There are many different type of cancer treatments, and one of the most common treatments is chemotherapy. This type of treatment is very effective when it comes to reducing the size of a tumor, but there are multiple side effects that follow. Since some chemotherapy drugs are used for certain cancers, they can cost people thousands of dollars. Doctors use chemotherapy as a default treatment when they feel their patient has no hope on being cancer free. There are different types of treatments people can choose from to overcome their illness that can work just as well. Even though it can be effective in reducing the size of a tumor, patients should not choose chemotherapy as their first treatment to fight against cancer without proper knowledge …show more content…
For years many researchers have been improving the chemical agents within chemotherapy drugs to reduce the number of cancer cells. Researchers at the Broad Institute are trying to improve chemotherapy drugs in order to target only cancerous stem cells which might prevent tumors to continually grow and from possibly returning. The Broad Institute “has devised a way of screening for drugs that attack cancer stem cells but leave ordinary cells unharmed” (Nicholas Wade). Most drugs may prevent cancer cells from returning, but this research will help make sure the cells will not. This could also prevent people from having so many side effects while being treated if the drug only attacks cancerous cells. Researchers create concepts of combining different chemotherapy drugs that can kill over ninety-nine percent of cells in a tumor. According to Dr. Eric S. Lander, “the new screening system and the idea of using combinations of drugs against cancer, there was 'a potential for a real renaissance in cancer therapeutics'” (Nicholas Wade). Combining different drugs to target the same type of cells is an idea researchers are studying to advance chemotherapy. Because this treatment is so effective most of the time, doctors always choose chemotherapy when they feel their patients need it
Early diagnosis provides the best hope many have in beating cancer. Unfortunately, this is not the end of the fight for many cancer patients. Primary tumors may be successfully treated early, only to later discover they have metastasized to other areas of the body.
...ied. This is the reason there is a need for funding for more research: everyone who has cancer deserves to receive all the possible treatments there are for the type of cancer they have.
Once a patient has been notified of a tumor growing in their body, it changes their attitude and the potential future in their eyes. The chance of living by treatment is worth way more than living without treatment.
In 2013, the United States was said to have an estimated 1.6 million cancer patients. The majority of cancer patients turn to chemotherapy in hope to kill off all the spreading cancer cells so they can have a chance to live again. Chemotherapy is defined as the use of any drug to treat any disease, however people most commonly associate chemotherapy with drugs used to treat cancer. Although chemotherapy could be very effective, the rate of success solely depends on the type of cancer the patient has and could potentially be only one or two percent successful.
...y may be another area of research that may enhance anti-tumor activity. Creating better antibodies, like rituximab and others we are able to better target the tumor cell. There are many targets on our bodies immune cells and by being able to locate them specifically and boost the immune system in order for it to work better than it already can proves to be beneficial and harnessing this power can lead to a dramatic impact on the way we treat cancer. Maintaining and preserving patients quality of life and looking for lifelong cure is what scientists are looking for. Improving the efficacy of these immunotherapy treatments can lead to significant breakthroughs including longterm remission and being able to treat patients with cancer that is hard to treat. I look forward and can't wait to see the advances that will be made in this field or research in the near future.
For cancer patients there are several treatment options. Surgery can remove cancerous tumors, chemotherapy uses drugs for treatment, and radiation therapy. The doctor in charge of the patient’s treatment may also choose to use radiation therapy. “Radiation
This statement is very true. When someone is diagnosed with cancer it starts a journey down a road that no one wants to travel on. In recent years, there have been countless trials and tests to find a cure for this terrible disease but none have been entirely successful. There are treatments on the market that can help and slow down the process, but they have various side effects that aren’t quite appealing. The best treatments in todays world include; Rituxan, Avastin, Revlimid, and Gleevec. They all have a different tasks and developments that take affects in the body but each remarkable in its own way.
Specificity is a common thing in the chemo world. There have been many drugs that have shown specificity for certain tumors. Knowing why a drug shows specificity isn’t usually obvious. The specificity of a given drug is usually found by trial and error. They still don't know why exactly specificity occurs but it appears to result from the different biochemistries of cancer cells.
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
...y is the most common form of drug treatment. “Chemotherapy uses different kinds of drugs that can kill cancer cells” (NW Hospital). Chemotherapy can also kill cancer that has spread throughout the body as well. Again there are some advantages and disadvantages. When the surgery is over the person will be as a smaller risk of the cancer returning. Disadvantages include disruption of the menstrual cycle in women.
Jose Baselga, a lead Physician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York said, “The next 10 years are expected to usher in unprecedented advances in oncology, including molecularly driven diagnostic and therapeutic developments, whole genome sequencing that results in true precision-based medicine, survivorship care plans that address long-term quality of life concerns, and team-based, cross-disciplinary approaches to research.”(Advances in Medical). This educated guess by Dr. Baselga can lead us to believe that our education about cancer grows with every new account and new procedure that we complete. In the next decade, our understanding of Oncology will be revolutionized in the hope that it will bring us closer to our intended goal of defeating this monstrous disease. Oncology is a flourishing field that is and will be in high demand in the 21st Century because when a problem has been confirmed to be present the human task force will go to various lengths in order to find a solution. Now that Oncology has found a way to presently deal with cancer such as chemotherapy, addressing long term effects of those solutions will be an area that will be focused on as Oncology takes steps forwards towards a cure. Another concentration in Oncology that will develop in the next 10 years will be the prevention of
“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
It's not just surgery that can hurt you chemotherapy kills healthy cells along with cancer cells and it also can infect healthy cells. Chemotherapy has killed more than it has helped! Many doctors have admitted to giving chemotherapy even though they didn't need it . even simple medicines or pills have side effects that completely out bad the good and some are only bad and cause more conditions and ninety-eight percent of regular cancer drugs fail really bad as well as almost assured to make cancer patients sicker and make them spend money on those
The topic that I will be focusing on for this assignment is on the screening of lung cancer, since this is one of the most controversial debates all across the world. The significance of this topic is that when it comes to lung cancer screening, many individuals may or may not abide by it. There are many reasons to why individuals may not want to have their screening done for lung cancer. The top two reasons are that the screening itself is expensive and secondly, the results that they get from the screening may not be accurate. Imagine, if the results came up as a positive, for the ones who really do not have lung cancer, the amount of pain, time and money that they have put into the curing of lung cancer, is painful. At the same, time it is not fair for them to go through this much, when they actually do not have lung cancer. In this paper, I will discuss how lung cancer screening is a controversial issue and why it impacts us as a society and what problems that the family members, friends and medical doctors have to face if something does goes wrong.. Here is a portion of my essay that will appear on the final copy of my essay.