Ablation - Ronny Allan - Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer

14Oct 2023 by Ronny Allan No Comments

Meet Edison® Histotripsy System – powerful bubbles

Clinical Trials and Research, Patient Advocacy, Treatment

Please read this before asking questionsThis is the story of a new treatment, a technique rather than a drug. It can be equated to liver embolization or tumour ablation but uses what would appear to be a more effective targeted therapy. It's early days, the fact that it has been approved by FDA (see wording below) is about all we know but this blog will be kept live. You are firing off questions to me, but I do not have many answers yet. 1. I do not know for sure which hospitals will be purchasing. But I will open up a section below if I get firm details. This does not mean you can access the treatment. 2. No, there are no trials just for NET (why would there be? It's not a…

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…

14Jan 2023 by Ronny Allan No Comments

Cancer Ablation

Clinical Trials and Research, Patient Advocacy, Treatment

What is Cancer Ablation? This is a minimally invasive surgical method to treat solid cancers. Special probes are used to “burn” or “freeze” cancers. Computed Tomography (CT), Ultrasound (US) or Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is used to guide and position the needle probe into the tumour. This requires only a tiny hole, usually less than 3 mm via which the probe is introduced. When the probe is within the cancer it is attached to a generator which “burns” or “freezes” the cancer. “Burning” refers to increasing the temperature of the tumour to such a level that cancer cells die. This is usually achieved by radio frequency probes, referring to the type of energy used to increase the temperature. “Freezing” refers to cryoablation which decreases the temperature to -40 C (-40…

08Jan 2023 by Ronny Allan 2 Comments

EUS Guided Ablation for small pancreatic NETs (Less than 2cm)

Clinical Trials and Research, Patient Advocacy

To burn or not to burn?I once wrote a post about Pancreatic NET "to cut or not to cut". You can read that here. Surgery for small pancreatic NETs remains controversial with most guidelines and study guidelines recommending surveillance for small primary tumours less than 2cm. There are exceptions to that, e.g. preventative surgery if the tumour is threatening important vessels and for functional cases where the surgery is palliative in nature. Contrast that against some patient perspectives where they just want it cut out (and some will 'surgeon-shop' until they find someone who will).Most pancreatic NET are lower grades (e.g. Grade 1 and 2) well differentiated, most are non-functional, many are localised. Functional tumours such as Insulinoma are mostly small and localised. A lack of sensitive and specific markers that…

25Apr 2022 by Ronny Allan 2 Comments

Histotripsy: A new technique which destroys cancer using soundwaves

Clinical Trials and Research, Treatment

Illustration of histotripsy technology. Image courtesy of Medicine at Michigan Magazine. BREAKING NEWS 9TH OCT 2023 - US FDA APPROVES THE USE OF HISTOTRIPSY IN HUMANS FOR LIVER TREATMENTRead here Tumor-destroying sound waves receive FDA approval for liver treatment in humans | University of Michigan News (umich.edu)..... and then read about Histotripsy and the clinical trials belowORIGINAL ARTICLE FOLLOWS ......A new technique that destroys cancer using soundwaves. It also spurs the immune system to kill off any of the tumour left behind, scientists have revealed. The non-invasive treatment only needs to be partially effective to stop the cancer spreading.It is currently being tested on human liver cancers in the US and Europe following successful trials in rats. The team from the University of Michigan showed the non-invasive sound technology is…

Tag: Ablation