C ancer is a disease that will most likely affect each and every one of us throughout our lives. There are approximately 560,000 people that die from cancer each year. To put it in perspective, between 1/4 and 1/3 of all Americans will die from this deadly disease. These statistics could be greatly reduced if people would stop smoking. Approximately 35% of all cancer cases are direct results of tobacco use.

Many people do not fully understand what cancer really is. Cancer is simply a mutation in the cells which causes them to replicate continuously without bond. Many people relate cancer with tumors, and rightly so. A tumor is basically just a lump of mutated cells which eventually grows so big that it blocks the functions of the organs around it (a benign tumor) or begins to invade tissues surrounding it (a malignant tumor).

Although there has been extensive research concerning cancer, nothing has been found that can cure cancer 100%. The reason for this is because a cancer tumor carries many different cancer cells. Every cancer cell reacts differently to each method of treatment, so while chemotherapy may kill some cancer cells in a tumor, other "subpopulations" of cells in the same tumor may not be affected at all. Another problem with cancer is that the cancer cells are able to travel throughout the body, an event known as metastasis. This means that cancer cells in the breast or lung are able to travel to the heart. This means that the cancer can spread throughout the body very easily, making treatment very difficult. While we have no true cures for cancer, there have been a few methods of treatment that have been somewhat successful. One such treatment is the drug cyclophosphamide (which is actually converted to 4-hydroperoxycyclophosphamide, or 4-HC, in vivo by the liver). The use of this drug has been shown to be up to 33% effective in the treatment of cancer, making it one of the most valuable weapons that we have. Cancer research will inevitably continue as long as there is a need for treatment. Hopefully someday we will find a cure.

We found the following cancer links very informative:

http://www.arc.com/cancernet/cancernet.html - provides further information on cancer including links to clinical information, support and pevention, and a cancer fact sheet

http://www.nci.nih.gov - this is the link to the national cancer institute, a division of the national health institute, a government funded health project. It contains information about current cancer research and general information for public awareness.

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Group 13 - November 25, 1997