Comments | little_details: "This means CANCER!:

leviathan0999 in little_details

"This means CANCER!:

Feb 16, 2011 16:41

Okay, here's what I need. An extraterrestrial with a human appearance but non-human anatomy (Dual circulatory systen, respiratory back-up, all sorts of non-human body chemistry) has been checked into a modern American hospital with a mystery illness ( Read more... )

~medicine: illnesses: cancers

Comments 23

subluxate February 17 2011, 04:29:55 UTC

No, there isn't. There's not even a specific chemical within humans that, to my knowledge, will always indicate every type of cancer in humans.

seagullsong February 17 2011, 04:33:48 UTC

"An extraterrestrial", huh? My, I wonder who that could be. ;)

the_physicist February 17 2011, 12:57:09 UTC

i don't know, Who could it be? ;)

someidiot February 17 2011, 04:34:13 UTC

Well hi there, Doctor Who fandom xD

It's possible that maybe some other planet filled with humanish people would have such a test for cancer.

leviathan0999 February 17 2011, 05:51:35 UTC

Gotta be present-day Earth. There's more than one fandom involved.

mad_maudlin February 17 2011, 04:51:23 UTC

There are tests for specific types of cancer that work something along those lines, though they're not always reliable, and dependent on where the cancer originates (so almost certainly not reliable cross-species.)

This article talks about a very experimental, cutting-edge techinique to identify metastisized cancer cells in the blood, but it's still based on biochemistry that wouldn't necessarily translate and it's still a long long LONG (long) way off from practical/common use.

Of course, you could always fudge the biochemistry a little bit, in a Whoniverse context; if Time Lords can eat our food, breathe our air, and even potentially reproduce with us, there's got to be SOME common ground there, right?

leviathan0999 February 17 2011, 05:55:03 UTC

Best suggestion so far! Since there's more than one fandom, and our diagnostician has a history of using high-end, high-tech diagnostic techniques that border on -- or move right into -- science fiction.

lilacsigil February 17 2011, 08:01:59 UTC

This is actually a good path to go down - something that's metastasised all over the place is going to be the most easily detected in this kind of test, and a cancer like that is the kind most likely to be judged terminal without going through rounds of treatment first.

yamx February 17 2011, 10:56:24 UTC

Is this a Doctor Who/House crossover???

And if so, when can I read it?

Thread 7

aclarar February 17 2011, 05:10:41 UTC

stick to ther basics?
Give the chap a tumor. Not all tumors end up being cancer but a few of them are.
describe the tumor as just an abnormal lump that in clinical tests shows to be carcinogenic (cells reproduce with out control). Take a sample of the tumor tissue and then do a blood test, voila you have tumor cells in the blood torrent. It could be acount as methastasis.