ACUPUNCTURE AND CANCER TREATMENT

Acupuncture originated in China more than 2000 years ago, is the practice of inserting thin needles into specific body points to improve health and well-being.

When a person is sick, diseased, or injured, there is an obstruction of chi along one of the meridians. Traditional chinese medicine has identified some 500 specific points where needles are to be inserted for specific effects.

Today, the needles are twirled, heated or even stimulated with weak electrical current, ultrasound, or certain wavelengths of light. Some use tuning forks over the acupoints. Others direct laser beam at them. Still others use magnetic BBs on patces applied to acupoints.

Acupuncture in Cancer Treatment

The role of acupuncture is in its adjunctive use in anesthesia, in post-operative pain control, and in aiding and hastening recovery from the side effects of the various therapies. Acupuncture is effective for control of pain, of local swelling post-operatively, for shortening the resolution of hematoma and tissue swelling and for minimizing use of medications and their attendant side effects. Energetic acupuncture, an approach consisting of the use of needles with electricity and moxibustion (a form of local heating with herbs imparts a sense of well being and accelerates patients' recovery. In conjunction with nutritional support, its use is routinely employed in some cancer institutions.

The dreaded nausea and vomiting which commonly occurs in some patients undergoing chemotherapy and inevitably, with the use of certain classes of agents, can often be worse than the disease itself. Most oncologists have experienced the patients who start vomiting at the thought of their next clinic visit. At the University of Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Medicine, a well-controlled study completed over two Years ago, the authors of the published paper reported significant reduction of nausea and vomiting when pre-treated with. It is now routinely administered before, after and in between chemotherapy treatment sessions for control or nausea and emesis. Such treatments are relatively simple and easily executed in an outpatient setting. Its effectiveness helps in minimizing the use of standard, expensive multi-drug anti-nausea regimens with their attendant side effects, given along with the chemotherapeutic agents.

That acupuncture is a powerful tool for general pain control is widely known. . Less known is its success use in some cancer-related pain and in reducing narcotic use and thereby minimizing the side effects confusion, disturbed mentation, behavioral changes, nausea and severe constipation.

Needling a variety of trigger and painful points, percutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, and osteo-puncture, along with whole body energetic acupuncture support, .are approaches available to the acupuncturists. In the acupuncture paradigm, any chronic disease process depletes the energy level in the organism. Such depletion can be ameliorated, at least temporarily, by tonification, a process of imparting energy into the system. This is deemed necessary for more durable, successful pain control. It can also add to the patients' sense of well being and decrease the malaise associated with any chronic disease, especially cancer.

Nutritional support as an aid in boosting immune response in cancer patients, along with minimizing the immune and white blood cell suppression that occurs with most chemotherapeutic agents, has been receiving greater attention and funding for research.. Kenneth Conklin, M.D., Ph.D., an anesthesiologist at UCLA working with the Oncology Department, reports gratifying results utilizing nutrition and supplements combined with energetic acupuncture.

Energetic acupuncture repletes energy level to the organism as a whole, reestablishes homeostasis by re-balancing energy distribution and un-blocking energy flow. This systems approach to deal with system wide patho-physiology can be complemented by distinct meridian acupuncture, which directs healing energy to specific organ pathology and is a routine approach in treating diseased organs such as liver, pancreas kidney, including those ravaged by cancers.

While the degree of beneficial results from acupuncture treatment is dependent on various clinical factors such as presenting symptoms, clinical staging, timing of the encounter in the course of the illness, areas of involvement, the answer to the opening question "can acupuncture help me?" is, in all probability, that it can help in the care of the cancer patient.

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CANCER TREATMENT

There is no single treatment for cancer - doctors have a range of options available and must decide which is best for the patient. They will often combine several types of treatment for greater effect, taking into account all sorts of factors. For example, the patient's age, history and lifestyle are very important in deciding on the best treatment. Doctors will involve the patient in the decision as much as possible.

There are currently many different ways to treat cancer.

Conventional Treatments

Surgery

For many centuries, surgery was the only treatment for cancer. The famous 18th century surgeon, John Hunter, suggested that surgery might cure cancer if the tumor had not invaded the surrounding tissue. He remarked that "if the tumor is moveable... there is no impropriety in removing it".
This procedure remained the mainstay of breast cancer treatment until very recently. Nowadays, the use of chemo- and radiotherapy, and the ability to diagnose breast cancer earlier thanks to screening programmes, means that radical mastectomy can often be avoided.
Recently, cancer surgery has benefited from the use of high-tech imaging techniques such as ultrasound, MRI and CT scanning These procedures allow a surgeon to find out the exact size and shape of a patient's tumor. And the widespread use of keyhole surgery allows surgeons to operate on a patient's tumor without leaving large disfiguring scars.

Radiotherapy

Radiation therapy is one of the three traditional primary forms of medical treatment used by the experts at Cancer Treatment Centers of America to treat your cancer, and for relief of symptoms. It may be used alone or in combination with surgery or chemotherapy, almost anywhere within your body. Innovative new techniques have evolved and are still evolving, enabling delivery of higher radiation doses to cancer cells and limited doses to your normal tissue.

Chemotherapy

The underlying principle of chemotherapy is to kill the cancer by treating them with chemicals that interfere with the process of cell division. They do this either by damaging the proteins involved, or by damaging the DNA itself. This causes the damaged cells to commit suicide.
Chemotherapy can have many unpleasant side effects, such as nausea, vomiting, hair loss and mouth sores. New, and usually effective, approaches to prevent or moderate these side effects will be utilized to help you through your chemotherapy treatment. The fractionated dose approach may diminish the side effects, particularly nausea and vomiting.
Different classes of chemotherapy drugs work by interfering with different stages of cell division. To take advantage of this, doctors often prescribe them in combination ('combination therapy'), so that they are more effective.

Hormone therapy

Hormones are chemicals produced by glands in your body, and are circulated in the bloodstream. Estrogen and progesterone are hormones that affect the way some cancers grow. If tests show that your cancer cells have estrogen, progesterone, and/or testosterone receptors (molecules found in some cancer cells to which estrogen and progesterone will attach), hormone therapy is used to block the way these hormones help the cancer grow. This treatment may include the use of drugs that change the way hormones work, or surgery to remove the ovaries that make female hormones, or the testicles, which produce male hormones.

Immunotherapy/biotherapy

Cancer may develop when the immune system breaks down or is not functioning adequately. Biotherapy is designed to repair, stimulate, or enhance your body’s own immune responses. Treatments such as interferon and colony stimulating factors are used now, either alone, or in conjunction with other modalities such as surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.

Gene therapy

As cancer is a disease caused by damaged DNA, many researchers have tried to find ways to correct this damage by correcting the DNA itself. Some gene therapy strategies aim to replace damaged genes with copies that work - like replacing a faulty part of a car that has broken down.

Photodynamic Therapy

Photodynamic Therapy is presently being used for esophageal cancer, and early stage lung cancer (excluding mesothelioma), where it has been shown to be more than 90 percent effective. It is also being utilized as an investigational therapy for obstructive lung cancer, Barrett's esophagus, head and neck cancer, and skin cancer. Skin cancers (basal cell and squamous cell), may also be effectively treated with PDT. PDT is a two-step procedure that is done on an outpatient basis. You will be injected with a light-activated drug (Photofrin), which targets cancerous cells. Approximately 24-48 hours later, a laser light is directed through a scope onto tumor cells, exposing the cancerous tissue to a certain spectrum of light. The light "switches on" the drug, destroying the cancerous cells without damaging your surrounding healthy tissue.

Chemoembolization

Chemoembolization is an innovative method to treat certain types of liver cancer, whether the tumor began in the liver (liver cancer) or spread to it from another organ (metastasized to the liver). It involves injecting chemotherapy directly into the blood vessels that feed the liver tumor.
A small catheter will be inserted through a needle (with X-ray guidance) into your femoral artery, located in your groin. The radiologist will then thread the catheter up through your aorta (the largest artery, located in your heart) and into the artery in your liver, which is the one that feeds the tumor.
Chemotherapy, mixed with a microsphere is injected directly through the catheter into this artery and into the tumor. When blood flow in the artery stops due to the blockage from the microsphere, the catheter is then removed. This procedure provides a high concentration of chemotherapy into the tumor and provides, what is usually, a temporary cut off of the arterial blood supply to the tumor.

Complementary Therapy

Nutrition Therapy
Pain Management
Naturopathic Medicine
Mind-Body Medicine
Oncology Rehabilitation
Spiritual Support
Image Enhancement

sources : info.cancerresearchuk.org, cancercenter.com

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CANCER DIAGNOSIS

There is no single test that can accurately diagnose cancer. The complete evaluation of a patient usually requires a thorough history and physical examination along with diagnostic testing. Many tests are needed to determine whether a person has cancer, or if another condition (such as an infection) is mimicking the symptoms of cancer.

The following are some of the more common laboratory, diagnostic imaging and biopsy tests :

• Laboratory tests

Blood tests
A variety of blood tests are used to check the levels of substances in the blood that indicate how healthy the body is and whether infection is present. For example, blood tests revealing elevated levels of waste products, such as creatinine or blood urea nitrogen (BUN), indicate that the kidneys are not working efficiently to filter those substances out. Other tests check the presence of electrolytes - chemical compounds such as sodium and potassium that are critical to the body's healthy functioning. Coagulation studies determine how quickly the blood clots.

A complete blood count (CBC) measures the size, number, and maturity of the different blood cells in a specific volume of blood. This is one of the most common tests performed. Red blood cells are important for carrying oxygen and fighting anemia and fatigue; the hemoglobin portion of the CBC measures the oxygen carrying capacity of the red blood cells while the hematocrit measures the percentage of red blood cells in the blood. White blood cells fight infection. Increased numbers of white blood cells, therefore, may indicate the presence of an infection. Platelets prevent the body from bleeding and bruising easily.

Urinalysis
Urinalysis breaks down the components of urine to check for the presence of drugs, blood, protein, and other substances. Blood in the urine (hematuria) may be the result of a benign (noncancerous) condition, but it can also indicate an infection or other problem. High levels of protein in the urine (proteinuria) may indicate a kidney or cardiovascular problem.

Tumor markers
Tumor markers are substances either released by cancer cells into the blood or urine or substances created by the body in response to cancer cells. Tumor markers are used to evaluate how well a patient has responded to treatment and to check for tumor recurrence. Research is currently being conducted on the role of tumor markers in detection, diagnosis, and treatment of cancers.
Some of tumor markers are :prostate-specific-antigen (PSA), prostatic acid phospatase (PAP), CA 125, carcinoembryonic antigen CEA), alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), human chorionicgonadotropin (HCG), CA 19-9, CA 15-3, CA 27-29, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), neuron-specific enolase (NSE).

• Diagnostic imaging: Determining cancer location, size and spread

X-Ray, Computerized tomography (CT), Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Ultrasound, Radionuclide scanning, Positron emission tomography (PET), Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)

• Biopsy: Removing a sample of tissue

Needle biopsy, Endoscopic biopsy, Surgical biopsy.

sources : cnn.com/health, stanford.edu

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