Understanding Cancer

Bowel / Colon Cancer, is it common?  Yes!  Your bowel is the bit of your guts below your stomach, this is where the left over food is collected into a stool (poo, bowel motion) before you go to the toilet. Bowel cancer is the third most common cancer in the UK and about one [...]

There are two main groups of skin cancer (i) cancer in moles – melanoma and (ii) cancer in skin cells that aren’t moles (basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma.)

In the UK, each year, about 9,500 people are diagnosed with melanoma. Non melanoma skin cancer (basal cell and squamous cell carcinoma) is much [...]

Okay, so some science information on the web is good. It is written and checked by experts (peer-reviewed) and is a balanced view of what we know and what we don’t. Then there is the other stuff.  A lot of websites are trying to sell you stuff. A lot of websites push “natural cures” [...]

If you’ve just been diagnosed with cancer you probably have lots of questions, the trouble is you forget them all when you see the doctor! You’ve probably heard it before, but it can really help to write a few questions down.

If another member of your family, or a close friend has had cancer [...]

This is a short post today, but I thought I’d draw your attention to an article on the BBC News website about a gene that is involved in lung cancer.  Early experiments have shown that putting a working copy of LIMD1 back into cells delays tumour growth.

You can read the article “Lung Cancer [...]

Retinoblastoma is a type of cancer that affects the eyes.  Sometimes one eye is affected (unilateral) sometimes both eyes are affected (bilateral).  [One way to remember which is which, is that a unicycle only has one wheel but a bicycle has two wheels, so that means unilateral affects one eye and bilateral affects two [...]

A Picture of an antibody

Many men (especially those over 65) have their levels of “PSA” checked.  PSA stands for Prostate Specific Antigen. A raised (or high) level of PSA in your blood could mean you have a disease affecting your prostate (your prostate is a gland that makes some of the liquid [...]

This post follows on from an earlier one that discussed websites and help available to people aged 6-18 years whose mum or dad has cancer. This post is about coping with dying, from both a parent and child’s point of view.

Channel 4 recently (November 2008)  ran a series called “The Mummy Diaries” which [...]

Ovarian cancer is relatively uncommon, in Aberdeen City about 30 women a year are diagnosed with it and another 30 are diagnosed in Aberdeenshire. (In contrast about 150 women a year in Aberdeen City and a further 150 in Abeerdeenshire are diagnosed with breast cancer) [Data from IDS Scotland]

While breast cancer can be [...]