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How film producers helped a Ugandan boy get a new face
The film crew of Oscar winning movie The Last King of Scotland were so moved by the medical plight of one of their extras that they helped arrange facial surgery for him in the UK.
They discovered 10-year-old Joel Waiswa in Uganda while filming the movie, which depicts the relationship between Ugandan dictator Idi Amin and his Scottish physician.
While filming in a ramshackle hospital in the capital Kampala, film producer Lisa Bryer was approached by Joel who asked for and was given a part.
Joel had a large facial tumour that distorted his nose and pushed one of his eyes so far forward it looked as if it was outside his skull.
Seeking help
Lisa tried desperately to get him surgery.
"After speaking to Joel and hearing of his heartbreaking long wait to see doctors I just knew that I couldn't leave without securing him the treatment he so desperately needed, so I worked with local doctors to get him all the help they could offer," she said.
But because local doctors did not have either the facilities or specialist skills to treat Joel, Lisa appealed to the UK children's charity, Facing The World.
He was flown to the UK and his face repaired in one single 10-hour operation at the Cromwell Hospital.
Craniofacial surgeon Niall Kirkpatrick, ear, nose and throat specialist Will Grant and eye surgeon Naresh Joshi all donated their time for free.
Mr Kirkpatrick said that although the tumour was benign, it was continuing to grow and distort Joel's facial features.
"Joel's problems were a very severe facial deformity as a result of a tumour growing in the middle of his face which was steadily growing, twisting and rotating his face through approximately 90 degrees and pushing his eye sideways and outwards several centimetres," he said.
The medical team not only had to remove the tumour, but also put the little boy's facial features - including one eye - back into position, ensuring they lost none of the muscle function or nerves.
Mr Kirkpatrick, said the surgery had been a great success, but that Joel might need further surgery to correct the position of his teeth in the future.
Joel's tumour was pushing his eye from his skull
"Joel's face was transformed in one major procedure, and although the minor bruising around Joel's eye may take a while to completely resolve, the transformation after his surgery is incredible.
"He can now look forward to a future that until now was destined to be bleak.
"He is the most fabulous little boy, full of life, smiles and bubbly enthusiasm.
"He will live life to the full whatever is thrown at him and is just absolutely charming. He is very bright and has learnt remarkably good English very quickly."
He added: "It has been a real pleasure to be able to help."
Joel's mother said: "I see such a wonderful change in Joel and only God can know how happy I am for having the opportunity for Joel to come to London for his surgery.
She said the charity, helped by Lisa Bryer, had secured a good school for Joel to set him on the road for a "wonderful future". The film crew of Oscar winning movie The Last King of Scotland were so moved by the medical plight of one of their extras that they he... more -
Impotence drugs help treat brain tumors
" Impotence drugs may help carry cancer-fighting drugs through the brain to treat malignant tumors, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.
Tests in rats showed two erectile dysfunction drugs -- Schering-Plough's Levitra and Pfizer's Viagra -- helped carry a chemotherapy drug past the blood-brain barrier, the team at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles said.
Rats with brain tumors lived 42 days when injected with the cancer drug adriamycin. But when they also got Levitra, known generically as vardenafil, the rats survived an average of 53 days. Levitra appeared to be more effective, the researchers reported in the journal Brain Research.
Levitra and Viagra, known generically as sildenafil, are in a class of drugs known as PDE5 inhibitors. They were originally tested as heart drugs because they increase blood flow in small vessels.
"We chose adriamycin for this study because it is one of the most effective drugs against brain tumor cell lines in the laboratory but it has very little effect in animals and humans because it is unable to cross the blood-brain tumor barrier," neurosurgeon Dr. Keith Black, who led the study, said in a statement.
"The combination of vardenafil and adriamycin resulted in longer survival and smaller tumor size," Black said." " Impotence drugs may help carry cancer-fighting drugs through the brain to treat malignant tumors, U.S. researchers reported on ... more -
Cannabis extract makes brain tumors shrink, halts growth of blood vessels
Researchers in Spain have discovered that a cannabis extract makes brain tumors shrink by halting the growth of blood vessels that supply the tumors with life. Cannabis has chemicals called cannabinoids, these are the chemicals that could effectively starve tumors to death, say the researchers.
The study was carried out at the Complutense University, Madrid, Spain.
The team used mice to demonstrate that the cannabinoids block vessel growth.
You can read about this latest research in the journal Cancer Research.
Apparently, the procedure is also effective in humans.
The Spanish team, led by Dr Manuel Guzm�n, wanted to see whether they could prevent glioblastoma multiforme cancer from growing by cutting off its blood supply. Glioblastoma multiforme is one of the most difficult cancers to treat - it seldom responds to any medical intervention, such as radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgery.
The scientists knew that cannabinoids will block the growth of blood vessels (to tumors) in mice - they wanted to find out whether the same thing would happen with humans.
The mice were given a cancer similar to the human brain cancer (glioblastoma multiforme). The mice were then given cannabinoids and the genes examined.
The genes associated with blood vessel growth in tumors through the production of a chemical called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) had their activity reduced.
Cannabinoids halt VEGF production by producing Ceramide. Ceramide controls cell death.
Dr Guzm�n said: "As far as we know, this is the first report showing that ceramide depresses VEGF pathway by interfering with VEGF production."
They then wanted to see if this would also happen with humans.
They selected two patients who had glioblastoma multiforme and had not responded to chemotherapy, radiotherapy or surgery. The scientists took samples from them before and after treating them with a cannabinoids solution - this was administered directly into the tumor.
Amazingly, both patients experienced reduced VEGF levels in the tumor as a result of treatment with cannabinoids.
The researchers said that the results were encouraging. In order to be sure about their findings they need to carry out a larger study, they said.
Dr Guzm�n said "The present findings provide a novel pharmacological target for cannabinoid-based therapies." Researchers in Spain have discovered that a cannabis extract makes brain tumors shrink by halting the growth of blood vessels that sup... more -
Emperor - Chapter 7
Therapeutic Use of Cannabis
There are more than 60 therapeutic compounds in cannabis that are healing agents in medical and herbal treatments. The primary one is THC, and the effectiveness of therapy is directly proportionate to the herb’s potency or concentration of THC. Recent DEA reports of increasingly potent marijuana therefore represent a major medical advance; but, incredibly, the government uses these very numbers to solicit bigger budgets and harsher penalties.
On November 5, 1996, 56% of California citizens voted for the California Compassionate Use Act (medical marijuana initiative) ending all legal state efforts to keep marijuana from being used as medicine by California citizens.
Arizona citizens, in November 1996, also passed, by an even greater margin—
65%—a drug declassification initiative that included medical marijuana, backed by, among others, the late U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater.
Arizona’s governor and legislature, exercising their veto override ability on their state initiative laws for the first time in 90 years, struck down this popular initiative passed by the people. Arizona citizens angrily responded by recollecting more than 150,000 signatures in a 90-day referendum period and promptly returned the medical marijuana initiative to the ballot for November 1998.
The following explains how people will benefit when the freedom of choice of doctors and patients is once again respected. Therapeutic Use of Cannabis ... more -
Commentator Robert Novak Diagnosed With Brain Tumor - WSJ.com
BOSTON -- Conservative political commentator Robert Novak announced Monday he has been diagnosed with a brain tumor, less than a week after he struck a pedestrian with his Corvette and drove away.
Mr. Novak, 77 years old, fell ill on Cape Cod this weekend while visiting his daughter and was rushed to Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he said he was diagnosed Sunday with the tumor.
"I will be suspending my journalistic work for an indefinite but, God willing, not too lengthy period," Mr. Novak, editor of the Evans-Novak Political Reports, said in the statement released by his publisher, Eagle Publishing.
Mr. Novak has been a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times for decades. His assistant, Kathleen Connolly, told the newspaper that doctors hadn't yet done a biopsy to determine if the tumor was malignant.
She said Mr. Novak was alert and talking in the hospital's intensive care unit. Mr. Novak's office refused further comment to the Associated Press, other than to confirm the comments on the newspaper Web site.
Hospital spokesman Kevin Myron confirmed Mr. Novak was a patient, but said Mr. Novak requested that no further information be released.
Last week, Mr. Novak was given a $50 citation after he struck a homeless man with his black Corvette in downtown Washington. Mr. Novak kept going until he was stopped by a bicyclist, who said the man was splayed on Mr. Novak's windshield.
Mr. Novak is best-known as the longtime co-host of CNN's "Crossfire," where he bumped heads with liberal co-hosts from 1980 to 2005, when he left to join Fox News as an occasional contributor.
Mr. Novak was criticized after he was the first to publicly reveal the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame in a 2003 column. His column came out eight days after Ms. Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, said the Bush administration had twisted prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.
Copyright © 2008 Associated Press BOSTON -- Conservative political commentator Robert Novak announced Monday he has been diagnosed with a brain tumor, less than a week ... more -
Tasmanian Devil will be put on the endangered list
Australia's Tasmanian devil will be listed as an endangered species this week as a result of a deadly and disfiguring cancer outbreak, the state government said Monday. Australia's Tasmanian devil will be listed as an endangered species this week as a result of a deadly and disfiguring cancer outb... more
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9-year-old girl's twin is found inside her stomach
A 9-year-old girl who went to hospital in central Greece suffering from stomach pains was found to be carrying her embryonic twin, doctors said Thursday.
Doctors at Larissa General Hospital examined the girl and surgically removed a growth they later discovered was an embryo more than two inches long.
"They could see on the right side that her belly was swollen, but they couldn't suspect that this tumor would hide an embryo," hospital director Iakovos Brouskelis said.
The girl has made a full recovery, he said.
Andreas Markou, head of the hospital's pediatric department, said the embryo was a formed fetus with a head, hair and eyes, but no brain or umbilical cord.
Markou said cases where one of a set of twins absorbs the other in the womb occurs in one of 500,000 live births.
The girl's family did not want to be identified, hospital officials said.
Credit: Yahoo News A 9-year-old girl who went to hospital in central Greece suffering from stomach pains was found to be carrying her embryonic twin, doc... more -
TUMORS SUCK
100% of proceeds from sales will benefit "I'm Too Young for This", a non-profit organization dedicated to providing support for adolescents and young adults dealing with cancer 100% of proceeds from sales will benefit "I'm Too Young for This", a non-profit organization dedicated to providing sup... more
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