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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30Dec 2017 by Ronny Allan 2 Comments
Ronny Allan – Top 6 posts of 2017

Ronny Allan – Top 6 posts of 2017

Awareness, Inspiration
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 of Neuroendocrine Cancer Making the point that Neuroendocrine Cancer is not confined to a particular part of the body 9,906 Neuroendocrine Cancer Syndromes – Early Signs of a Late Diagnosis…
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19May 2017 by Ronny Allan 5 Comments
ASCO 2017 – Let’s talk about NETs #ASCO17

ASCO 2017 – Let’s talk about NETs #ASCO17

Clinical Trials
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 easy to peruse table of contents, complete with relevant linkages if you need to read more.  For many the extract title and conclusion will be sufficiently educational or at least…
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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 Grade In 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) As patients, we deal with many medical…
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