31Jul 2023 by Ronny Allan No Comments
A review of July 2023 on RonnyAllan.NET

A review of July 2023 on RonnyAllan.NET

Newsletters
On my website RonnyAllan.NET, July was a bit quieter mainly due to my holiday and other commitments. However, there was still significant support within and without the community. Below, I'll list the top performing blog posts in July, I can assure you there is some great information in there, and you may have missed some of my newest blogs which made it to the top 10. Number 1 is the story of US Representative Joaquin Castro, great diagnostic story and showing signs of being vocal about NET and the US healthcare system to a much wider audience - this is great awareness too! Bonus photos of our walk in Dartmoor at the end.  Best wishes to Joaquin Castro Do not miss this story [caption id="attachment_44523" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Click on the…
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23Aug 2022 by Ronny Allan 1 Comment
Neuroendocrine Cancer: At least 50 shades of grey

Neuroendocrine Cancer: At least 50 shades of grey

Awareness, Patient Advocacy
If you read any authoritative source on this cancer, it will normally begin with "Neuroendocrine Neoplasms (NENs) are heterogeneous tumours .............".  The term heterogeneous means diverse in character or content; or a structure with dissimilar components or elements.  This is not surprising as these tumours are found in Neuroendocrine cells throughout the vast majority of the human anatomy.And yet, when you look at many hospital/healthcare sites, advocate organisation sites, and cancer information sources not maintained by Neuroendocrine Cancer scientists or specialists, you might start to think there is just one big type of NET and only one syndrome. Once again, this is partly related to the lingering use of the term Carcinoid. Even within the community, so many people make blanket statements about Neuroendocrine Cancer which are misleading, e.g."they're all…
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20Dec 2017 by Ronny Allan 5 Comments
Neuroendocrine Cancer – surveillance and follow up

Neuroendocrine Cancer – surveillance and follow up

Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Patient Advocacy, Survivorship
Since 2010 I've had a lot of surveillance and testing. More than people can imagine. I can see from various comments on my public pages and posts within my private group, that some people get a lot more than me and I get more than others. It's not true to say we all get the same, there are many factors including stage, grade, type of Neuroendocrine Neoplasm, healthcare system/guidelines, miscellaneous problems, therapy, and even age.In the first year or two after diagnosis, I seemed to be in a continuous testing phase but that was mainly due to seeing so many different doctors for so many different issues. In reality, I was seeing and being assessed by my Oncologist around 3-month intervals, eventually moving to four. After that, I moved to…
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27Oct 2015 by Ronny Allan 25 Comments
Grading and Staging – Neuroendocrine Neoplasms (incorporating WHO 2021 changes)

Grading and Staging – Neuroendocrine Neoplasms (incorporating WHO 2021 changes)

Patient Advocacy
One of the most discussed and sometimes confusing subjects on forums is the staging and grading of Neuroendocrine Neoplasms (NENs). Mixing them up is a common error and so it's important to understand the difference despite the apparent complexity.Stage vs GradeIn the most basic of terms, stage is the spread or extent of cancer and grade is the aggressiveness of cancer. They are totally different things and an understanding of both is important as they are critical to predicting outcomes (to a certain extent) and guiding therapy. There is no correlation between the two, you can have the lowest grade with the highest stage (actually very common with NETs).  Remember S for Stage (Spread), G for Grade (Growing fast or slow)The stage is essentially worked out via scans and biopsy,…
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