A tribute to the life and legacy of Miranda Filmer

A tribute to the life and legacy of Miranda Filmer

Awareness, Clinical Trials and Research, Inspiration
It's true to say that Neuroendocrine Cancer is an older person's disease, the epidemiology is clear on that.  But I do see many young people diagnosed. In my own experience and observation, I normally see three main scenarios with younger people; an incidentally discovered appendiceal NET after appendicitis, someone with hereditary NET (e.g. Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia (MEN)) or an aggressive version of the disease.  There are others but I find these are the most common scenarios I see in younger people.  For me personally, as a father and a grandfather, it's often heart-breaking to read these stories. I wanted to write about one of the latter scenarios, a younger than average person with an aggressive version of our disease and one that eventually was the cause of her death.  It…
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The trouble with the NET is that it can spread ……. false hope

The trouble with the NET is that it can spread ……. false hope

Patient Advocacy
Certain popular ideas about how cancer starts and spreads - though scientifically wrong, can seem to make sense, especially when those ideas are rooted in old theories. To a certain extent, it can be the case with treatment too. But wrong ideas about cancer and how to treat it can lead to needless worry and even hinder good prevention and treatment decisions.  Even food and nutritional supplements fall into this area.  I see these things frequently in my own community, I don't like and I try my hardest to avoid these myths appearing in my patient group and on my public pages.  Annoyingly, some of it comes from unsuspecting patients who are simply sharing it from another place.  People need to think carefully before sharing this sort of thing.  It's…
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Chemotherapy for Neuroendocrine Cancer

Chemotherapy for Neuroendocrine Cancer

Treatment
Edited and checked December 2022 One of the unusual aspects of Neuroendocrine Cancer is that chemotherapy is not normally considered as a 'standard' or first-line treatment, unlike many other cancers. One exception is high grade (Grade 3) where it is very often a first and/or second-line therapy. This is particularly the case with poorly differentiated Neuroendocrine disease, by default labelled as Neuroendocrine Carcinoma (NEC). Many people think Chemotherapy has a short life span due to recent advances in medical science, some citing Immunotherapy as its replacement. However, it's far too early to write off chemotherapy which is still used in many scenarios and remains a tool in the arsenal of treatments for many cancer types and is predicted to do for some time yet. See more informed reporting about this…
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