05Aug 2022 by Ronny Allan No Comments
Curtis Crump: “If I’m going down, it won’t be without a fight.”

Curtis Crump: “If I’m going down, it won’t be without a fight.”

Clinical Trials, Inspiration, Patient Advocacy, Survivorship
Curtis Crump: Credit MD Anderson Cancer Center Curtis Crump has an amazing story to tell.  Given 6 months to live, he refused to accept that prognosis and looked elsewhere. He found a top hospital that directed him to an established clinical trial.  Although the story I am attaching says "Neuroendocrine Tumors" throughout, with that prognosis and the treatment he received (chemotherapy and immunotherapy), I'm reasonably confident he had a Neuroendocrine Carcinoma (Colon primary) or a Grade 3 Well Differentiated NET.  Nonetheless, his story is relevant to many people's experiences across the broad spectrum of Neuroendocrine Neoplasms (NENs). And if I am right in my assumption, even with a poorly differentiated type, there is the hope of a better prognosis. Wishing Curtis the very best.  Read his story below.(Please see my disclaimers…
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23Nov 2016 by Ronny Allan 12 Comments
Chemo or not Chemo – that is the question 

Chemo or not Chemo – that is the question 

Treatment
Chemo or not Chemo - that is the question OPINION POSTI'm continually seeing certain drugs for the treatment of Neuroendocrine Tumours (NETs) described as "chemotherapy". I think there must be some confusion with more modern drugs which are more targeted and work in a different way to Chemotherapy.  According to Mayo Clinic: "In many ways, cytotoxic chemotherapy is "targeted" at specific molecules that regulate progression through the cell cycle; however, these targets are generally not specific for tumor cells. Because systemic cytotoxic chemotherapy targets all rapidly dividing cells, it also attacks hair follicles, gastrointestinal mucosa, and hematopoietic cells thereby inducing the classical side effects of treatment such as alopecia, nausea, diarrhea, mucositis, and bone marrow suppression. The newer generation of targeted biological therapies is still administered systemically as traditional chemotherapy;…
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26Apr 2015 by Ronny Allan 9 Comments
Chemotherapy for Neuroendocrine Cancer

Chemotherapy for Neuroendocrine Cancer

Treatment
Edited and checked December 2022One 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 below.Interest point…
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