Initially, she was diagnosed with appendicitis. Eventually, that diagnosis changed. It turned out she was afflicted with fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma, an extremely rare cancer that only affects 200 people a year in the entire world.

Doctors operated, and told Bronte that she would be fine. That didn't put her mind at ease. She researched her disease online, and found that it had a high rate of recurrence. She brought this up to her doctors at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, who dismissed it. They told her to "stop Googling" her symptoms. In one case, she was denied treatment at a hospital, even though she was there on her general practitioner's recommendation...

Access the full story at someecards.

Sophisticated drugs are opening the door, scientists say, to an era of "precision medicine."

They're also ushering in an age of astronomical prices.

New cancer drugs are routinely priced at more than $100,000 a year — nearly twice the average household income.

Experimental cholesterol drugs — widely predicted to be approved this summer — could cost $10,000 a year

A drug for a subset of people of cystic fibrosis, a lung disease that kills most patients by their early 40s, commands more than $300,000 a year.

Even with insurance, patients might pay thousands of dollars a month out of pocket.

For many people, care for cancer and other serious diseases is "a doorway to bankruptcy or poverty," said Timothy Turnham, executive director of the Melanoma Research Foundation. "It's a tremendous economic burden."

But patients aren't the only ones paying.

Taxpayers underwrite the cost of prescription drugs provided by Medicare, Medicaid and other public insurance programs.

Spending on prescription drugs last year reached a record-breaking $374 billion, up 13% from 2013, with the largest percentage increase in more than a decade, said Clare Krusing, spokeswoman for America's Health Insurance Plans. Almost half of that increase came from drugs launched in the past two years.

Some of the most expensive medications are "breakthrough" drugs, which are fast tracked by the Food and Drug Administration because of their potential to fill an unmet need, she said. Over the next decade, just 10 of these breakthrough drugs will cost the government nearly $50 billion.

People with private insurance could find themselves paying more out-of-pocket for health care if insurers raise premiums to cover their costs, Krusing said.

"We're spending money we cannot afford," said Leonard Saltz, chief of gastrointestinal oncology at New York's Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Yet Saltz said he can't deny that some new drugs are game changers.

"I want these drugs and drugs like them available for my patients," Saltz said.

The cystic fibrosis drug, Kalydeco, has changed 33-year-old Emily Schaller's life. Before Kalydeco, Schaller was hospitalized for lung infections two to three times a year. Since beginning the drug five years ago, through a clinical trial, she's been hospitalized twice. Schaller, who lives in Detroit, receives Kalydeco through Michigan's state-run health insurance program.

"It's a miracle drug," Schaller said. "I'm now planning a retirement fund, which is something I never thought would need."

Yet miracles remain out of reach for many.

Even patients with insurance can have trouble affording their medication, Saltz said. Many insurance plans require patients to pay 20% of their prescription drug costs.

Some cancer patients have begun rationing their pills to reduce costs, taking them every two days instead of daily, said Ronan Kelly, an assistant professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in Baltimore.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/06/14/rising-drug-prices/71077100/

“The obvious thing is to think about what we could remove from our diet. But I took a completely opposite approach and began asking: What could we be adding to our diet that could boost the body’s defense system? In other words, can we eat to starve cancer?”- Dr. William Li

Cancer is the second most common form of death in the United States – claiming the lives of 1 in 4 people. While billions of dollars in high-tech research is conducted yearly, we just can’t seem to get ahead of the curve as more and more people are diagnosed with a number of types of cancers.

We often think about what we should be removing from our diet in an effort to prevent cancer, such as refined sugar and processed foods. While this is a good thing to do there may be something else we should be doing. What if we could actually add certain foods to our diet that would beat cancer at its own game?

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The father of modern medicine, Hippocrates said it best when he said, “Let your food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” He was referring quite simply to the innate powers that are locked deep within the cells of living foods – those foods that provide the maximum nutrition for us are also the very foods that can starve cancer.

What is angiogenesis?

Angiogenesis literally means the creation of new blood vessels – “angio” means blood vessels and “genesis” means creation. The human body contains over 60,000 miles of blood vessels, including 19 million capillaries.

Blood vessels can adapt to whatever environment they are exposed to and the body has the amazing ability to regulate how many blood vessels are present at any time.

Angiogenesis occurs during times of health and disease. Blood carries oxygen and nutrients to all parts of the body via blood vessels. When new tissue is developed, a blood supply is necessary for its growth and maintenance – angiogenesis, or the formation of new blood vessels, must occur.

The body can fertilize vessels to grow and also has ways to prune them back when necessary. A healthy body has control over the on and off switch and can regulate angiogenesis as needed.

However, research is now showing that in a number of diseases the body fails to either grow enough blood vessels or is not able to prune vessels when needed. When there are too many blood vessels conditions like cancer, arthritis, blindness, endometriosis, obesity and Alzheimers disease are fueled. When there are too few vessels, wounds don’t heal and conditions such as stroke, coronary heart disease, hair loss, erectile dysfunction and peripheral arterial disease result.

In the case of cancer, tumors release growth factor proteins that beckon for blood vessels to grow into the tumor. This provides not only the oxygen and the nutrients that the cancer needs to grow, but also supplies an escape route whereby cancerous cells can exit the tumor and metastasize in other areas.

Worldwide there are over 70 major diseases that impact millions of humans on a large scale – these diseases may all look different on the outside but upon closer inspection, they all share unbalanced angiogenesis as their common denominator.

This finding is now allowing researchers to re-conceptualize disease prevention and treatment..

FACT: Cancer begins as a group of harmless cells

Imbalanced angiogenesis is a hallmark of all forms of cancer. First and foremost it is important to understand how cancer starts. All cancers begin as microscopic nests of cells that are, for all intensive purposes, harmless. They can only grow to the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen at most on their own because they don’t have their own blood supply – no nutrients or oxygen means no growth.

Autopsy studies from people who have died in car accidents show that forty percent of women between the ages of 40 and 50 have microscopic cancers in their breasts and fifty percent of men in their 50′s and 60′s have microscopic cancers in their prostate.

By Susan Rinkunas

You may have heard of melanoma, but chances are also good that you don't know everything you need to stay safe --it's a tricky disease. Given that it's Skin Cancer Awareness Month, what better time to brush up on your knowledge? Many people associate melanoma with moles that go bad, especially in fair-skinned people who don't use sunscreen, but it's not quite that simple.

To learn more about who's at risk for melanoma and the surprising ways it can manifest, we spoke with Dr. Angela J. Lamb, M.D., assistant professor of Dermatology of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Read on for 10 things you probably didn't know about melanoma.

It's one of the most common cancers in young adults.
Melanoma may be the least common skin cancer, but according to the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD), it's the most common form of cancer for young adults ages 25 to 29 and the second most common cancer for people aged 15 to 29. Experts believe this is a result of tanning bed use, says Lamb.

It affects people of all skin tones.
It's true that people with more pigment in their skin have a much lower risk of skin cancer because they have more protection from the sun, but that doesn't give them a free pass to skip sunscreen. Basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas -- the most common types of skin cancer and those most strongly linked to sun exposure -- rarely happen in people of color, and melanoma is also rare, but when it does happen, it's mostly on palms and soles, says Lamb.

“I don't tweak my recommendations based on what the patient looks like,” says Lamb. “I tell everybody ‘wear sunscreen every day like it's your job, make it a daily regimen like brushing your teeth.'” She also tries to drive home sunscreen's anti-aging benefits for people who may not be sold on the cancer-prevention angle alone. In case you missed it: A 2013 study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine proved thatdaily sunscreen use helps prevent premature aging caused by sun exposure, including wrinkles and dark spots. Score!

It may not develop in an existing mole.
“This idea that bad moles turn into melanoma, some pathologists believe that and some don't,” she says. “There are some who believe that you can have a bunch of moles and those will be fine, but you can get a melanoma in some other place.”

Read the full article at the Huffington Post 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/14/melanoma-facts-skin-cancer_n_5289130.html

The UK has a far less liberal stance on cannabis than the states and users still face harsh penalties for growing and possessing cannabis. Read on to see how one man’s passion has already touched the lives of several people searching for just a little more time on this earth.

A chance meeting one day between a documentary maker and a sick cancer patient, whilst both in a health food store, has begun an extraordinary chain of events which could potentially change the lives of countless people. The patient in question merely asked the owner of the health food store how he could source cannabis oil. George, the filmaker says “As his story came out, we found that he had lung cancer. It had spread from his lungs to his hips, then to his bones, and to his neck. He had a lump under his skin. He couldn’t really walk, he was on crutches. After he had been through two bouts of chemotherapy, he had been told by the doctors that they weren’t going to offer him anymore.” Neither George nor his friend, who was the owner of the store, knew anything about cannabis oil , let alone how to source it. But they were touched by this mans story as he was only in his early 50′s. This search for cannabis oil seemed to be his last chance.

They were both intrigued and started investigating. Obviously these days with the internet being the obvious tool, they were overwhelmed with how much they found out almost immediately. George says “It was overwhelming. It was almost like this white noise of information.” Not long after beginning his search, George stumbled vast amounts of research that suggested cannabis could be an effective tool for reducing tumors and beating cancer. As recently as 2013, studies completed at the Compultense University of Madrid have found that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) actually causes cancer cells to auto-digest in animal models, thereby drastically reducing tumor size and prevalence (i). Despite the fact that there is a huge expanse of information on the subject, found in various academic journals, (there is even an annual international convention on cannabinoid medicine where doctors and researchers present their findings(ii)), most of this research is under-publicized and remains in the form of difficult-to-understand scientific language. Yet, at the same time, many people find it hard to give legitimacy to the waves of anecdotal information that claims cannabis is effective for everything from phantom limb pain to cerebral palsy.

Read the full article at Natural Cures Not Medicine 

(http://www.naturalcuresnotmedicine.com/2014/05/drop-time-cannabis-oil-changing-lives-cancer-patients-uk.html)

> 20 Medical Studies That Prove Cannabis Can Cure Cancer

JACOBA URISTAUG 28 2013, 

Forty-two years after President Nixon signed the National Cancer Act and declared the “war on cancer,” it’s virtually impossible to separate cancer from money—walks, bike rides and pink ribbons entice people to donate more and more. To question the need for more funding to help cancer patients seems almost sacrilege.

But that is what Clifton Leaf, a cancer survivor (diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in high school) and an editor at Fortune, asks in his book The Truth In Small Doses: Why We’re Losing The War on Cancer— and How to Win It: What if a lack of research funding isn’t really the problem? One reason we aren’t making faster progress against cancer, according to Leaf, is because the federal grant process often chases the brightest minds from academic labs, and for those who do stay, favors low-risk “little questions” over swinging for the fences.

“More money by itself is not going to solve anything,” Leaf said. “Let’s say we doubled the [National Institutes of Health] budget, that isn’t going to make the lives of researchers better.”

By Kathryn Doyle, August 28, 2013

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Survivors of cancers of the head and neck, including those of the tongue and thyroid, often suffer from depression but rarely seek treatment, according to a new study.

Doctors are increasingly recognizing depression in cancer survivors, according to lead author Dr. Allen M. Chen, though it's still unclear exactly how common mental health issues are following cancer treatment.

"The results of our study suggest that survivors of head and neck cancer are at significantly elevated risk of developing mental health problems," Chen, a radiation oncologist at the David Geffen School of Medicine in Los Angeles, told Reuters Health.

Read more at Yahoo News

(http://news.yahoo.com/few-head-neck-cancer-survivors-seek-mental-help-145649200.html)

The first clinical trial of revolutionary stem cells that won a Nobel Prize for their developer has been greenlit.

The cells, called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) Cells, will be morphed into retinal cells, then given to six patients with a major cause of blindness: age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

The trial, approved by Japan Health Minister Norihisa Tamura, will be led next summer by Masayo Takahashi. She is a retina regeneration expert, and a colleague of the man who first developed iPS cells: Shinya Yamanaka.

The trial epitomizes, to many, Japan’s determination to dominate the iPS cell field, an ambition that kicked into high gear when Yamanaka shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine last October for his iPS cell work.

Henrietta Lacks, a poor black woman from Maryland, had cells removed from her by doctors when she was being treated for terminal cancer in 1951.

Researchers found they were the first human cells that could be grown indefinitely in a laboratory.

The historic breakthrough paved the way for countless medical treatments.

The story of how an African-American tobacco farmer unwittingly transformed biomedicine was made famous by a 2010 best-seller, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.