Metastasis

Breast cancer has definitely become a serious worldwide health challenge. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), public health data points shows that the global burden of breast cancer in women, measured by the number of times something happens, death, and financial based costs, is large and on the rise. Worldwide, it is estimated that more than one million women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year, and more than 410,000 will die from the disease (Ajithkumar 2011). In…

Tumor markers are helpful biochemical markers that assist in screening and identifying individuals at high risk of developing cancer. They are also used when diagnosing specific types of tumors and monitoring the progress of specific tumors (McCance & Huether, 2013). Cells from benign tumors and malignant tumors produce tumor markers which can be present in blood, spinal fluid, and in urine (McCance & Huether, 2013). The prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is an antigen that is secreted by the…

The purpose of this experiment was to identify the different absorbance levels and response between normal cells and cancerous cells. Also, the difference between resting or stimulated cells and whether they have a difference in absorbance from each other. Inactivated forms of ERK cells don’t react and bind to the antibody on the ELISA plate, therefore this results in a no colour change on the plate. Whereas activated with added phosphate ERK cells react with the antibody and so antibodies do…

A chief complaint from a patient I have received in the past, while working in women’s health, was “During my monthly self breast examination I discovered a lump and it’s painful”. The patient was a 22-year-old Hispanic woman with a history of two miscarriages and presented post-op dilation and curettage. The patient had an aunt who passed away from breast cancer about a year before this visit and she was concerned that her lump could signify that she had breast cancer. Bickley and Szilagyi…

Barbara Ehrenreich writes this book as a way to inform readers about the hazardous effects of positive thinking and the way it has warped our perception on how we deal with obstacles in life.The book shows the effects on the business, religious,and especially personal and morbid level when she speaks about her confrontation with breast cancer. She speaks about how she was exposed to the “pink ribbon culture “ and was overwhelmed with crazy optimistic, inspirational phrases,where the word…

Over the summer, my grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Having two direct relatives being diagnosed and currently having the disease, she decided to have genetic testing done. Many cancers are genetically passed down, so we had a very strong possibility that we could have the gene. If we did, my mother, aunt, and I would be almost guaranteed to have breast cancer during our lifetime. This could potentially change the lives of everyone in my family. We knew it was possibility, but we…

The made for TV HBO Production movie Wit (2001) is a tale about Dr. Vivian Bearing, a prolific writer and English teacher that has fallen ill with advanced Ovarian cancer. She then has to adapt to losing her autonomy and being a living experiment to doctors who only see her a petri dish. The story is based on a play written by Margaret Edison that debuted in 1995. Characters include Dr. Vivian Bearing (Emma Thompson) the pretentious Teacher, Dr. Jason Posner (Jonathan M. Woodward) the stunted…

There are thousands of children diagnosed with malignancies each year, with leukemia being the most common (London et al., 2014). Leukemia is a cancer that affects the child’s body by increasing the number of atypical white blood cells (London et al., 2014). Leukemia is differentiated into different types based on the change that is has on the blood cells (London et al., 2014). These different types include acute myelogenous leukemia and acute lymphoblastic leukemia, with acute lymphoblastic…

Anticancer chemotherapy: The aim of drug treatment in patients with cancer is to reduce the presence of malignant cells. This may be achieved by causing a lethal cytotoxic event in the cancer cell that will arrest tumour progression. Targets for cytotoxic attack include inhibition of purine and pyrimidine synthesis, inhibition of DNA and RNA synthesis and chemical attack on the integrity of the structure of cellular DNA. Since these treatments reduce the mechanisms of cell proliferation in…

Cancer is the name given to the disease in which changes in gene expression cause an uncontrollable division of abnormal cells in any given part of the body. Cell growth and division are regulated by specific genes, and these genes include those for growth factors, along with their receptors, and the intracellular molecules of signaling pathways. Cancer can occur whenever a mutation alters any of these genes. These mutations can be random and spontaneous, however they can also be caused by…