Hayman S. Salib, MD, FACP - Salib Oncology

Nutrition is one of the main things that starts to effect the patient the patient starts not to eat good, losing their appetite which can affect the muscle mass. One thing we need to look at is how to continue to build the patients up during their treatment period. Losing weight is not healthy and should be monitored very closely, Dr. Salib and his staff will help educate and monitor your weight and healthy eating during your treatments.

Small molecules of drugs that exactly fight only the specific pathways that allow these cancers to grow and recently there is a big surge about the use of vaccines to fight cancers and we now have an approval of one of the drugs to use to help fight prostate cancer in the later stage metastatic phase, not the early stages to show itself for one of the other modalities for treatment.

Cancer treatment has changed dramatically over the years, in the past many years ago there were only one or two modtalities of treatment and now we have several classes of treatment and drugs that are tremendously effective. With very few side effects. Not only this but, many drugs we call biologics and biologics are drugs that are really created from the DNA itself and is meant to fight cancer cells in a very smart way and spare the human body so it produces less side effects and more effects on the tumor itself. As we have been reading in the news and looking into the new discoveries of drugs there are different ways to look around and fight cancer. One way it recognize the best ways that cancers will be able to grow. This way we deprive the tumors for the main modtalities of growth and many drugs have been created to fight in what we call an important biologic pathways that allow this cancer to survive. We went ahead from chemotherapy and all the classics that are still working and still very important into biologics and others

Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are conditions that occur when the blood-forming cells in the bone marrow are damaged. This damage leads to low numbers of one or more types of blood cells.

The most common cancers are and be aware of breast cancer, Lung cancer and Colon Cancer. These are the most prevalent forms of cancer. However, other cancers that could be a concern for many of us are hematologic form of cancers like lymphoma leukemia and also sometimes Myelodysplastic Syndrome, In which the bone marrow may not be producing enough blood. They are not common cancers and they are rare, they can be visiting us as time goes on.

Mammography and also self examination is key and should be done routinely. We recommend yearly breast exams by your doctor.

Malignant cells are cancerous and are made up of cells that grow out of control. Cells in these tumors can invade nearby tissues and spread to other parts of the body. Sometimes cells move away from the original (primary) cancer site and spread to other organs and bones where they can continue to grow and form another tumor at that site. This is known as metastasis or secondary cancer. Metastases (me·tas·ta·sis) keeps the name of the original cancer location. E.g., pancreatic cancer that has spread to the liver is still called pancreatic cancer.

It’s very difficult to identify the early signs of lung cancer. However, Coughing blood, losing weight very unusual chest x- ray , especially in smokers, people that have been exposed to fumes in the past.

Benign describes a tumor or tumors that are not cancerous. They can often be removed, and, in most cases, they do not come back. Cells in benign tumors do not spread to other parts of the body.

When you talk about the warning signs of cancer it really varies on whatever kind of tumor it is, for example when you talk about melanoma of the skin, it can be very tricky to look around and see if spots that are dark and changes color, increases in size, bloody, itchy, showing growth around it of it or even if it starts to fade away. This is not good and you need to be examined by a cancer specialist. However when you come to something like colon cancer, one of the most important signs that we have to look at are changes in the stool color to very dark, blood in the stool or abdominal pain. Sometimes this can be a later sign. One thing we need to keep in mind is If someone develops anemia, we need to make sure it’s not due to blood loss which can be a sign of underlying malignant tumor involving the Gastrointestinal Tract itself. You would be very surprised that sometimes the early signs in the Gastrointestinal Tract, or also know as, can be a form of clottability of the blood that can migrate from one arm to another and this by itself can sometimes be too early of a sign to detect.

Cancer is a very smart disease. Basically, it is a growth that is able to survive in our bodies even we have a tremendous system that would like to fight it, cancer is smart enough to get away from this fight and find a way to survive in our bodies and find a place for it. It can harm anywhere it goes.