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Early diagnosis of cancer and rapid treatment of cancer are the secrets of success in the fight against cancer, which today is no longer an irreversible sentence of fate. More and more cancers can be completely cured. Learn about the newest methods of fighting cancer.
We'll probably never get a cancer cure. Because there isn't one cancer. There are nearly two hundred neoplastic diseases, of which the name carcinoma ( cancer ) in strict medical terminology means exclusively malignanttumorsoriginating from epithelial tissues. Unlike sarcomas, leukemias and over hundreds of other types of benigntumorsthat can invade the body. In fact, they kill a few: extremely aggressive, late diagnosed, incorrectly treated from the beginning, and sometimes not treated at all. This is the first, but not the only, good news.
Cancer: Important Rapid Detection
According to international standards, a person who survives 5 years after cancer treatment is considered cured. 30 years ago in the United States - a country that is considered a model in access to anti-cancer treatments - 67 percent of the respondents met this condition. men with prostate cancer. Today 100% are cured! With breast cancer, 75 percent lived 5 years. American women, currently - nearly 90 percent. And although Poland lacks such precise statistics, and the newest methods of treatment are used more modestly than in the USA, the extension of life with cancer and after cancer is similar. Apart from the above-mentioned neoplasms, this also applies to lymphomas, leukemias, cancers of the thyroid gland, testes, and skin. A quarter of a century ago, every fourth child with leukemia survived, and now - if the appropriate therapy is started quickly - the treatment ends with full success. The list of similar examples can go on, which does not mean, however, that the battle against cancer is behind us. Because there is also a second list, which includes hardly detectable neoplasms, where over 5-year survival is much less frequent. This is, for example, cancer of the pancreas, liver, stomach, lungs. Here, the treatment progress looks more modest, which does not mean that they are not there.
There are already 12 million people in the United States who have survived cancer; in Poland - 600 thousand! Doctors are concerned that in Poland most patients come to the care of oncological centers only in the third and fourth stage of the disease, which affectson the effects of treatment and worsens the prognosis. Many tumors can no longer be operated on, metastases appear, which lead to the most dangerous complications. Meanwhile, it is known that the detection of cancer one clinical stage earlier gives 25 percent. more chances of a permanent cure, and cancer detected in the pre-invasive stage gives 100 percent. healings. And that's the second piece of good news. The problem is that it usually takes several years (in some cases even a dozen or so) to reveal it - in the form of a lump under the skin or the first symptoms - from the initiation of the neoplastic process in the cell. The only hope is that during the control tests it will be possible to detect the onset of the disease. This is the main merit of mammography, cytology, colonoscopy, ultrasound, not to mention the classical morphology, in which deviations from the norm of some parameters may suggest leukemia or a cancer of the lymphatic system. Cancer will not kill unless we miss the chance to detect it quickly in that first period, when the disease is not yet showing any noticeable symptoms.
A he althy lifestyle is still the simplest method of protection: a proper diet, giving up cigarettes, protecting yourself from too intense sun. The components of tobacco smoke are among the few that are known with certainty that by a series of mutations they damage one of the chromosomes in the nuclei of cells and initiate precancerous conditions in the lungs. Anyway, cancer in other organs happens 2-3 times more often with heavy smokers than with non-tobacco smokers - this regularity can be seen in breast, cervical, pancreatic, laryngeal, esophageal and kidney cancers. According to estimates, after quitting smoking, the risk of dying from all malignant neoplasms drops 7 times and as much as 30 times from lung cancer. By crossing animal fats off your shopping list, you will protect yourself against colorectal, breast, endometrial and prostate cancer. By avoiding alcohol and stale products with mold, you will prevent the appearance of tumors in the stomach, liver and pancreas.
A milestone: vaccines to protect against cancer
Since some infections have been proven to cause cancer, antibiotics and vaccines have joined the arsenal of anti-cancer agents. Helicobacter pylori bacteria (the culprit of ulcers and, in the future, stomach cancer) will be eliminated by a special antibiotic treatment. By vaccinating against hepatitis B, you remove the risk of cirrhosis and hepatitis B becoming cancerous. An extremely dangerous virus is papilloma (HPV virus), an infection that leads to cervical cancer. There are already vaccines on the market that protect against this disease. It is true that the advancement of medicine does nothas brought about breakthroughs in cancer prevention in recent years. And although HPV vaccines can be considered a milestone in controlling the epidemic of cervical cancer, we must wait several years for the first effects of their use (because teenagers who have not yet had contact with the virus should be vaccinated; the cancer itself would develop in adulthood. ). Besides, the vaccine cannot exempt you from regular pap smear tests - so nothing has changed for a long time in the prevention of cervical cancer (as in other cancers). You just have to want to use these inexpensive and painless diagnostic methods.
Cancer treatment: surgery is still the most effective
What is the progress in treatment? Already in the time of Hippocrates, in the 5th century BCE, medicine knew how to deal with a growing tumor - quickly excise it or burn it out. Still, this method seems to be the most effective in the treatment of most cancers. Are the malcontents complaining about the stagnation in cancer research right then? No, because apart from the surgical scalpel, radiation therapy and chemical treatment have become a weapon in the fight with time. Sophisticated and very expensive treatments for cancer would often be unnecessary if it could be removed in the first phase - with a scalpel. Postponing the surgical procedure until later, the fear of surgery, as well as the repeated myth "cancer is afraid of a knife" harm the sick, and those who were not afraid of it - belong to the growing group of winners. The standard of treatment is the cooperation of surgeons, chemotherapists and radiotherapists - this is how cancer cells are removed in different time sequences: with a scalpel, radiation and chemistry. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy either precede or follow surgery. They are not indifferent to the body, but it is about saving lives! Chemotherapy (already known in the 1930s!) Acts on the body like a shotgun attack: the ammunition reaches its target, but it also hits he althy tissues. Hence the strong side effects: hair loss, vomiting, weakness. Irradiation also has an impact on the body, although from year to year, thanks to precise doses and better cameras, the side effects are getting smaller.
Cancer treatment: tailor-made treatments
Precision seems to be the goal of cancer treatment today. Cytostatics used in classic chemotherapy do not have it yet, but the same cannot be said about the latest drugs that have started to be used in the so-called targeted therapy. Contemporary oncology has the greatest hopes for them. These drugs - for example monoclonal antibodies - can tell the difference between a diseased cellfrom the correct one and this is their greatest advantage. Like a precisely guided missile, they neutralize the enemy or are used as a transporter carrying ammunition aimed at them. This is possible thanks to the discovery of specific markers or receptors on the surface of tumor cells, to which the latest generation drugs can simply attach and, using a key that fits perfectly in the lock, neutralize them without destroying the he althy environment. What are the receptors? For example, HER2 in breast cancer - the so-called epidermal growth factor in colorectal cancer or CD-20 on the surface of lymphocytes in lymphomas. The treatment of these cancers has changed dramatically with the discovery of monoclonal antibodies. Another method is to starve the tumor, which is to destroy the blood vessels around the cells that need to get oxygen and nutrients for their growth from somewhere in order to spread throughout the body. Such a method is already used in breast, colon and kidney cancer - which should not be surprising, because nowadays intelligent oncological drugs are not aimed at a specific organ affected by the disease, but at a specific receptor present on the surface of the tumor. Such therapy is not tailored to the location of cancer, but to the individual needs of the patient, is also the future of oncology. Cancer involves a different type of enzymes and cells in each victim, so each therapy must be tailored to the measure written in the patient's genes, experts repeat.
Cancer Treatment: Groundbreaking Research
For several decades, doctors have approached the treatment of neoplasms, assigning them to specific organs: breasts, lungs, prostate, pancreas, but it seems that soon it will be necessary to create a completely different division based not on the location of the tumor, but its genetic enzymatic nature and choose new drugs in this regard. Glivec is already used not only in the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia, but also in a rare tumor of the gastrointestinal tract called GIST. Avastin, which inhibits the formation of blood vessels around the tumor, is used in colorectal cancer, but also in breast and kidney cancer, where until recently treatment options for disseminated forms of cancer were very small. Seemingly nothing connects kidney and liver cancer, although in both cases the surest way to get rid of the cancer and keep the disease in check is to excise the tumor as early as possible. It turns out, however, that an identical drug, sorafenib, which blocks the action of specific enzymes (tyrosine kinases) responsible for the growth of tumor cells and the formation of nutrients, may be effective in both metastasis of kidney cancer and in the treatment of primary liver cancer.blood vessels. A similar preparation, sunitinib, has the same indications for the treatment of advanced kidney cancer and the aforementioned GIST.
Cancer treatment: hope is getting closer
We have witnessed tremendous progress in the last decade. It became possible thanks to a better understanding of the biology of cancer, i.e. the penetration into the processes that govern its cell division. If we manage to block not one or two, but all the enzymes that condition this growth, the disease will be completely contained. Already today, many cancers, which 40 years ago meant an irrevocable sentence for the patient, can be cured or brought under control. Their cancer becomes chronic - after a successful treatment and full treatment, they recover for many years.
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