Tag: Blood Brain Barrier

08Sep 2016 by Ronny Allan 18 Comments

Serotonin – the NET effect

Serotonin – the NET effect

Awareness, Diet and Nutrition, Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Technical NETs

[caption id="attachment_14036" align="aligncenter" width="750"] A team of researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have used high-powered microscopes for the first time to view serotonin activating its receptor[/caption] Background I'd never heard of Serotonin until I was diagnosed with Neuroendocrine Cancer in 2010. It is frequently discussed, often with contrasting views from the respondents. One common assumption/question is that it is responsible for many things that can go wrong with Neuroendocrine Cancer patients who have serotonin-producing tumours. "It's the hormones" is an easy assumption to make or an easy answer to give in response to a complex set of circumstances. It's difficult to get a definitive answer and the science behind the behaviour of our hormones isn't really 100% tied down. You may see serotonin referred to as a 'neurotransmitter', a 'chemical' and a 'hormone' - this is complex…

Clinical Trials – ONC201 for Neuroendocrine Cancer (including Pheo/Para)

What is ONC201? A company called Oncoceutics is developing a novel class of safe and effective cancer therapies called imipridones. Imipridones have a unique three-ring core structure and selectively target G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), the largest class of membrane receptors and a common target of approved drugs that are underexploited in oncology. Despite being historically […]

The 5 E’s of my daytrip

Those who know about the 5 E’s of (so called) carcinoid syndrome will get the meaning of this story straight away. For those unaware of those 5 E’s, read about them here. I sometimes need motivating and it’s really easy to put off doing ‘hard things‘, instead opting for your comfort zone of staying at […]

The case of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg vs Cancer

The news that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) has been treated for ‘Pancreatic Cancer’ has hit the headlines and effectively gone viral. She is not only famous for being a member of the US Supreme Court, but also because she has had many bouts with cancer. What has also gone viral, but only in the […]

Clinical Trials – Surufatinib for Neuroendocrine Cancer

I first heard about this drug at ENETS Barcelona 2017 and then again in 2018. It’s now starting to be discussed in USA including at the 2019 ASCO conference. It was known then as Sulfatinib but for reasons unclear to me it was changed later to Surufatinib. It’s a novel, oral angio-immuno kinase inhibitor that selectively […]

Cancer kills but so can fake cures

No matter where you look on social media, there are millions of sites claiming that ‘this’ and ‘that’ can cure cancer. If you analyse some of the things that can apparently ‘cure’ cancer, you will normally find that behind these fantasies, there is someone selling something, a book, a video, a product. I was also […]

Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumours – surgical decisions and new research on molecular sub-types

I offer you two subjects in one article but they are overlapping and very related. The piece of research in the 2nd half of the article is very exciting – did you know researchers have found there are two main sub-types of pNETs, one less likely to recur and metastasise than the other? This will […]