Do you think there exists a cure for Cancer?… by Mr.OldG
I have heard it said that we have a cure for cancer, but the powers keep it hidden for the simple reason of massive overpopulation. Why is there no cancer in the royal family?
Best Answer:
Asking a question like this is to invite all the alternative treatment and religous miracle people out to peddle their “cure”. The trolls are out in force for this one. With the wide variety of “treatments” with no proven efficacy, do you honest believe any of these work?
You would not be asking such a question if you understood a little bit about cancer biology.
Cancer is not a curable disease. It's not one disease. It is a collection of diseases each defined by a specific set of genetic mutations and the cell type. So, each cancer would require a different treatment.
The common cold has no cure either. There are thousands maybe more different viruses that cause the cold. There is no medicine to cure the common cold. There is just medicine to alleviate/mask the symptoms. The immune system does the rest to get rid of the foreign invader (cold virus).
In cancer, the problem is much more complex. There is no foreign invader. The problem is our own cells have had their genes mutated. Some of those mutations involve controlling growth (cell division).
We have developed some treatments against certain viruses. Those drugs specifically target the virus by their surface signature (antigens). Cancer cells are derived from normal cells. Their surface signature is the almost the same as normal cells. There are some therapies that take advantage of the subtle differences for certain cancers (MABs for lymphomas, cancer vaccines for melanoma, brain tumors, pancreatic cancer, etc.) However, even those therapies lose their effectiveness because cancer cells mutate. Every cell division is an opportunity to introduce more mutations to its offspring. Often times, those mutations provide survival benefit to their offspring (evolution).
Most approaches to treating cancer (even the purported approach of alternative therapies) involves killing cancer cells not combating the genetic defect or associated protein product produced. There currently is no way to fix genetic mutations.
Hereditary diseases such as Down's syndrome, cyctic fibrosis, etc., are caused by mutations to one or more genes. There are no cures to these diseases or any hereditary disease. There is NO current way to fix the genome. These diseases involve a mutated but mostly static genome (like a still target). In cancer, genetic instability and further mutations is common in advanced stages (like moving target).
There has been progress in combatting cancer at the genetic level by drugs which bind to the protein produced by the mutated gene. The protein is like an instruction. Binding to the protein is like preventing the (bad) instruction from getting delivered. Some of these targeted therapies currently on the market are Gleevec, Sprycel and, Tasigna for the protein product of the Abl-Bcr oncogene in most CML, some ALL and, GIST. So, some progress has been made but, it is a very slow progress.
Hopefully, this will give you some insight as to why cancer will NOT be cured by one drug. Each different cancer must be treated differently. It is quite a complex problem with thousands of people studying the many different aspects of cancer.
Powered by Yahoo Answers
Comments
Leave a Reply