February, 2023 - Ronny Allan - Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer

22Feb 2023 by Ronny Allan 2 Comments

A spotlight on Gastric Neuroendocrine Neoplasms

What are Gastric NENsUnlike other anatomical types, the word Gastric is used to indicate a tumour (NET) or carcinoma (NEC) in the stomach. The stomach lies at the bottom of your oesophagus and connects to the first part of the small intestine (the duodenum). Clearly a key part of the gastrointestinal system, it processes food on its journey downwards.The stomach produces strong acid. This kills many microorganisms that might have been swallowed along with the food. It also contains special chemicals called enzymes. These are important for breaking down the food so it can be absorbed by the body. After it leaves the stomach, the partially digested food passed into the intestines where it begins to be absorbed.The main parts of the stomach are shown below (often this can give…

19Feb 2023 by Ronny Allan 6 Comments

Sometimes I climb hills just to piss my cancer off

Inspiration

Pissing off cancer is both metaphorical and physicalBeing diagnosed with a Grade 2 metastatic Neuroendocrine Cancer in 2010 was a bit of a shock. I didn't feel ill enough to have a stage IV cancer. At first, I just kept working thinking this was 'something and nothing' and normality would return in due course. Optimum and realism sometimes conflict but I eventually found myself in the middle of both, tweaking the path as I went along it. Occasionally, my path took me upwards and downwards in a metaphorical sense and with advanced cancer, sometimes a metaphorical hill climb is necessary but needs motivation.I do a lot of walking and climbing hills is not easy when your get older, but the motivation is often there. I do believe there are some…

18Feb 2023 by Ronny Allan No Comments

Belzutifan for the Treatment of Advanced Pheochromocytoma/Paraganglioma (PPGL), Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumor (pNET), or Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) Disease-Associated Tumors

Clinical Trials, Treatment

What is von Hippel-Lindau disease (VHL)?Von Hippel-Lindau disease (VHL) is an autosomal dominant disease that can predispose individuals to multiple neoplasms. Germline pathogenic variants in the VHL gene predispose individuals to specific types of benign tumors, malignant tumors, and cysts in many organ systems. These include central nervous system hemangioblastomas; retinal hemangioblastomas; clear cell renal cell carcinomas and renal cysts; pheochromocytomas, cysts, cystadenomas, and neuroendocrine tumors of the pancreas; endolymphatic sac tumors; and cystadenomas of the epididymis. What is Belzutifan (Welireg)?It is an oral hypoxia-inducible factor-2 alpha (HIF-2α) inhibitor. As an inhibitor of HIF-2α, belzutifan reduces transcription and expression of HIF-2α target genes associated with cellular proliferation, angiogenesis and tumor growth.On August 13 2021, FDA approved belzutifan (Welireg) to treat adults who have several tumors associated with VHL. Specifically, the drug is approved to treat VHL-associated renal cell carcinoma (a type of kidney…

17Feb 2023 by Ronny Allan No Comments

A Phase II Clinical Trial of Nivolumab and Temozolomide for Neuroendocrine Neoplasms

Clinical Trials

What is Nivolumab (Opdivo)Nivolumab is a type of cancer treatment drug called an immunotherapy. It is a treatment for a number of different types of cancer. You might have it as part of a clinical trial for other types of cancer.What is Temozolomide (Temodal)Temozolomide is a type of chemotherapy. It is well known in Neuroendocrine Cancer as the TEM in CAPTEMTrial SummaryThe purpose of the trial. Treatment options are sometimes limited in patients with metastatic neuroendocrine neoplasms (NEN). The primary endpoint was response rate (using RECIST 1.1). Secondary endpoints included progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), and safety. Immune profiling was performed by mass cytometry to evaluate the effect on peripheral blood immune cell subsets."In summary, the combination of temozolomide and nivolumab showed promising activity in NEN, especially in lung…

12Feb 2023 by Ronny Allan No Comments

A Newsletter from RonnyAllan.NET – 12th February 2023

Newsletters

Newsletter from Ronny Allan - 12th February 2023Welcome to my new template newsletter compiled using WordPress (my blog app). I generated a template similar to my previous email newsletter and hopefully this will work out. But it does rely on you opening the email notification you receive. This is a bit of a practice so I'm hoping this format will work (Please support it!) and I'll continue to look for a suitable app which meets my needs in the meantime. Latest Blog Posts My award winning blog is central to everything I do, without it, there is no Facebook, twitter or private group. It follows that supporting my blog is also supporting those other outlets. The widget below displays the last 9 published posts with lead photo and short description…

02Feb 2023 by Ronny Allan No Comments

RonnyAllan.NET – Summary of January 2023 – Ronny Allan – Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer

Newsletters, Patient Advocacy

SummaryGreat start to 2023 and I thank those who continue to support my social media and this blog. I'm keen to hear any suggestions of the sort of thing you would like me to research and publish.The top 10 most-read posts in January are listed below:Paul Hunter Tribute – Snooker champion and Neuroendocrine Cancer patientThe Masters Snooker competition was held in January 2023 and there was a tremendous spike in views at the time of the final. The Masters Trophy was named the Paul Hunter trophy, and this incidentally generates a vast amount of awareness for Neuroendocrine Cancer as most of the hits come from outside the Neuroendocrine community. Click here or on the picture.[caption id="attachment_19993" align="aligncenter" width="416"] Click picture to read more[/caption]Cancer AblationA popular post with the headline of…