just got word of this from pastor's wife who is leader of prayer team. please join me in prayer for this lovely man.

Will be adding Mark Finley to our daily prayer list, both here at home and also at our local church.

Do you know what type of cancer it is?

I don't know, but someone from Brazil who has been with him said it was diagnosed in its early stages.

Being diagnosed in its early stages would definitely be in his favour.

I am going to see if I can find out anything further.

Some general comments on cancer, this does not pertain to Finley as we do not know what kind of cancer he has.

"early stage" is comforting to lay people, but what does that really mean? It usually means the tumor was small when it was diagnosed with no evidence of spread. Example, breast cancer has a doubling time of around 100 days. The range can be 60 days to 2 years. Assuming the tumor starts as one cell. In 100 days, you have 2 cells, another 100 days you have 4, etc. It takes around 23 doubling times in order to see a tumor on mammography. Nearly 30 times to in order to feel the tumor. At 30 times, the tumor is 1 billion cells and maybe 1 centimeter in size and now may be felt on physical exam. How long has the tumor been growing? 8 to 10 YEARS. This is "early stage" breast cancer. If the doubling time is longer, a women diagnosed with breast cancer at age 85, may have had it start when she was 40. The same is true for prostate cancer, though it may grow even slower. Most men will die with prostate cancer, not from it. Nearly 100% of mean age 80 have prostate cancer, if you look for it. Most will never know. The shorter the doubling time, usually the more aggressive the tumor. Also the less change treatment will do anything good.

One of the most misunderstood numbers in medicine and which the lay person can easily be flamboozled, is the number "survival"; 5-year survival, 10-year survival. These are nearly meaningless numbers! Survival is defined as the length of time a person lives from diagnosis until death. The best way to increase survival? Look for cancer! Screening. Screening alone, even if you do NOTHING to treat a cancer, will increase survival. Will it increase longevity? Nope. Why does screening increase survival? Simply because it advances the time of diagnosis. If you were going to die at age 60 of cancer X, and the tumor was found when you were 59, you have a 1 year survival. But lets say you had access to the latest technology, 128-slice spiral CT, MRI, sharpest fiberoptic scopes for colonoscopy, whatever, and you diagnose cancer X when you were 54 years old, but now, do NOTHING, you still die at age 60. What is your survival? 6 years. What has changed? NOTHING. Yet your survival has increased by 5 years. Fantastic! Nope. This is how what is known as the survivors paradox is generated. A person is diagnosed with cancer X. They get treated for cancer X. 5 years later, they are still alive! They are so thankful they were diagnosed early, and tell their friends how marvelous modern medicine is, and how their life was saved. More people want to be screened and have access to our modern marvels. Have they been benefited or harmed?

Revelation 21:4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

I found out that the cancer is apparently in his blood.

As it seems to have been caught in its early stages, the doctors are expecting him to recover fully.

This is good. Thank you for the update.

As released by the NAD:



I recommend the following website for information on this condition.

http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/Encyclopedia/Content.aspx?ContentTypeID=134&ContentID=121

One wonders why this story was ever made public initially. This is a disease he most likely will die with, not from.

It was obviously made public initially to solicit prayers for him, which we are doing in our daily prayers, as I hope others are also doing.

YEs, APL, based upon what we know, I think that people are over reacting.

Of course, there may be more that we do not know?

Check on the URL that I listed. In its concluding paragraph, it says:

Yes, we can pray for him and his family. It is a stressful time for them. But, unless there is more that we do not know, It does not appear to be as serious as some are making it out to be.

I would think that he would appreciate our prayers.