new technique for treating lung cancer in spanish increasing lung cancer survival rate
The Catalan Institute of Oncology in Barcelona, Spain has recently presented the results of a new technique for treating lung cancer, one of the most widespread cancers, especially in men.
It is ultra- precise radiotherapy, able to target a very high dose of radiation with maximum accuracy even in very small lung tumours, without damaging the surrounding healthy tissues.
The main advantage of this technique is that is synchronised with a patient's breathing. The lung is normally very difficult to treat with radiotherapy because it moves when breathing.
"First of all, we have the advantage that the patient is not operated on. And then, instead of seven weeks continuously, the treatment is done in a few, short sessions, and it is over at the most in two weeks," says the head of Oncology at Bellvitige hospital, Dr Ferran Guedea.
Scientists plan to use this technique in patients who cannot be treated surgically, because of their age or the increased risk caused by other pathologies.
"In the past, only 30 percent of the patients treated with conventional techniques gained an extra two years. Now we obtain a 70 to 80 percent survival rate," said Dr Arturo Navarro.
The new technique has been tested on more than 70 patients since 2008 and the results seem encouraging.
"When they told him that he had this illness, then the doctor got to work, and now it is as if he never had anything," said one delighted wife who had feared she was about to lose her husband.
Thanks to the encouraging results, scientists want to extend the technique to other types of cancers, such as liver, bone, or prostate tumours.
tuberculosis in europe TB drug resistance problem lung illness
Tuberculosis has re-emerged as a public health concern in high-income countries in the last few decades.
The European region accounts for only 5% of world TB cases. The incidence of new TB cases in Europe varies from very low rates in Scandinavian countries (six to eight cases/100,000 population) to rates as high as 231 cases/100,000 population in Tajikistan; the Russian Federation is eleventh among the 22 high-burden TB countries. The estimated detection rate of new sputum smear-positive pulmonary cases and the treatment success rate in 2007 were poor compared with other WHO regions: 51% of cases were diagnosed and 70% of them completed a full course of anti-TB therapy, which is still a long way from the World Health Assembly targets (detection of 70% of infectious cases and successful treatment of 85% of them).
The low success rate is largely attributable to the increasing number of drug-resistant TB cases: Eastern European countries are among those with the highest rates of multidrug-resistant (MDR)-TB (TB resistant to rifampicin and isoniazid) in the world. By the end of September 2009, at least one case of extensively drug-resistant TB (named XDR-TB and defined as a MDR-TB strain with additional resistance to any fluoroquinolone, and to at least one of three injectable drugs used in anti-TB treatment) had been reported by 25 countries in the WHO European Region. In Western Europe, TB continues to cause disease among elderly native-born individuals, although high-risk groups including immigrants, prisoners, HIV-infected persons and drug addicts significantly contribute to the overall burden. Improved TB control in Europe requires a large coordinated effort by all stakeholders, including governments, governmental and non-governmental institutions, as well as the academic and private sectors and affected communities.
kidney function in animation how our Kidney Works Wie funktioniert die Niere 私たちの腎臓のしくみ
We can live quite well with only one kidney and some people live a healthy life even though born with one missing. But while bones can break, muscles can waste away and the brain can sleep without risk to life, if both of your kidneys fail, as happens in end stage kidney failure, bone, muscle or brain can not carry on.
How do our kidneys work?
Think of your kidneys as an extremely sophisticated, waste disposal system, which sorts non-recyclable waste from recyclable waste, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, while also cleaning your blood. Much of this waste is produced by the body as it processes the food you eat.
Without any kidney function our body dies. Some kidney function is essential for life!
Most people are born with two kidneys, each one about the size of an adult fist, are bean-shaped and weigh around 150 grams each. The kidneys are located at both sides of your backbone, just under the rib cage or above the small of your back. They are protected from injury by a large padding of fat, your lower ribs and several muscles.
What do your kidneys do?
Our kidneys are small biological marvels with a fascinating design. Healthy kidneys act like a filter to make sure the right amount of wastes and fluids are removed. Every hour your blood supply circulates through the kidneys about 12 times. Each day your kidneys process around 200 litres of blood, with around 1 to 2 litres of waste leaving the body as urine. Our kidneys make three important hormones, erythropoietin, renin and active vitamin D. Erythropoietin stimulates the production of red blood cells, renin is involved in the control of blood pressure and active vitamin D controls calcium uptake and helps make strong bones.
What is the role of your kidneys in keeping you healthy?
For organs so small, your kidneys works hard - they have a number of vital roles to play in the daily functions of our body, as they:
act as filters for your body to clean blood of wastes, yet retain essential elements needed by the body
they keep the proper balance of salts and acids in the body, and produce hormones and enzymes which help to:
control your blood pressure
help to keep your internal water balance
make red blood cells and help maintain your blood composition and pH levels
maintain strong and healthy bones and help to keep mineral balance
Your kidneys are master chemists of the body, intervene in many processes and balances in the body and control many vital body functions. The major role of the kidneys is to remove waste from the blood and eliminate it in the urine. To remove this waste and extra water, blood enters the kidney through the renal artery; blood is then cleaned in the kidney as it passes through tiny filters called nephrons. The nephrons are the basic working units of the kidneys, controlling the formation of urine. One kidney contains about one million nephrons, and each nephron contains a filtering apparatus called a glomerulus.
Anatomy of the kidneys
We have about a million hairpin-like glomeruli at birth, but lose about 100,000 of these every decade of life. Droplets of filtered blood pass through a number of tubules (tiny tubes) into the medulla, a central collecting region. The glomeruli and tubules together make up nephrons, long and extremely fine tubes which, if connected, would run for 80 kilometres (50 miles).
Cleaned blood returns to the body by the renal vein. Waste and extra water removed by the kidney passes through a tube called the ureter to the bladder, where it is stored as urine or wee. When the bladder is full, urine passes out of the body through another tube called the urethra.
The process of removing waste and extra water in simple terms is:
food and drink enters the stomach and are broken down into nutrients
solid waste products are removed and nutrients enter the bloodstream.
nutrients are used by the body for energy, growth, repair and maintenance of body functions.
this process creates waste which is removed by the kidneys.
extra nutrients not immediately needed by the body are also removed by the kidneys.
waste products and extra water move from the kidneys to the bladder, then leave the body as urine
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What's the Difference between Smoking and Non-smoking?
It's now been over twenty-eight years since I stopped being a smoker. The date and time are 1/2/79 at 10:00 p.m. The details of how I got there are not what this article is about. It's about the difference between how I perceived myself when I smoked versus how I perceive myself since I ended my relationship with cigarettes. Here's just one aspect of my experience of the difference. First and foremost, the increase in my self-respect. I know I have beaten the most physically and psychologically addictive product man has ever seen. I'm proud of that feat. It is one of the great accomplishments of my life.
But my self-respect doesn't just stem solely from that. Any smoker who is honest with himself or herself will have to admit that when they first started smoking, they felt guilty. Deep inside they knew it was the wrong thing to be doing. For other reasons, other perceived "benefits", they, WE, decided to overpower that feeling, suppress that guilt, ignore the thoughts that this isn't "right".
But after smoking a while, the guilt doesn't just "go away", it just goes deep into the subconscious, and we get so used to it that, ultimately, we don't "feel" it anymore. Still, it's there. Still, it affects everything we do, every day of our lives. Every decision we make is based upon a self-image that is created by the measure of our internal values. I personally believe that the station in life that we feel most comfortable with is the one that is decided by taking a measure of our value, and subtracting from that the measure of our guilt.
Should we rise above that station, we will find ways to erode it, destroy it, reject it. Witness James Dean, Jimi Hendrix, Janice Joplin, John Belushi, Elvis, Chris Farley, and on and on. As of this writing (1999), we can count Robert Downey, Jr., Christian Slater and Bill Clinton. Why are they destroying brilliant, wonderful careers? Because they don't feel worthy of them. And why not? Because they feel guilty. (I don't know if all these folks smoke or did smoke, but...)
I'm not saying that just because they smoke, they feel so guilty that they must self-destruct. I'm only saying that, for those who do or did, it plays a part.
It's said that "reformed" smokers seem smug and superior to those still smoking. I think perhaps we may seem that way to the smokers, but what I believe the smokers are actually perceiving in us is the newfound self-respect we non-smokers have discovered. This is abrasive to the smoker, because it forces the smoker toward feeling, perhaps just a tiny bit, that old repressed guilt. The pain of feeling "wrong", of doing something they know they should not. They may instinctively feel something in us that they desire so much to feel themselves. It's the pride of knowing we don't feel guilty about smoking any longer!
There are many other differences, benefits, rewards to being a non-smoker that I have realized, but this post is probably way longer than any will read anyway.
--> So I'll leave it at this.
Those of you striving to end your relationship with cigarettes are on the right path. Never doubt it, never falter. Never beat yourself up because you've backslid. Know that you are in the process of healing your mind as well as your body. It may be perceived as a hard fight you've taken on, perhaps the hardest of your life. However, if you use my system,it need not be!You may not know this until it's over, but IT IS DEFINITELY WORTH IT!!!
