I am very sorry to hear of your loss. I have lost many family memebers to a whole host of different cancers, and in my opinion the quicker a cure can be found the better.

PS. Note to Gundu how do you get different colour writting?

http://www.ckt.8m.com

My mom had cancer a few years back (several different types), finally after a few surgerys, she's cancer free. My grandpa had colon cancer, then died a month or so after the surgery (a day after xmas).

what is excatly cancer and how many types of cancer are out there?

I have heard of testicular cancer, and it's got to do something with the male's balls getting bigger and bigger and bigger or seomthing.

Thank you all. You helped me a lot! But i still cant believe why she had to die?

avion

Avion I am so sorry to hear about your friend. It is very hard to handle now, i know, but in time you will remember all the good times you had together. She is not in pain anymore, and is looking down on you all the time.

My uncle had cancer and died last year. He suffered for 3 years and had 6 operations. Including his left arm and right leg being amputated. But the bastard disaese just kept spreading. He was only 49.

God bless him, and your friend Avion.

This is taken from a Yahoo! search. You can also look up the American Cancer Society http://www.cancer.org


Most Popular Sites

OncoLink http://www.oncolink.upenn.edu - information on cancer causes, prevention, faqs, support, clinical trials, and much more. From University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center.

CancerGuide http://cancerguide.org - shows you how to improve your odds by researching your options. Written by a cancer patient for cancer patients.

CancerSource.com http://www.cancersource.com - provides news, clinical trials, live chat events, message boards, mailing lists, and support groups.

cancerfacts.com http://www.cancerfacts.com - offers cancer patients scientific medical information using The Cancer Profiler, an interactive information service that uses scientific studies the medical community publishes and applies that knowledge to a patient's own medical situation.

Ask NOAH About: Cancer http://www.noah.cuny.edu/cancer/cancer.html


Pandora asked how many different kinds of cancer there are. Don't be alarmed when I say "infinite." The reason I say this is the same reason it's so difficult to "cure" cancer -- the disease comes from within the cells that make up our body.

If two people have leukemia, for example, they both have blood-cell cancers. However, they may have different types of leukemia -- myleoblastic and leukocytic are two different types. These different varieties need to be treated differently as well.

Some cancers have been linked to outside influences -- for example, ovarian and uterine cancers were triggered by DES, a fertility drug distributed here in the US in the 1970s. Tar and other products, whether delivered from cigarettes or by repeated inhalation from other sources, can trigger lung cancer.

Cancer is actually no more than abnormal changes in cells and uncontrolled growth and/or spread of the mutated "cancerous" cells. Probably every human being has had "cancerous" cells in his or her body at some time, but the cells were successfully destroyed by our immune systems. When the growth overwhelms the immune system's ability to kill the mutated cells, you end up with a cancer disease.

The most common location for cancer is in the lung, but cancer can affect any one part of the body and can spread from the original location throughout the body depending on how aggressive it is.

Because there are different types of cancer, there are also different survival rates. For example, most (but not all) leukemias are "easy" to treat. (I use "" because anyone who goes through radiation and chemotherapy will tell you it's never easy.) Pancreatic cancer, on the other hand, is almost a sure death sentence. If a cancer has spread to other areas from the original tumour, survival rates drop.

My grandfather died of Acute Myleoblastic Leukemia, which is a relatively easy form of cancer to treat -- in a younger person, who seeks treatment at the onset of symptoms. I'm not blaming my grandfather for his own death, but he had been ill for nearly two months before he ended up taking an ambulance ride to the hospital, and he was sixty-three years old. He had also lost nearly 50 pounds before he sought treatment.

So cancer is still an enigma to the medical community even though we've learned so much about it in the last fifty years. There was once a time, during the 1950s, when "cancer" was a bad word and the disease wasn't spoken about. People thought it was a curse brought upon one's self for sins of the past. Now we know babies can even be born with it, and survive; and people in the twilight of their lives can also beat it and live longer.

To me, and in my prayers for my cousin, cancer is an opportunity to gather one's strength and live life to its fullest. It reminds us of the fragile life we have and at the same time we can (in most cases) have hope for a renewed life once the battle is over. For those who do not survive, it is a reminder of our mortality and at the same time a reminder that life doesn't always go the way we expected it.

Sorry for the dissertation... I hope the links help.

Redngold, are you a doctor? you certainly know a lot!

so are there any ways to prevent cancer or watch for any particular symptons???

Hey

First I want to say, I'm sorry to hear about your friend Avion. It's a cruel dissease! Your friend has probably suffered a lot. What kind of cancer did she had?

About cancer. Redngold talked about leukemia. It's a rather strange kind of cancer. It can be cured when young people have this dissease, but it's almost impossible to cure this when your an adult. Leukemia is caused by the bloodforming organs in your body.

You have also a tumor. That's is something different. It's something that grows inside of your body. A braintumor can affect some parts of the brain. The tumor can be surgically removed if the surgions can reach it. At the moment they have a new thing.....lasersurgery and that can reach parts where a surgeon can't come. The difficulty when you want to remove this is that you may not touch the tumor. When it's hurt, the cells can spread further into the body.

Prevent cancer?
Impossible, it really is. If you don't drink, don't smoke, don't eat, don't walk (in the sun), don't breath, don't.... you will have a small possibility that you don't get cancer. Don't get me wrong here, I don't mean that you will surely get cancer.
I know a lot of people that don't smoke and get lung cancer. Nowadays also a lot of cancer's can be cured, but there are also "killing" cancer's.
- Leukemia when your an adult
- lungcancer
- coloncancer
- ...

Symptoms?
Every cancer has another symptom. So it's difficult to say that you're having cancer, when you're having a cough. Just go and see your doctor when you're a feeling ill and don't think you have cancer. It's a common dissease but not everybody gets it.
Enjoy your life, don't exagerate!

There are still more people that die from a heart attack then from cancer. And this is one of the things that are more common with youngsters.

Regards and my sympathies
Ralf

Sabena is right.

My aunt has always been obsessed with the cancer issue. She would always have healthy food, not do many things because she said they bring cancer. She used to live in New York and when I visited her when shopping or at the supermarket all her food choices would be based on low fat, skimed, low cholesterol, etc, etc. She also studied a lot about the subject and the different types. But she got it anyway beyond any precaution she must have taken.

Pandora et.al.
I'm not a doctor but I read a lot of medical literature. I'm actually a library assistant, one step below having a master's degree in library science. But I've been trying to go to graduate school in health sciences for the last few years. I'm not sure if I'll do med school or public health; maybe graduate nursing or even paramedic training. It's a long story, maybe I'll start another thread.
You can find out almost anything I talked about by visiting the sites on the web that I linked.
In terms of preventing cancer, the main things are: don't expose yourself to known carcinogens (cancer-causing chemicals) such as tar and tobacco (in cigarettes), DES (which has pretty much been outlawed), and volatile chemicals such as benzene, tetrachloromethane, hex-chromium, etc. You don't even need to really know about most of these chemicals -- most of them are either rarely encountered in daily life, or you should get lots of warning before you ever start working with them.

I forgot to answer the part about "signs and symptoms to look for."

Cancer can often go undetected for a long time unless you know what to look for. I encourage you to check out the American Cancer Society web site, http://www.cancer.org for more information.

Generally, there are a few things you can do to give yourself a check-up, once a month:
--Breast self-exam (yes, gentlemen, you can do this, too!)
--Look for any fast-growing, irregularly shaped, or discolored moles/freckles, or other unusual marks on your skin. If any of them cause you discomfort or pain when you touch them, consult with your doctor.
--Ladies, if you have any abnormal bleeding (you know what I mean) consult with a doctor.
--Gentlemen, if you notice anything abnormal down there, see your doctor. Don't be afraid to talk about it.
--If you detect any swollen lymph nodes that aren't associated with a head cold or other illness, you should see a doctor. Your major lymph nodes are on your neck in the groove between your jaw and your neck, just in front of the ear; in your armpits; and at the crease of your leg in the groin area.
--Once you're past about age 40, ladies should get regular mammograms (breast x-ray) and men should have regular prostate exams.

I'm sure there are more ways to be alert, so check out the website I mentioned above.