Roderick Ramage had had bladder cancer a few years ago and we thought he was cured after a small operation and chemotherapy and a scan which showed it was clear. Somehow he contracted some sort of fungus in his lungs, maybe because he was always rooting about with old things. It was in his nature. He would not pay for help with clearing up after a tenant had moved out-rather he would ask an odd-job-man and his daughter to do such work and pay cash-in-hand, even though I scolded that it was illegal to do so. After 20 years, I had noticed that he had begun to pay for odd-jobbing with bank cheques.
His feet began to swell up and he went to Stafford Hospital out-patients where they kept him overnight then transferred him by ambulance to Stoke NHS Hospital. He was subjected to many tests and they decided that he had some type of fungus in his lungs.
Just before Roderick died the Registrar took me to the 'family room' to explain what had happened, as I just could not believe it. Why did they not know exactly which lung infection it was? Almost everyone knows you can breathe in fungal material from old dusty places.
Micro-organisms produce non-ribosomal peptides called siderophores for the purpose of iron acquisition. Mammalian immune system is well-known for producing small secretory proteins called lipocalins upon bacterial infection. These proteins sequester siderophores produced by invading bacterial pathogens rendering them unable to acquire iron from the host. However, this is not their sole function. In addition to transferrin and lactoferrin, lipocalins are also known to transport siderophore-bound iron to the host cells. While binding of bacterial siderophores with human lipocalin is well studied, binding of the fungal counterpart is still not confirmed and fully understood. Apart from pathogen-affected cells, developing cancerous cells also show varying expression level of different proteins including those involved in iron transport.
The possibility of exogenous fungal siderophore-mediated iron transport via lipocalin and its receptor in mammalian cells has not yet been explored much. In present investigation we have checked differential expression of human lipocalin, LCN2 in hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines fungal siderophore. Further in case of a stable complex being formed, whether this complex has the ability to transport iron through its specific receptor was assessed. Also, we have tried to explore possible mechanism of fungal siderophore mediated oxidative stress leading to significant cell death in cancerous cells. This study will thus be useful towards finding a new way of treating hepatocellular carcinoma via inducing siderophore-mediated cell death n cancerous cells.
Fungal infections in the lungs can be serious and, in some cases, fatal, especially for individuals with weakened immune systems. The most common fungi that cause lung infections include histoplasma, coccidioides, and blastomyces, which can lead to conditions like pneumonia or chronic disease. In the UK, Aspergillus is often the culprit behind such infections. The symptoms can include a flu-like illness, and medical advice should be sought if a fungal infection is suspected. Treatment typically involves antifungal medications, but early detection is crucial for the best outcomes.
Then his 58 year old daughter-who rarely sees him, insisted that she is his legal next-of-kin and that he told her "I want to die. I want to die now" and saying she has 15 years medical experience, (2 night shifts a week until she left) the Registrar out my husband on "NO WATER-JUST MORPHINE" and he died within 2 days and a bit, I instinctively knew something was wrong when Charlotte returned from hospital and so I phoned for a taxi and went straight there-as I was. I was shocked at seeing him deliberate put to die.
I was ill after childbirth 40 years ago I even had a cardiac arrest and they thought UI would never walk again -but I am alive. Roderick ate well; was at the doctors for any little thing, unlike me. He did care very much and did want to live much longer. But if they are practicing in British hospitals to save on costs, who am I to say so?
