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Wednesday 22 May 2013

New bride dies after being told: You're too young to have that kind of cancer

DOCTORS shrugged off concerns and claimed her symptoms were just bad period pains.


A BRIDE died four weeks after her wedding – from a cancer she was told she was too young to have.

Laura Connolly, 31, had visited GPs a number of times over a two-year period, complaining of crippling stomach pain and bleeding.

But doctors shrugged off her concerns, claiming her symptoms were just bad period pains.

By the time Laura was finally diagnosed with bowel cancer last July, the disease had spread to her liver and lungs.

She wed her childhood sweetheart Alan last month and passed away exactly four weeks later.

Laura’s mum Lesley Shannon, 54, said her daughter would still be alive if her complaints had been properly investigated.

She added: “We will be burying our beautiful, precious daughter on Wednesday.

“She lost her brave and hard-fought battle against bowel cancer.

“Laura complained of various symptoms for a long period but her cancer went undiagnosed and when she finally had the colonoscopy, it was inoperable.”

Laura, of Kirkintilloch, near Glasgow, wed Alan at Glenskirlie House, near Banknock, Stirlingshire, on March 1.

Read More...

Smokers have worse colon cancer prognosis: study


Smokers are less likely to be alive and cancer-free three years after having surgery for colon cancer than people who have never smoked, according to a new study.

Out of about 2,000 people who had part of their colon surgically removed, researchers found 74 percent of those who had never smoked were cancer-free three years later, compared to 70 percent of smokers.


Amanda Phipps, the study's lead author from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, said the results provide another reason why people should quit smoking.

"It's nice when you have findings that portray a consistent public health message," said Phipps.

According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), certain ingredients in cigarettes can dissolve into a person's saliva and cause colon and other cancers.

The ACS estimates about 102,500 Americans will be diagnosed with colon and rectal cancers in 2013, and over 40,000 will die from those diseases.

Phipps and her colleagues previously found smokers with colon cancer were more likely to die than non-smokers from any cause and specifically from their cancers. But the researchers wanted to take a closer look at what smoking meant for colon cancer recurrence.

Read More...

Monday 20 May 2013

Uterine cancer tied to later colon cancer - study

Depending on their age, women diagnosed with uterine cancer may have a higher risk of developing colon cancer later on, according to a new study from Canada.

"As the survival has increased among cancer survivors, it's important to know what the other problems they're facing," said Dr. Harminder Singh, the study's lead author from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.


Cancer of the endometrium - the lining of the uterus - is the most common cancer of the female reproductive tract. The American Cancer Society estimates about 50,000 women will be diagnosed with the cancer in 2013 and about 8,000 will die from it.

Previous research looking at women's risk for colon cancer following endometrial cancer produced mixed results. Also, no study looked at where in the colon those cancers showed up, which can help pick screening techniques.

 
For the new study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the researchers used data on 3,115 women diagnosed with endometrial cancer between 1987 and 2008 in the Canadian province of Manitoba.

Read more - http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/04/11/us-health-uterine-colon-cancer-idUKBRE93A0Y120130411

Mum of two raises awareness of bowel cancer in the under 50s


Rcahel Bown

A HOLMER Green mum who was diagnosed with bowel cancer aged 45 has called for better diagnosis in younger patients and for people to be less embarrassed talking about their symptoms.

Rachel Bown, now 47, was unaware of the symptoms of bowel cancer and found it difficult to get a diagnosis from a doctor.

It wasn't until her third visit- almost a year later after she first experienced symptoms- that she was diagnosed by a locum doctor who questioned her thoroughly.

She received treatment and is now in remission.

A new report from Bowel Cancer UK has shown that Rachel is not the only one as it revealed a shocking picture of delayed diagnosis, failures in screening, feelings of isolation and loneliness, as well as unmet support needs amongst younger bowel cancer patients.

Read more -  http://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/10346204.Mum_of_two_raises_awareness_of_bowel_cancer_in_the_under_50s/

Thursday 16 May 2013

New type of bowel cancer discovered

Cancer Research UK Press Release

Scientist using microscopeA unique sub-type of bowel cancer has been discovered which has a worse outcome than other types of colon cancer and is resistant to certain targeted treatments, according to research published today in Nature Medicine* (Sunday).
Researchers from the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute at the University of Cambridge and the Netherlands analysed tumours from 90 separate patients with stage II colon cancer and found that they could group the samples into three distinct sub-types.
They then developed a panel of 146 genes that could distinguish these sub-types, and confirmed their findings by analysing a further 1100 patients with the disease.
Two of these sub-types** were already known, but in more than a quarter of the patients a new kind of cancer was detected, which was previously not regarded as a separate sub-type***. These patients were more likely to do worse than those with the other types of bowel cancer. Furthermore, their tumours were more aggressive and resistant to the drug cetuximab, which can be used to treat the disease. Cetuximab targets a molecule called epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), whose link to cancer was discovered by Cancer Research UK scientists in the 1980s.

Bowel cancer

Bowel cancer is a general term for cancer that begins in the large bowel. Depending on where the cancer starts, bowel cancer is sometimes called colon cancer or rectal cancer.
Symptoms of bowel cancer include blood in your stools (faeces), an unexplained change in your bowel habits, such as prolonged diarrhea or constipation, and unexplained weight loss.
Cancer can sometimes start in the small bowel (small intestine), but small bowel cancer is much rarer than large bowel cancer.

Who is affected by bowel cancer?

In England, bowel cancer is the third most common type of cancer. In 2009, there were 41,142 new cases of bowel cancer registered in the UK:
  • 18,431 cases were diagnosed in women, making it the second most common cancer in women after breast cancer
  • 22,711 cases were diagnosed in men, making it the third most common cancer after prostate and lung cancer
Approximately 72% of bowel cancer cases develop in people who are 65 or over. Two-thirds of bowel cancers develop in the colon, with the remaining third developing in the rectum.

Monday 13 May 2013

Bowel cancer is the BIGGER killer... but there is a test that could help to save lives

IF you were told that there was a screening test for a cancer that kills more people than breast cancer, would you take it? It's a fair bet that most people would, of course.

But such a test does exist - for bowel cancer, which is the UK's second-biggest killer - and little over half the population bothers to send it back.

Everyone in Britain who has recently turned 60 (or 50 in Scotland) gets a faecal occult blood (FOB) test through the post. It's vaguely unpleasant and slightly messy to do because it involves collecting a sample and wiping it on to a special card each day for three days, but it's not difficult and you don't have to go to a clinic - just post it back.

The test detects whether there is any blood in a bowel movement - one of the key indicators of bowel cancer, which affects about 41,000 people a year, making it the second most common cancer in women and the third in men.

If blood is detected, patients are called in for a colonoscopy to observe the bowel and spot any suspicious-looking growths. Most bowel cancers start off as little polyps, which can be easily removed before they have a chance to become cancerous.

Read More -    http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/395475/Bowel-cancer-is-the-BIGGER-killer-but-there-is-a-test-that-could-help-to-save-lives

How Moore's widow Stephanie is the driving force behind charity battling bowel cancer

Stephanie Moore has had 20 years to regret that her late husband Bobby had to wait four years to receive a bowel cancer diagnosis. Ultimately, it cost the former England captain his life.

Mrs Moore is now the driving force behind the ‘Bobby Moore Fund’, a charity that has raised nearly £19m and funded more than 50 research programmes in to the disease that killed her husband at the age of just 51.

This week she was in Manchester with England midfielder Michael Carrick, looking at some of the latest developments in to treatment at the acclaimed Paterson Institute for Cancer Research.

The Bobby Moore Fund is one of the three charity partners chosen this year by the England team through the England Footballers Foundation and Mrs Moore said: “It’s beyond value that the players do things like this for us.

'Bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in the UK, after lung cancer.
'Recent stats show the incidence of bowel cancer in men has gone up by 30 per cent in the past 35 years, but only 6 per cent in women. Around 110 people in this UK are diagnosed with it every day.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2315525/Bobbys-widow-Stephanie-Moore-driving-force-charity-fighting-bowel-cancer.html#ixzz2TA8M4YK1