Neuroendocrine Cancer? – 10 questions to ask your doctor
On the day I was diagnosed, I hadn't really thought about questions, the only one I actually remember asking was "how long do I have left to live" (I watch too many movies!). On the day of diagnosis and period beyond, people tend to feel emotions of shock, denial, anger, and sadness, before going on to accept their situation. Yes, I 'googled' but not a great deal really - although some things I found did frighten me. I wish I had found this article way back then. As things progressed in the weeks after 'D-Day', I started to work out…
The Classification, Grading and Staging of Neuroendocrine Neoplasms (incorporating WHO 2022 classification changes)
- Updated 11th March 2024 - This section of my website has been published since 2015 but the most recent update to the World Health Organisation (WHO) Classification of Neuroendocrine Neoplasms is so significant, so game changing, that I have re-released the updated text. You may see these important publications called 'Blue Books'. Words are very important in Neuroendocrine Neoplasms (NENs). Nomenclature has important meaning and context more than most other cancers due to the heterogeneity of this group of neoplasms. Grade and Stage are two factors inextricably linked to the nomenclature and while there have been less changes in…
Staging of Neuroendocrine Neoplasms (NENs)
Stage of cancer What is stage? The extent of a cancer in the body. Staging is usually based on the size of the tumour, whether lymph nodes contain cancer, and whether the cancer has spread from the original site to other parts of the body. What are the stage numbers? Most types of cancers have 4 stages, numbered from 1 to 4 indicating a rising spread as the number is bigger. Some cancers have a stage 0 but I don't believe this applies to Neuroendocrine Neoplasms (NENs). Often doctors write the stage down in Roman numerals, so you may see…
Lower grade higher stage NETs – slow motion, chronic and indolent?
ContextI write many blogs but one thing I always emphasise is the heterogenous nature of something called Neuroendocrine Neoplasms. That is a catch all for both well differentiated Neuroendocrine Tumours (NET) and poorly differentiated Neuroendocrine Carcinomas (NEC). The latter is almost always an aggressive cancer and less common than its less aggressive NET relative (when Small Cell Lung Cancer is not included in the math). That said, the higher grades of NET can also be quite aggressive but very often still with a better outlook than NEC. Well differentiated NETs, particularly at the lower end of the scale tend have a…
A review of July 2023 on RonnyAllan.NET
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…
Ronny Allan – Top 6 posts of 2017
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter Share on pinterest Pinterest Share on whatsapp WhatsApp Share on email Email These are my top performing posts for 2017 - comprising one eighth of my entire hits for the year. My blog hits for 2017 almost reached a quarter of a million, double that of 2016 which was double that of 2015. A chunk of these figures can be attributed to most of these articles. Please share to maintain the momentum. Top 6 posts for 2017 (Click on each article title to read) Short Description Hits in 2017 The Human Anatomy…
ASCO 2017 – Let’s talk about NETs #ASCO17
ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) is one of the biggest cancer conferences in the world normally bringing together more than 30,000 oncology professionals from around the world to discuss state-of-the-art treatment modalities, new therapies, and ongoing controversies in the field. As Neuroendorine Tumors is on a roll in terms of new treatments and continued research, we appear to be well represented with over 20 'extracts' submitted for review and display. This is fairly complex stuff but much of it will be familiar to many. I've filtered and extracted all the Neuroendocrine stuff into one list providing you with an…