Cancer Treatments And Breakthroughs Essay, Research Paper
Cancer is not a single disease. It includes a large group of varied disorders that share major traits. The first sign of cancer is an enlargement of the area. The tumor then infects other cells near it, and if it’s really advanced, these cells may break away from the tumor and spread the cancer throughout your body. Although many people believe that your survival rate is low if you’re diagnosed with cancer, patients usually have high recovery rates. There are many different types of treatment that doctors can give to their patients. The three main types are surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Surgery is quick, usually effective, and it accounts for the most cures. Many doctors must operate on their patients, but this treatment has several downsides. Just because a doctor has taken out the main tumor doesn’t mean that the cancer cells are completely gone. They’re too small to see, so doctors can’t tell if they have taken it all out or not. So, just to be sure, doctors usually take out a lot of the healthy tissue surrounding the area. This could damage the person’s system and their appearance. Also, cancer sometimes forms around structures that can’t be taken out, like an organ. In these cases, surgery alone is basically useless. Radiation therapy is another option, and many doctors prefer this in many cases. When a patient receives radiation therapy, gamma rays are sent in to treat the region that the tumor is in. Patients usually receive five to eight weeks of treatments every day, but they don’t have to stay in the hospital. Radiation works because when the high amount of rays treat the tumor, it will cause enough damage to the cells to kill them. Radiation does damage the healthy tissue, but they can recover easily. So, radiation therapy can kill the cancerous tissue, while the healthy tissue can still function. It can destroy microscopic tissue that surgery could miss, and it’s safer for older patients that could have trouble recovering. Although radiation therapy sounds like a good idea, it has some negative points. It sometimes doesn’t treat all of the cells that are damaged. Also, just like surgery, it is useless if the cancer has already spread because it would damage vital organs. Another major treatment is chemotherapy. Chemotherapy involves the mixing of drugs to give to a patient. These drugs prevent cells from multiplying by interfering with the process of copying DNA. The first chemotherapeutic drugs were developed during the 1940s, but they were given one by one, and weren’t good forms of treatment. In the 1960s, doctors realized that if they would combine the drugs, they would have a better effect on the cancer. Now, chemotherapy can be effective, but doctors have to limit the doses that they give their patients. This is because the drugs ares so strong that the side effects could damage the healthy tissue. Some of these side effects are nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and hair loss. Also, chemotherapy weakens your immune system, and white blood cell counts plumet. A patient could be so weak that a common cold could kill them. Another problem with chemotherapy is that the tumor could develop a resistance to many drugs even if only one drugs was given to them. Because all of these treatments are somewhat effective, doctors usually have to combine them and sometimes bring in other types of treatment. If a patient has a stage four tumor, then it has spread to many other parts of their body, and radiotherapy is used. This is basically used only to extend a person’s survival, and reducing the person’s symptoms (Hellman & Vokes). Now that we have more knowledge of this disease, many people have came up with different ways of treating it. Different drugs are being introduced to the market, and doctors are hopeful. One drug was recently praised for its ability to cure cancer in mice. For this drug to work, you need to understand how tumors grow. To get nutrients, tumors get part of the blood supply. This drug cuts off the blood supply, which causes the tumor to shrink. The efforts of Dr. Michael O’Reilly and Judah Folkman finally paid off after years of experimenting and research. When they tested it, they had mice with tumors the size of almonds (which are way too large to be treated by chemotherapy). In only a few days, these tumors were reduced to almost nothing (Brown Lee & Shute). Although this drug has many patients and doctors excited, nobody is sure if they will work in humans. But, if they do work in humans, these drugs could mean an end to chemotherapy and radiation, which are more risky. Other researchers in California have discovered what they call “vaults” in each cell (Wasowicz). According to these researchers, these vaults are present in every cell of our body. They think that the number of these vaults in a cell relate to the cell’s ability to tolerate chemotherapy. The more vaults in a cell means that the cell will avoid chemotherapy easily. So, now scientists are working to find a way to build up the amount of vaults in healthy tissues and deplete the vaults in the tumors. By doing this, chemotherapy could be given without damaging the healthy tissue. One of the latest breakthroughs has dealt with magnets. These are now being used to lead anti-cancer drugs right to a tumor. Just like chemotherapy, drugs have to enter the body through a port. But, instead of traveling everywhere, they remain in the tumor. This reduces side effects that are normally felt during chemotherapy, like hair loss and nausea. After testing 12 patients, the tumors shrank in 2 patients, remained stable in 7, and grew in the last 3. But, with magnet therapy, the side effects were not as dramatic. This is important because for the years to come, giving chemotherapy systematically won’t be as common (Reuters News).
Because this topic is health-related, I knew that I could rely on the library for sources. I didn’t use any of my sources that I received from the library because they were out of date. And, when I looked for something on the history of cancer, I found nothing. Although the Internet in the library helped, the actual books and encyclopedias weren’t helpful because of my topic. Basically, all of my sources were from the Internet. One of the best places that I found was Medscape.com. On this site, you had to be a member, but it was free. Once I was logged-in, the latest news was displayed, and whenever there was a breakthrough, I received a newsletter in my email account that notified me about what had happened. I also learned a lot from Yahoo! Health because it was also up to date. The articles were organized and very informative. Another site that had a lot of information was the National Cancer Institute. This was one of the first sites that I went to and I was glad I did. Here, you can gain access to basic information about cancer, stated so anyone could understand it. Without this information, I would have been lost when I went to some of the other sites. I did my internet handout on Medscape.com. Another helpful site was the site for a medical journal known as the Scientific American. When I visited this site, I found an article that described in detail the conventional and new ways of treating cancer. This article was very helpful. I would say that this site helped the most because the articles at this site were informative, and they described everything in detail. The author made sure that when you were finished reading their article, you weren’t scratching your head and wondering what everything meant. I used a lot of information from this source in my paper, and I’m sure that I wouldn’t have found a lot of the information that was on this site.
Based on my findings, I can see that there are MANY ways of treating cancer, and it’s not the huge monster that many people think it is. Although I’ve described a few ways of treating cancer and a few of the breathroughs, it is necessary to understand that everyday, hundreds of discoveries are being made, and there are many more ways of treating this disease. The most surprising fact that I learned was how incredibly close we are to finding a cure for cancer. If scientists can already cure cancer in mice, I think that within 10 years, we will have a cure for humans. I think that the most important fact that I learned was that there is a very high chance of surviving cancer. But, it must be caught early in order for a high chance of survival. Many people tend to think that cancer automatically means that you’ll die from it. But, this is not true at all. Most people survive and go back to their normal lives. I also think that knowing what options you have is VERY important. By describing some of the common treatments, you can understand how each one would help and hurt you. Although cancer was once feared by everyone, we are closer than ever to better drug delivery systems for this disease, and hopefully, a cure.