Carcinoid Heart Disease Archives - Ronny Allan - Living with Neuroendocrine Neoplasms

17Jul 2018 by Ronny Allan 8 Comments

Neuroendocrine Cancer: Fibrosis – an unsolved mystery?

Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Technical NETs, Treatment

Background It has long been observed that certain Neuroendocrine Tumours (NETs) are often associated with their ability to secrete hormones and these substances are thought to be responsible for the collection of symptoms which include (but not limited to) diarrhea, flushing and wheezing. One of the lesser known aspects of this disease is the development of fibrosis, both local and distant. These fibrotic complications may lead to considerable morbidity. They can also result in incidental diagnoses of NETs after causing abdominal obstructions. The most well known form of fibrosis is 'Hedinger Syndrome' (so-called Carcinoid Heart Disease) tightly associated with midgut NETs and will not be covered further. However, mesenteric fibrosis is actually more common and also associated with midgut NETs. There are other less common locations involved including retroperitoneal fibrosis,…

12Dec 2017 by Ronny Allan 3 Comments

Update: Management of Neuroendocrine Tumors

Awareness, Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Technical NETs, Treatment

This is an excellent and positive video based overview of where we are with the Management of NETs. This is a presentation from a NET Specialist (who some of you may know) presenting to a "GI Malignancies" conference. This is therefore not only awareness of NETs, it's also some good education for non NET GI experts who may only know the very basics. Useful for patients too! I met Dr Strosberg in Barcelona (ENETS 2017) and thanked him for his presentational and scientific paper output which I often use in my articles. The classification picture is good as it explains the different facets of NETs and how NETs are classified and categorised in a general way - not seen it done this way before. Slightly out of date as…

30Oct 2017 by Ronny Allan 30 Comments

Neuroendocrine Cancer – normally slow but always sneaky

Awareness, Patient Advocacy

There's a lot of scary diseases in this world but some of them are particularly spooky. One such spooky disease is the lesser known type of cancer that infiltrated my body - Neuroendocrine Cancer (aka Neuroendocrine Tumors or NET for short). Not only is it scary and spooky, but it's also cunning, devious, misleading, double-crossing, and it likes nothing better than to play tricks on you. It will grow in your body without you knowing. It finds places to hide, mainly the small intestine, appendix, lungs, stomach, pancreas, rectum and a host of other places. It can be fiendishly small to avoid being seen. Once it's established in the primary location (....or locations), it will try to break out via your blood and lymphatic systems. It wants to establish…

28Sep 2016 by Ronny Allan 23 Comments

Neuroendocrine Cancer – tumour markers and hormone levels

Awareness, Diet and Nutrition, Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Patient Advocacy, Survivorship, Technical NETs, Treatment

I think most people have had a form of medical testing at some point in their life, i.e. the sampling and testing of blood, urine, saliva, stool or body tissue. In a nutshell, the medical staff are just measuring the content of a 'substance' and then taking a view whether this is normal or not based on pre-determined ranges. These tests are normally done as a physician's reaction to symptom presentation or maintenance/surveillance of an existing diagnosed condition. Sometimes, abnormal results will lead to more specialist tests. In cancer, these tests are frequently called 'markers'. Most tumour markers are made by normal cells as well as by cancer cells; however, they are produced at much higher levels in cancerous conditions. These substances can be found in the blood, urine, stool, tumour…

08Sep 2016 by Ronny Allan 18 Comments

Serotonin – the NET effect

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

[caption id="attachment_16272" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Credit background picture: 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…

25May 2016 by Ronny Allan 5 Comments

The 5 E’s (of Carcinoid Syndrome)

Awareness, Diet and Nutrition, Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Patient Advocacy, Survivorship, Technical NETs, Treatment

Since my diagnosis, I seem to have been in a perpetual learning phase! What not to do, what not to eat, what not to read! However, early on in my experience, I came across a list of 'E' words (5 of them) which is a handy reminder for Carcinoid Syndrome patients, particularly those whose symptoms are not under control. When I say "carcinoid syndrome" in this article, I only mean the syndrome that is caused by what was once called "Carcinoid Tumors", i.e. mainly serotonin secreting types but include tumours which are well differentiated found in the small intestine, appendiceal, rectal, lung, and one or two other less common places. There are many variations of this list but this is my take! I suspect some of this also applies to…

31Mar 2016 by Ronny Allan 20 Comments

Telotristat Ethyl (XERMELO®) – an oral treatment for Carcinoid Syndrome Diarrhea not adequately controlled by Somatostatin Analogues

Awareness, Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Patient Advocacy, Technical NETs, Treatment

Telotristat Ethyl is an extremely significant introduction to the treatment of Carcinoid Syndrome diarrhea. It's the first addition to the standard of care in more than 16 years and the first time an oral syndrome treatment has been developed. The drug was previously known as Telotristat Etiprate but was changed to Ethyl in Oct 2016. 'Etiprate' was previously a truncation of 'ethyl hippurate'. The brand name is XERMELO® UPDATE MARCH 2018 The March 2018 issue of Clinical Therapeutics provides the first report of the effects of XERMELO on changes in weight in patients with neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) and carcinoid syndrome that participated in the TELESTAR study. You have to remember that XERMELO is approved for those with carcinoid syndrome diarrhea not adequately controlled by somatostatin analogues (author's note - i.e not for diarrhea caused…

25Feb 2016 by Ronny Allan 4 Comments

Carcinoid – What’s in a name?

Awareness, Technical NETs

A quick primer on the word 'CARCINOID'. It originates from the term 'Carcinoma-like'. 'CARCIN' is a truncation of Carcinoma (by definition cancerous or malignant tumour). 'OID' is a suffix meaning 'resembling' or 'like'. This infers that Carcinoid cannot be a truly malignant tumour - thus the confusion (..... and anger!). The most worrying connotation of the use of the word ‘Carcinoid’ is the belief that they all have benign clinical and biological behaviour. That is dangerous thinking which could end up killing people. There is now widespread use of the term Neuroendocrine Tumours (NETs) and this is based on the latest classification scheme pushed out by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2010 subsequently updated by WHO 2017. The correct term for all types is actually Neuroendocrine Neoplasm (NEN) which is an umbralla…

26Jan 2016 by Ronny Allan 39 Comments

Ignore this post about Neuroendocrine Cancer

Awareness

When I was diagnosed, I wasn't feeling ill. In hindsight, I now know some of the signs were there, I just put up with them. Neuroendocrine Cancer had laid a trap for me and I fell right into it. You see, Neuroendocrine Cancer can be very quiet and unobtrusive. It also plays the 'long game' and will sometimes take years before it's finally discovered. It is very very very sneaky. Not satisfied with loitering in your small intestine, appendix, lungs, stomach, pancreas and a host of other places, it wants to reach out to your liver, your lymph nodes, your bones, bung you up with fibrosis, and get into your heart where it can cause the most damage. It will also try to get into your head, metaphorically speaking - however, it will…

10Aug 2015 by Ronny Allan 16 Comments

Neuroendocrine Cancer Syndromes – Early Signs of a Late Diagnosis

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

One of the curious things about Neuroendocrine Cancer (NETs going forward) is that it can very often exhibit one or more vague symptoms collectively known as a 'syndrome'. Syndrome is an apt word to describe these complications as the most general meaning in medical terms is a group of symptoms that together are characteristic of a specific disorder or disease". Having a syndrome can often be the difference between having a 'functional' condition or a non-functional' condition - see more below. This frequently makes Neuroendocrine Cancer very difficult to diagnose quickly. It's a very devious disease. It's NOT all about Carcinoid Syndrome! Most people think of Carcinoid Syndrome when they discuss NETs. Anyone suggesting that all NET patients get carcinoid syndrome or that all symptoms of NETs are caused by carcinoid syndrome,…

02Jun 2015 by Ronny Allan 25 Comments

Neuroendocrine Cancer – don’t break my heart!

Awareness, Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Survivorship, Technical NETs, Treatment

Neuroendocrine Cancer has certain unique features whereby tumours can produce one or more symptoms which are known collectively as a syndrome. Neuroendocrine Tumours secreting excess amounts of serotonin, can be accompanied by Carcinoid Syndrome which if not diagnosed and treated early enough, can lead to an additional complication known as Hedlinger Syndrome (often known as Carcinoid Heart Disease (CHD)). However, very late diagnoses can present with CHD already in place. Excess serotonin, a hormone released by NETs into the bloodstream seems to be the prime and lead suspect for causing thick ‘plaques’ or fibrosis tissue within the heart muscle and damage to (mainly) the tricuspid and pulmonary valves on the right side of the heart which can become ‘tightly narrowed’ or ‘leaky’. It's very similar to the reasons for mesenteric and peritoneal…

22Apr 2015 by Ronny Allan 41 Comments

Carcinoid vs Neuroendocrine

Awareness, Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Patient Advocacy, Technical NETs

OPINION There's a constant debate regarding the validity of the term 'Carcinoid'. I've posted about this a few times and as far as I know, the debate has been raging for some years. You may have noticed that 'Carcinoid' is often used as a standalone word and tends not to be suffixed with the word 'Cancer' or 'Tumour' - unlike Bowel Cancer, Breast Cancer, Prostrate Cancer, Lung Cancer, Brain Tumour, etc. Nobody goes around saying "Breast" or "Bowel" do they? But they happily say "Carcinoid". Unfortunately, the term ‘Carcinoid’ has become entrenched in both pathology and clinical literature over the past 100 years. The main problem with the word Carcinoid is that it means different things to different people. Some use the term almost exclusively to designate serotonin-producing tumours that arise from the enterochromaffin cells that can…

16Oct 2014 by Ronny Allan 12 Comments

Neuroendocrine Cancer – Horrible Hormones

Awareness, Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Technical NETs

Until I was diagnosed with metastatic Neuroendocrine Cancer, I didn't have a clue about hormones - it's one of those things you just take for granted. However, hormones are vital to human health (male and female) and it's only when things go wrong you suddenly appreciate how important they are ........like a lot of other things in life I suppose! The presence of over-secreting hormones (often called peptides throughout) is useful to aid diagnosis albeit it often (but not always) means the tumours have metastasized. It's also a frequent indication that the person has an associated NET syndrome. This is a really complex area and to understand the hormone problems associated with Neuroendocrine Cancer, you need to have a basic knowledge of the endocrine and neuroendocrine systems. I've no intention…