

Terminal cancer patients are approximately 500 to 1000 times more acidic than normal healthy people. Cancer will not occur in a pH-balanced body.

About the Author:
Ron Garner, BEd, MSc, is the author of "Conscious Health." Now you can unravel the mystery of how the body operates, restore vitality, and learn how health problems can be reversed the Natural way. Just visit: http://www.conscioushealth.ca
Submitted on 2006-12-01
Article Source: http://www.articlesarea.com/

Mammograms - Who Needs Them?

Perhaps no aspect of breast cancer is more widely publicized than screening mammography. Ads on television, in magazines, and in the daily paper urge women to deal with fear about breast cancer by having a yearly mammogram. We’re even told that doing this is a way to “really care for yourself.”

But screening mammograms don’t prevent breast cancer. A mammogram is an x-ray and x-rays cause cancer. The ads promoting regular screening mammography are paid for by those who stand to profit from their widespread acceptance and use - the manufacturers of the equipment and x-ray film. Whose health does this technology really benefit? Women’s health? Or corporate health?

If You Decide to Have a Mammogram

• Get the best, even if it means a long journey.
• Go where they specialize, preferably where they do at least 20 mammograms a day.
• Be sure the facility is accredited by the American College of Radiology.
• Insist on personnel who specialize in mammograms. (Taking and reading mammograms are skills that require intensive training and a lot of practice.)
• Ask how old the equipment is. Newer equipment exposes the breasts to less radiation. A dedicated unit (one specifically for mammograms) is best.
• Ask how they ensure quality control. When was their unit calibrated?
• Load your blood with carotenes by eating a cup of cooked sweet potato, winter squash, or carrots every day for a week before the mammogram to prevent radiation damage to your DNA.
• Expect to be cold and uncomfortable during the mammogram, but do say something if you’re being hurt.
• The more compressed the breast tissue, the clearer the mammogram. (But pressure may spread cancer cells if they are present.)
• If your breasts are tender, reschedule. During your fertile years, schedule mammograms for 7–10 days after your menstrual flow begins.
• Don’t wear antiperspirant containing aluminum; it can interfere with the imaging process. (Those clear stones do contain aluminum, as do most commercial antiperspirants.)
• If you want another opinion, you’ll need the original mammographic films, not copies. (X ray facilities only keep films for 7 years.)
• Get your doctor to agree, in writing, before the procedure, to give you a copy of your mammogram. The U.S. Public Health Service advises women to ask for written results from a mammogram.
• Given the high percentage of “false normal” mammograms, if you think you have cancer, trust your intuition.
• Remove radioactive isotopes from your body with burdock root, seaweed or miso.

Remember: Mammograms don’t promote breast health. Breast self-massage, breast self-exam, and lifestyle changes do.

Breast Meditation

Sit comfortably in front of a large mirror in a warm, private space. Bare your breasts. Look in the mirror. Tell your breasts something like: “I love you. You are just the way you are supposed to be. I see your perfection. I know your beauty. I honor your power.” Use your own words. Repeat as many times as you like. When you are done, close your eyes. Slowly bring your hands up and cup them under your breasts. Say: “My breasts are healthy. My breasts are powerful.” Open your eyes and look at yourself in the mirror, saying, “My breasts are my strength. My strength nourishes me and others.” Close your eyes and let your hands return to your lap. Sit quietly and breathe as you visualize glowing pink clouds within your breasts spiraling in toward your nipples for a minute. Continuing to breathe; let this sparkling pink energy spiral out for a minute. As you breathe, imagine the energy doing figure eights from breast to breast for a minute. Finally, imagine that you are plunging your hands into vibrant pink energy. Feel it flowing up your arms, through your armpits and out of your nipples. Open your eyes, smile at yourself in the mirror, and come out of the meditation.

About the Author:
Susun Weed
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Woodstock, NY 12498
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Visit Susun Weed at: www.susunweed.com; and www.ashtreepublishing.com
Vibrant, passionate, and involved, Susun Weed has garnered an international reputation for her groundbreaking lectures, teachings, and writings on health and nutrition. She challenges conventional medical approaches with humor, insight, and her vast encyclopedic knowledge of herbal medicine. Unabashedly pro-woman, her animated and enthusiastic lectures are engaging and often profoundly provocative.
Added: Tue Feb 28 2006
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