Home Mitosis Meiosis
P53 Apoptosis Cancer History of Cancer
Treatments Transgenic Mice
Dox Treatment
Future
of Dox Credits
History of Cancer Treatments
Since
cancer was discovered, there have been treatments to try to defeat it and
others that try to alleviate the symptoms that cancer brings along to the
body. There is no cure for cancer and
because of it, the only treatments possible are those that help the patient
overcome the deteriorating affects of cancer. Some of the treatments bring about even more pain and discomfort
than the actual tumor, but at least these therapies are aiding in the lifespan
through their slowing down the spread of the tumor and even shrinking the tumor
until it was dissipated.
Historically,
cancer treatments have been very invasive and body detrimental. Now,"the
most exciting development in terms of merging technology and cancer treatments
is the integration of minimally invasive surgical techniques in oncology,"
said Nicola Spirtos, a gynecologic oncologist and surgeon at the Women's Cancer
Center at Community Hospital of Los Gatos.
Radiation, Chemotherapy, and surgery were the only type of treatments
available for those afflicted with cancer (http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/1998/10/19/focus4.html).
Surgery
Surgery
was the first successful technique developed to cure cancer. The famous 18th century Scottish
surgeon, John Hunter, suggested that some cancers might be cured by surgery if
the tumor had not invaded nearby tissue (2).
He stated that if the tumor was “moveable…There is no impropriety in
removing it” (2). However, surgery was
still very primitive and patients faced major complications, including blood
loss (2). It was not until the next
hundred years known as “the century of the surgeon” that the development of
anesthesia allowed huge leaps in the development of surgery as a cure for
cancer (2). William Stewart Halsted,
professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University, developed the radical
mastectomy during the last decade of the 19th century (2). His belief that adequate local removal of the
cancer would be curative became the basis of cancer surgery for almost a
century, until modern surgeons developed less mutilating techniques (2). The English surgeon Stephen Paget was the
first to deduce that cancer cells were able to spread to all organs of the body
by means of the bloodstream; however, it was discovered that the cancerous
cells were able to grow in only a few organs (2). The
understanding of metastasis became the foundation in recognizing the
limitations of cancer surgery and formed the pathway to systemic post-surgery
treatments which destroyed the remaining cancerous cells (2).
Radiation
In
1896 a German physics professor, Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, delivered a lecture
entitled “Concerning a New Kind of Ray,” which caused a revolution within the
scientific community. Soon X-rays were
being used for cancer diagnosis, and within three years radiation was
tentatively being used as a treatment for cancer (2). A major breakthrough was the revelation that
small, daily doses of radiation over several weeks would increase the
probability of therapeutic response (2).
Early radiologists sacrificed their own health by testing the strength
of radiation from their radiotherapy machines on their own skin, causing many
of them to develop leukemia (2). Today,
advances in technology enable doctors to aim radiation precisely to destroy
malignant tumors while leaving adjacent normal tissue somewhat unscathed
(2).
Chemotherapy
During
World War II, the U.S. Army was studying a compound called nitrogen mustard in
an attempt to develop protective measures against mustard gas (2). To much surprise, it was discovered that
nitrogen mustard had substantial activity against a cancer of the lymph nodes,
called lymphoma (2). This compound
served as a model for future agents that more effectively killed rapidly
spreading cancer cells by damaging their DNA (2). It was discovered later that aminopterin, a
compound similar to the vitamin folic acid, produced remission in acute
leukemia in children (2). The drug
became the predecessor of methotrexate, a common cancer treatment drug today
(2). In 1956 the first cure of
metastatic cancer was obtained when methotrexate was used to treat a rare tumor
called choriocarcinoma (2). Since then,
researchers have discovered a variety of drugs that block cell functions
involving growth and replication, controlling cancer for long periods of time,
if not curing them (2).
Cancer Today
Today,
there are numerous new techniques available for those with cancer. These
treatments range from the severely alternative and the more traditional. These treatments are more precise and much
less invasive as previously stated. Gene
therapy is the most prominent new form of these alternative treatments. It is
being studied as a way to change how a cell functions, for example, by
stimulating the cells of the immune system to attack cancer cells. Retroviruses are being used in this gene
therapy treatment. Retroviruses contain
ribonucleic acid as their genetic material instead of DNA, and therefore, since
they use reverse transcriptase to reverse their RNA into DNA, which would then
combine with the DNA already present in the cell. Although some retroviruses are bad, such as
AIDS, they are being used safely to
treat the cancers. In gene therapy,
scientists “inactivate certain retroviruses to prevent them from causing
disease and thus making them safer for use.
This enables scientists to take advantage of the retroviruses’ ability
to deliver genes into the DNA of the host”(Cancer facts). Researches also may be used to deliver genes that make cancer cells sensitive to an
antibiotic.
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/1998/10/19/focus4.html
http://www.handpen.com/Alternatives/alternatives.htm#IPT
http://www.hrcc.on.ca/treatments.htm
“Cancer
facts” http/:cis.nci.nih.gov/fact/7_18.htm
1) www.cancerguide.org/basic.html
2) www.cancer.org/docroot/cricontent/cri_2_6x_the_history_of_cancer_72.asp?sitear…
What Is Cancer?
Different forms of cancer require
different forms of specialized treatment.
To determine what type of cancer is occurring it is best to detect what
organ the cancer started in, the kind of cell the cancer derived from, and the
appearance of the affected cancerous cells.
Cancer starts when a cell begins dividing uncontrollably, eventually
forming a visible mass also known as a tumor.
The initial mass is known as the primary tumor; secondary tumors form
when cells from the primary tumor break off and become lodged in other parts of
the body, eventually forming their own masses.
It is common for cancer to return even after the primary tumor has been
removed due to cancerous cells that had already broken away from the primary
tumor, or metastasized, and lodged in distant locations by but not formed
tumors which were large enough to detect at the time of removal. Cancer that occurs when the entire visible
tumor has been removed is called recurrent disease. Cancer that returns in the area of the
primary tumor is called locally recurrent disease. Cancer that returns in a metastasized form is
referred to as distance recurrence. The
process of cancer spreading throughout the body is called metastasis. When cancer spreads to other organs, or
becomes metastatic, the type of cancer remains the type of the primary
tumor. Several different types of cancer
can start in the same organ. Sarcomas
are cancers of the connective tissue, cartilage, bone, muscle, and other locations.
Carcinomas are cancers of the epithelial or lining cells. Adenocarcinomas are carcinomas that begin
from a glandular origin.
Home Mitosis Meiosis
P53 Apoptosis Cancer History of Cancer
Treatments Transgenic Mice
Dox Treatment Future of Dox Credits