In today’s society, Cancer is an epidemic. It affects both developed and undeveloped nations and challenges social and economic advances, and yet cancer is still on the rise. No one is safe from cancer and it is an equal opportunist when it comes to gender. Cancer does not discriminate against age, gender, or class. Studies show in America alone, 1.4 million Americans are diagnosed every year. Cancer has a detrimental effect, more than 12 million people around the world find out they have cancer yearly. This leave many wondering if a cure for cancer will ever be developed.
In the cancer world, the word ‘cure’ does not mean a patient is free of cancer for the rest of their lifetime. Cure is simply a state of remission. Most doctors refer to a patient being cured of cancer if the patient is in a state of remission for five years or more, yet there is always a chance of cancer reemerging. Although, the longer a patient remains in remission there is a greater chance of the cancer not reappearing. This definition of cure does not allow us in today’s society to have a definitive, absolute cure for cancer. Yet, it still allows us to research and find a definitive cure for cancer for future patients.
In order to determine if there will ever be a ‘one size fits all’ cure for cancer, one must know the basis of cancer. Cancer is a general name given to a group of about 200 diseases. Even though there are many different types of cancers, cancer always starts with the abnormal growth of cells.
Cancer cells develop when a normal cell refuses to die and continues to grow to form new abnormal cells. These cancer cells are also able to invade other tissues and organs that normal cells cannot. Cancer cells can be caused by DNA damage. Normally, ...
... middle of paper ...
...become invisible to the innate immune system. The Innate immune system is the first wave of cells the immune system sends out throughout the body, thus it is easy to evade the innate immune system since it is the first line of defense. The adaptive immune system is called upon to eliminate pathogens that have evaded the innate immune system. By the time the adaptive immune system in called upon to take out a cancer it is too late, the cancer has total control. So it is believed that if as humans we can program the immune system to allow the adaptive immune system as first line of defense along side with the innate immune system, cancer will never be about to develop because the adaptive immune system would take notice of it and eliminate it. This leaves many wondering if they will see the success of immunotherapy abolishing the existents of cancer in their lifetime.
..., while a cell undergoes cell cycle, when a cell comes in contact with another cell, it stops reproducing. However, cancer cells continue to duplicate repeatedly until there is a mass of cells or a tumor to form (see figure 9). Lastly, in cell division when there is a mutation or abnormality in the DNA, a normal cell stops dividing. However, a cancerous cell will continue to duplicate and form mutations (“Cell Biology and Cancer”). Also, cancer cells are harmful because they grow and duplicate with complete disregard to the functions and limitations of the body (see figure 10). Also, cancerous cells have the ability to spread through metastasis throughout parts of the body through the bloodstream. In terms of similar behavior to that of normal cells, cancerous cells also duplicate, but at a very different rate ("Cancer Cells vs. Normal Cells: What's Different?").
Cancer is the term used to describe a group of diseases consisting of hundreds of ailments and although there exists so many different types of cancer, they all begin in a similar way. The body is made up of over a trillion cells, and cancer is the uncontrolled growth of malfunctioning cells in the body (Dawson, 1996). “Normal body cells grow, divide, and die in an orderly fashion. During the early years of a person’s life, normal cells divide faster to allow the person to grow. After the person becomes an adult, most cells divide only to replace worn-out or dying cells or to repair injuries” (American Cancer Society, 2012).
According to the National Cancer Institute, cancer health disparities are defined as the adverse differences between specific populations and the achievement of an optimal state of health. These population groups are categorized by geographic location, income, disability, age, education, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or race. These factors correlate with cancer mortality rates that impact specific population groups in the United States, cancer prevalence is the number of people diagnosed or living with cancer, and cancer incidence which is the number of new cancer cases in a population. According to the American Cancer Society, in 2013, there were an estimated 1,660,290 new cases of cancer and 580,350 of the new cases resulted in mortality. Individuals who have limited access to healthcare, health illiterate, and poverty stricken are more likely to develop cancer. This means a person’s socioeconomic status can determine the likelihood of their probability of developing cancer
Cancer starts when cells in a part of the body start to grow out of control. Cancer cell growth is different from normal cell growth. Instead of dying, cancer cells continue to grow and form new, abnormal cells. Cancer cells can also invade (grow into) other tissues, something that normal cells cannot do. Growing out of control and invading other tissues are what makes a cell a cancer cell. Cells become cancer cells because of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) damage. DNA is in every cell and it directs all the cell’s actions. In a normal cell, when DNA gets damaged the cell either repairs the damage or the cell dies. In cancer cells, the damaged DNA is not repaired, and the cell doesn’t die like it should. Instead, the cell goes on making new cells that the body doesn’t need. These new cells all have the same abnormal DNA as the first cell does.
A pregnant women diagnosed with cancer is a very rare case in medicine. Yet, this case still prevents itself in the field of medicine. Approximately, 1 in 1000 pregnant women are affected by cancer (“Cancer During Pregnancy”). Conflicts that pin maternal health versus fetal health have come to an interesting point in our society. The pregnant woman legally has the right to accept treatment that will harm the unborn child. Yet, it becomes a moral issue whether she owes it to her unborn child to refuse treatment in order to avoid fetal harm and deliver a healthy child. For the sake of argument, this paper will predominantly deal with pregnant cancer patients that if they refused chemotherapy may die, but if they received chemotherapy in the hopes of curing or slowing the cancer, their unborn child would be born healthy. This document will argue that the woman has the right to accept and should accept chemotherapy
Usually, normal cells die when they are old or damaged, newly grow cells will replace them. However, if something goes wrong, there may be too many new cells when the body only needs a few of them, and the body can’t get rid of old cells, it builds up a mass of tissue called tumor. There are two types of tumor, begin or malignant. Begin tumors are usually not harmful to human body, however, malignant tumors could be life threatening. This type of tumors will invade organs and tissues around them, travel through blood vessels or lymph vessels, attach to other tissues and destroy them. Malignant tumors arise in breast tissues and cause breast cancer.
“Just take my hand, together we can do it, I’m gonna love you through it.” (I’m Gonna Love You Through It- Martina McBride). Breast cancer is an awful disease that will change your life in a single moment. ”Everything in my life was turned upside-down. I really had a wonderful life; A husband, three children. And breast cancer came along and just smashed my world” (Janelle’s Journey). Breast cancer is an aggressive war that takes a great amount of fighting to survive. “You go from being perfectly healthy, to feeling like, ‘okay, I’m dying’. It started a whirlwind of things that I never anticipated having to go through.” (Bonnie’s Story- Beyond The Shock). Did you know that the youngest person ever to have been diagnosed with breast cancer
The true question here is what is cancer? Where did the word “cancer” come from? According to “The History of Cancer”, the word cancer came from the father of medicine Hippocrates, a Greek physician. Hippocrates used Greek words such as carcinos and carcinoma, these words were actually used to describe a crab which Hippocrates thought a tumor resembled. Even though cancer is a very old and well known disease, there is still no official cure for cancer.
Isn’t it overwhelming to consider the fact that approximately one in eight deaths in the world are due to cancer? To make this more comprehensible, the number of deaths caused by cancer is greater than caused by AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined. Along with the idea that this disease does not have a definite cure is a mind-staggering concept to grasp. If not caught in time, cancer means guaranteed death. These types of thoughts were floating around my head when my mother had told me that my father had mouth cancer.
“Since 1990, over 6 million Americans have died of cancer, more than the combined casualties from the Civil war, WWII, and the Vietnam and Korean conflicts combined” (Faguet, p. 5). According to American Cancer Society projections, there were 1,529,560 new cases of cancer in 2010. Cancer is becoming more and more common around the world. New cancers are constantly being discovered. Researchers are finding new ways to detect cancer and treat it so that the fatality rate does not rise. However, there are some cancers that researchers have not yet discovered a cure for. It is very important for Cancer Research to continue so that one day these cancers will no longer be a treat.
We now can find what specific cancer a patient has and where, and give them a variety of treatment options such as surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and several other types of treatment including experimental drugs. But there is no 100% guarantee that these treatments work. Ancient physicians and surgeons knew that cancer usually came back after it was removed surgically and recognized that there was no cure once the cancer had spread, and thought that intervention may be more harmful that no treatment at all. Some people today still think of cancer as incurable and wait until the last minute to go to the doctor. Galen was a 2nd- century Greek doctor that claimed a breast cancer tumor could be completely removed if it was caught at an early enough
Cancer is a really bad and deadly disease and has caused many deaths around the world, but what if it isn't much of a disease but instead a business, so on the off chance that you had a business offering something that made you well over a hundred billion dollars for every year, would you find a way to kill the requirement for your business? Or, on the other hand, would you bend backwards for cash to keep coming?Cancer is a really bad and deadly disease and has caused many deaths around the world, but what if it isn't much of a disease but instead a business. from food to medicine cancer-causing things are everywhere and put there on purpose for profit. The government has many pros of this too , they make money and thin the population.I just think it's terrible that people could be so selfish and then take lives for money and go to sleep at night. Most people are skeptical when people claim this ,but proof is everywhere and be careful so you don't become a part of the biggest business in the US.
Cancer is a disease that affects human somatic cells. It causes the cells to divide uncontrollably and form masses known as tumors. There are two different types of cancer tumors. Some tumors are benign and other tumors are malignant. Benign tumors look similar to the tissues that they came from and develop slowly. The tumor remains in the same area that the tumor originated in. Malignant tumors are formed from cells that do not resemble the tissue that they came from. They vary in shape and size. This enables pieces of the tumor to break off and spread to other places in the body. Over the past few decades cancer has become a very prominent disease. There are many different types of cancer and many different causes for the the disease. Most cancers are because of a genetic mutation. The most common type occur when a cell is dividing. Proto-oncogenes, which are alleles in a normal cells, mutate to form oncogenes. These oncogenes cause cancer because they do not allow the cells to self destruct or become epistatic. There have been several research projects which have been testing epistatis.
Cancer is defined as where the abnormal cells are divided without any control and they are able to invade into tissues. At times cancer can be cured right away once it is detected through treatments that the doctor recommends, but at times cancer cannot be cured based on what stage the cancer is at. It is very important that every individual gets a physical check up to see if they are diagnosed or detected with any sort of cancer or disease. There are 100 types of cancers out there, but the type of cancer that I will be focusing on is Lung cancer. One of the controversial issues on a lung cancer is the ...
Cancer is the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the body. Tumors are then created and interfering with the digestive, nervous and circulatory systems. It is one of the most leading causes of death, reaching at about 8.2 million deaths in 2012. It is expected that cancer will rise from 14 million to 22 million within the next 2 decades. With over 100 cancer research centers in the United States studying how to treat this disease, people need to understand the importance of donating also with the awareness of signs and symptoms in the early stages. But, what are we doing about it? Do we have the technology to finally be able to put this deadly disease to an end?