For years the go to cancer treatment has been very invasive and often created hardships for patients. Today we are on the fast track of a breakthrough that could redefine typical cancer treatments, one that could and will save thousands who are at risk. According to the Center of Disease Control (CDC), despite great efforts to develop better treatments, more than 7.6 million people worldwide died from cancer alone in 2013, with that number growing each year (CDC 2014). It would be unlikely that there will ever be a single cure for all cancers. It is important to note that the term cancer refers to a broad class of diseases as cancers have many different origins and must be treated differently. Can the immune system be trained to effectively treat or prevent certain cancers? First a look to the past to see where this theory came from to where it is taking us today, a look to the future where vaccines and potential cures could be the medical breakthrough of the century. For years the go to cancer treatment has been very invasive and often created hardships for patients. Today we are on the fast track of a breakthrough that could redefine typical cancer treatments, one that could and will save thousands who are at risk. There is a therapy that instead of involving chemicals, radiation or surgery, one that in essence trains your immune system to recognize cancerous cells and work to attack them. This is known as immunotherapy, while it is still in its infancy, it has been making some great breakthroughs in clinical trials all across the world.
Using the immune system to treat and prevent diseases is not a new concept, before the immune system was fully understood one doctor made some startling observations in the late 1800. William ...
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...atments by using immunotherapy as a treatment.
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The human immune system is an amazing system that is constantly on the alert protecting us from
“Immune Response: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia.” National Library of Medicine - National Institutes of Health. Web. 18 Dec. 2011. .
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Today doctors can treat this disease with minimal efforts, however, during the 14th century very few weren’t sure on how this disease actually spread and therefore didn’t know how to treat it. Physicians used to practice crude and unorthodox techniqu...
One of the most commonly used and mass-produced product in medicine, are vaccines. For decades, medical doctors have used vaccines as their first line of defense from diseases and other medical conditions. Ever since the advancement in vaccines, the chances of being diagnosed with a particular dise...
Almost everyone is touched by cancer in some way and the number of people living with and beyond cancer grows greater every year. Globally 14 million people are diagnosed with cancer each year and 8 million people will die from it annually. Half of all men and one-third of all women will develop cancer during their lifetime. (13) There are many treatments for cancer, mainly: surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. These traditional treatments have many negative side effects. Therefore, increasingly, other treatments, such as hormonal therapy and targeted therapy are being used for certain cancers. Nanotechnology is a form of targeted therapy that destroys cancer tumors with minimal damage to healthy tissues and organs. Scientists are already using nanotechnology in early detection of elimination of cancer cells before they form tumors. But the real game changer will be when nanotechnology targets cancer tumors in treatment (11,13).
The history of differentiating between diseases and vaccinating them is a practice that has been used for more millennia than you can count on two fingers. In 900 BC, a Persian physician named Rhazes was the first to publish a written account attempting to distinguish between measles and smallpox (successful or not is a whole other matter). It takes about 2500 years before any more development in the field of vaccination. In 1661, Chinese Emperor Kiang wrote a letter that stated that he fully supports inoculation, which is the introduction of a pathogen or antigen into a living organism to stimulate the production of antibodies. Then in 1676, English doctor Thomas Sydenham publishes ‘Medical observations on the history and cure of acute diseases’ which successfully distinguishes measles from smallpox while in great detail. The report also stated details about Scarlet Fever which was big at the time. In 1678, a Boston newspaper published America’s first medical work, Thomas Thatcher’ pamphlet: A Brief Rule to Guide the Common People of New England how to order themselves and theirs in the Small Pocks, or Measles. Once again, Thomas Sydenham discovers a medical breakthrough in 1684 by concluding that the common health practices, not available to the poor, were more harmful than good in mild smallpox cases. Sydenham’s discovery would be the last big medical innovatio...
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.
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In later centuries, however, this belief was cast aside. Medical professionals focused on identifying and treating symptoms through physical means such as drugs and surgery, and mostly ignored the role of mental states in the prevention and treatment of disease. To most doctors, the immune system was regarded as an autonomous entity, operating independently of the mind and behavior. Since the 1960's, however, researchers have realized that these ideas are incorrect, and have since been looking at the mind-body connection more closely and with more respect.
Prostate-specific antigen is sensitive in determining persistent or recurrent disease after treatment and has had significant effect on every aspect of prostate-cancer patient care. The efficacy of the antigen as an ideal tumor cell maker is evident in the fact that there is currently no better technique than prostate-specific antigen for evaluating prostate cancer patients after treatment. Prostate-specific antigen is the ideal tumor cell maker despite its shortcomings and is commonly used to screen for cancer in general population (“Tumor Makers”, 2013).