C-Side was overjoyed to receive a substantial donation from the Harmony Community Choir of Portslade. Here is a copy of the letter of appreciation sent by our chairman, Steve Tedman.
Harmony-Choir-signed2
The choir is hosted by the Portslade United Reform Church, you can find out more about them from their website, here
Friends of C-Side will be very pleased to hear that Denise and Stuart Savage are very much alive & kicking and taking advantage of the time made available since Denise decided to step away a little from C-Side earlier in the year. Attached below is the copy of an open letter she sent to C-Side describing her thoughts. Since Denise and Stuart are foundation members of C-Side, her recollections & remembrances included here come as close as possible to an official history of our support group.
Right from its begining Denise took charge of C-Side and was principal amongst those that shaped its personality & character; notwithstanding her own, not inconsiderable, medical health challenges she helped C-Side achieve so much. Denise would want it said that she was much aided in this by the support from husband Stuart – her self-styled “driver & bodyguard”.
Men can cut their bowel cancer risk by more than a fifth by eating a diet rich in vegetables, whole grains, beans and lentils, a new study has suggested.
Researchers found that men who ate the largest amounts of healthy plant-based foods had a 22 per cent lower risk of bowel cancer compared to those who ate the least.
However, there was no link between a similar diet and the risk of bowel cancer for women, the study said.
It involved 79,952 men in the US as well as 93,475 women.
Published in BMC Medicine, participants were asked how often they consumed certain foods and drink from a list of more than 180 items. They were also asked about portion sizes.
Those involved in the study could tick that they consumed each food or drink item “never or hardly ever” to “four or more times a day”.
Food groups were classed into “healthy plant foods”, which included whole grains, fruits, vegetables, vegetable oils, legumes like lentils and chickpeas, tea, and coffee; “less healthy plant foods” such as refined grains, fruit juices, potatoes, added sugars; and “animal foods” including animal fat, dairy, eggs, fish or seafood, and meat.
Click on the audio controls below to hear the interview between Kathie Harding and Denise & Stuart Savage broadcast on Seahaven FM on 31st October. It is an insightful account of the impact made by cancer on the livesof a patient and her carer, together with some brilliant music.
Starting from our November 24th Christmas Lunch C-Side will be holding its meetings and other events at the House Project Centre located at 168 South Coast Road, Peacehaven BN10 8JH. We are where the pin is, below
Access to the rooms is via the foot-path to the right of the shop or via the House Project Centre’s own car park, accessible via Arundel Road and Bolney Avenue on the north side of the South Coast Road. There is also a free car park on Steyning Avenue. For those coming by bus from Brighton or Seaford you should use the 12 or 12A and the Bramber Avenue stop. The nearest stop for the 12X service is Roderick Avenue.
There is nothing much that can be added to what so many others have already said on hearing the news of the death of this valiant young woman.
She devoted the last years of her brief life to raising awareness of the symptoms of bowel cancer despite knowing that for her, as for far too many others, her bowel cancer diagnosis came too late.
We are reminded that despite the many and considerable advances that have been made in recent years, there are still great gaps between the expectations and reality of what medical science can achieve in cancer treatment and avoidance. For a long time to come public awareness of the symptoms of bowel cancer will remain a key strategy.
We owe Deborah James such a lot for lending her last years to such a valuable cause; this debt can be best repaid by redoubling our efforts to help, as she did, to “raise awareness, break down barriers, challenge taboos and change the conversation around cancer”.
This is definitely an event not to be missed – a Folk Evening (long in the planning & postponed by the pandemic) in support of C-Side.
It’s all in the poster so get it in our diary. A great line-up of artists from the Sussex Folk scene.
To avoid dissapointment by being turned away or the discomfort of having to stand throughout this event, reserve a seat – see the email address on the poster
Researchers have identified a potential new targeted treatment for incurable bowel cancer.
The medication has shown promise in a clinical trial in slowing the regrowth of tumours among some patients with the condition.
The trial looked at whether a drug called adavosertib, taken as a daily pill, could delay tumour regrowth among patients with an aggressive sub-type of inoperable bowel cancer who have limited treatment options. Researchers compared 44 patients who took adavosertib with 25 patients who did not. They found that the drug delayed tumour growth by about two months on average and had relatively few side effects.
The drug had more effect in the 31 patients with left-sided/rectal tumours, increasing overall survival – meaning patients lived longer.
The lead author, Dr Jenny Seligmann, of the University of Leeds, said: “These results show promising signs that adavosertib may be effective in delaying regrowth of bowel cancer in some patients and is well tolerated.
“The findings are particularly encouraging as the subset of patients involved represent a third of all bowel cancer patients and, while other patients have treatments developed specifically for their tumour types, this group currently has very limited treatment options.”
The scientists caution that larger trials are needed to establish whether the drug improves survival compared with standard treatment.
The drug was trialled among patients on a treatment break after chemotherapy.
However, the research suggested adavosertib could benefit patients with other types of bowel cancer or alongside standard treatments in other lines of therapy. The subset of patients who took part in the trial had tumours with two common mutations, RAS and TP53. Scientists hypothesised these mutations would make the tumours more sensitive to the drug.
According to researchers, about a third of colorectal cancer patients have tumours with these two mutations.
In the UK more than 42,000 people are diagnosed with bowel cancer every year. It is the fourth-most common cancer in the UK and the second-biggest cancer killer.
The findings come from a large collaborative UK trial called Focus4 which aimed to investigate the best ways to help people with inoperable bowel cancer who have already received some chemotherapy. Co-author Prof Louise Brown, from the Clinical Trials Unit at UCL and statistical lead for the Focus4 trial, said: “The results for the adavosertib arm of the trial are potentially important and represent a glimmer of hope for patients in this group.”
Adavosertib kills cancer cells by inhibiting a protein that helps to regulate the process of cell division in the tumour.
Side-effects included fatigue, diarrhoea, neutropenia (involving low levels of white blood cells called neutrophils) and nausea, but none occurred in more than 11% of patients.
A second study from a separate part of the Focus4 trial called Focus4-N, also published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, looked at outcomes among patients who had a complete break from treatment after chemotherapy.
They were compared with outcomes among those who continued chemotherapy using a simpler tablet called capecitabine.
Researchers found that, among those who had a complete break, the cancer started to grow sooner than in those on continued maintenance therapy.
But that maintenance therapy did not lead to an increase in how long people lived, the study suggested.
The Focus4 trial is funded by the EME Programme – an MRC/NIHR partnership – and Cancer Research UK and is run from the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL in collaboration with Oxford University, Leeds University and Cardiff University.
C-Side can’t meet as a group, there’s nowhere to go! But we do have a Newsletter in hand. Click on the link to download the October edition:-
Many of you reading this, either yourself or someone you know, will have been affected by colorectal cancer. Either directly or indirectly, you will have experience of the presentation of symptoms and the subsequent diagnosis and treatment of a worrying disease. You will know, but many others may not, that despite Bowel Cancer being the second biggest UK’s killer cancer it is eminently treatable and curable, especially when diagnosed at an early stage.
It is vital, then, for the general good that the public become aware of Bowel Cancer symptoms – some of the more common amongst which include:
April has been set aside nationally to educate the public and raise awareness of these symptoms. Bowel Cancer UK have taken the lead in this and have a variety of educational and awareness programmes set up for April, this link shows their strategy.
For its part C-Side (being representative of Bowel Cancer patients in the Brighton area) felt that there might be more that could be done locally. So, in association with Albion in the Community (AITC), Macmillan Horizon Centre and Bowel Cancer Screening & Colorectal Nurse Specialists from the Royal Sussex University Hospitals, we decided to present a Bowel Cancer Awareness Event here in Brighton. The management from ASDA supermarket in Hollinbury have kindly offered the use of their foyer where we (volunteers and clinical experts) will be on hand to answer questions from the general public on matter related to Bowel Cancer, with the particular objective of educating them in identifying the symptoms listed above, should they ever arise. The event, on Saturday 6th April 2019, will take place from about 10.00 a.m. to 5 p.m.