January, 2016 - Ronny Allan - Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer

28Jan 2016 by Ronny Allan 4 Comments

Innovation at Royal Free – Lung Biopsy and Radio Frequency Ablation Service

Treatment

[caption id="attachment_4852" align="alignleft" width="301"] Image with permission from Dr Sam Hare (www.lungdiagnosis.com)[/caption] A team of radiologists and respiratory consultants who introduced a new and more efficient lung biopsy method at Barnet Hospital London, has been named the winner of the NHS Innovation Challenge Prize in the ‘cancer care’ category. Barnet Hospital is run by the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust which is well known for its Neuroendocrine Cancer Centre of Excellence. Not happy with this, they've now gone on to introduce a new service combining this innovative biopsy system with Radio Frequency Ablation (RFA) of tumours in the same procedure. Combined Biopsy with Radio Frequency Ablation (RFA) This new service has significant advantages for those who have localised tumours less than 3cm and can't for whatever reason have surgery. I've checked with…

26Jan 2016 by Ronny Allan 39 Comments

Ignore this post about Neuroendocrine Cancer

Awareness

When I was diagnosed, I wasn't feeling ill. In hindsight, I now know some of the signs were there, I just put up with them. Neuroendocrine Cancer had laid a trap for me and I fell right into it. You see, Neuroendocrine Cancer can be very quiet and unobtrusive. It also plays the 'long game' and will sometimes take years before it's finally discovered. It is very very very sneaky.Not satisfied with loitering in your small intestine, appendix, lungs, stomach, pancreas and a host of other places, it wants to reach out to your liver, your lymph nodes, your bones, bung you up with fibrosis, and get into your heart where it can cause the most damage. It will also try to get into your head, metaphorically speaking - however, it will also…

15Jan 2016 by Ronny Allan 10 Comments

Alcohol – the NET Effect

Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer

Opinion.Social Media is currently full of 'Dry January' articles and of course many charities will benefit as people will be motivated if they are abstaining from alcohol for a good cause. Nothing wrong with that and no doubt some individuals will also see it as a way to cut down or at least lessen the effects of a very wet December!I've never been a big drinker but I do like the odd beer now and then. When I was diagnosed with metastatic Neuroendocrine Tumours (NETs), I hadn't really thought much about how this might affect my body. It wasn't until I studied a bit more about my disease and the consequences of my treatment, that I decided I would cut right down. This turned out to be a pretty drastic cut as I can count…

10Jan 2016 by Ronny Allan 5 Comments

Clinical Trial: Neuroendocrine Cancer drug in the pipeline – Fosbretabulin Tromethamine CA4P (incl combo with Everolimus)

Treatment

[caption id="attachment_8939" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Click this picture to see how VDAs work[/caption] {NEW} added 4 June 2019 From ASCO 2019 conference extract: Of the 17 patients enrolled, 16 completed the 12-week trial. One patient was not evaluable due to noncompliance. No DLTs were observed at day 21. The highest dose of 10 mg daily oral everolimus in combination with weekly 60mg/m2 IV fosbretabulin is the RP2D. No grade 4 or 5 toxicities were noted. Grade 3 toxicities were seen in 5 patients; abdominal pain and hyperglycemia (not related to study drug), fatigue (possibly related), decreased lymphocyte count and anemia (related). Several patients had delay in treatment due to grade 2 AE’s (GI symptoms, rash, thrombocytopenia) and one patient was unable to complete treatment due to pneumonitis. All evaluable patients except…

01Jan 2016 by Ronny Allan No Comments

NET Cancer Blog – 2015 in review

General

The WordPress.com stats team have prepared a 2015 annual report for my blog. Special thanks to those who got a mention! Why not review my posts which received a 2015 Mention in Despatches ? Here's an excerpt: Madison Square Garden can seat 20,000 people for a concert. This blog was viewed about 62,000 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Madison Square Garden, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people to see it. Click here to see the complete report.