On April 21, 2015 I attended the American Association for Cancer Research at the Convention Center in Philadelphia. While getting the opportunity to hear several scientists speak about new treatments for cancer, I couldn't get past the fact that they mentioned that there is a treatment but not a cure!
Donald S, Coffey , a "Distinguished Service Professor at John Hopkins University of Medicine" gave a presentation about "Controlling Cancer Through Research". According to his statistics "The Cancer mortality rate in the United States is 161 people for every two and a half hours, eleven people die due to AIDS and seven people are murdered". These statistics are extremely high. One hundred and sixty-one people die of cancer. He went on and said that "1 in 3 Americans are diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime but 1 in 4 die from cancer". This basically means that cancer is becoming the number one killer of people. How can something be controlled if it is only treated? Numbers this high only prove to show that there needs to be more than a treatment. although Dr. Coffey later stated that there is a cure for certain cancers such as leukemia, testicular cancer and Burkitt's lymphoma, there is not a cure for every single cancer.
To be able to find a cure for cancer, people need to understand what cancer is. Cancer is basically unstable growth in cells that grow resistance to treatment. When these cells keep multiplying and don't die off, a tumor is formed. Since the cells aren't dying the tumor becomes bigger. There are two types of tumors benign and malignant. When they are benign they can be removed and are cancer free but the malignant ones are cancerous.The way you can tell when one is cancerous is when you look at the cells through a microscope. If the cells are formed and structured in a tight patter, they are benign which is not a bad thing, but when they are crazy and spread with no patter or shape then they are malignant.
Cancer is not only caused by changes in the DNA. A lot of things in the environment also play a factor with cancer. For instance, high levels of radiation, processed foods full of saturated fats and essentially junk, and foreign things that are not healthy to the human body such as cigarettes. When these cancer cells are treated, most of them go away. But out of all the cells treated, there will be some that will stay. The ones that stay will duplicate and become resistant to therapy. Therefore, there are cancer cells that are resistant to the treatment. Thereof doctors need to find a more invasive way to get rid of cancer.In conclusion, cancer is not only a genetic thing, but an environmental thing too. We need to find a cure for all cancers to be able to help those patients with cancer and maybe even find a way to prevent cancer.
Donald S, Coffey , a "Distinguished Service Professor at John Hopkins University of Medicine" gave a presentation about "Controlling Cancer Through Research". According to his statistics "The Cancer mortality rate in the United States is 161 people for every two and a half hours, eleven people die due to AIDS and seven people are murdered". These statistics are extremely high. One hundred and sixty-one people die of cancer. He went on and said that "1 in 3 Americans are diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime but 1 in 4 die from cancer". This basically means that cancer is becoming the number one killer of people. How can something be controlled if it is only treated? Numbers this high only prove to show that there needs to be more than a treatment. although Dr. Coffey later stated that there is a cure for certain cancers such as leukemia, testicular cancer and Burkitt's lymphoma, there is not a cure for every single cancer.
To be able to find a cure for cancer, people need to understand what cancer is. Cancer is basically unstable growth in cells that grow resistance to treatment. When these cells keep multiplying and don't die off, a tumor is formed. Since the cells aren't dying the tumor becomes bigger. There are two types of tumors benign and malignant. When they are benign they can be removed and are cancer free but the malignant ones are cancerous.The way you can tell when one is cancerous is when you look at the cells through a microscope. If the cells are formed and structured in a tight patter, they are benign which is not a bad thing, but when they are crazy and spread with no patter or shape then they are malignant.
Cancer is not only caused by changes in the DNA. A lot of things in the environment also play a factor with cancer. For instance, high levels of radiation, processed foods full of saturated fats and essentially junk, and foreign things that are not healthy to the human body such as cigarettes. When these cancer cells are treated, most of them go away. But out of all the cells treated, there will be some that will stay. The ones that stay will duplicate and become resistant to therapy. Therefore, there are cancer cells that are resistant to the treatment. Thereof doctors need to find a more invasive way to get rid of cancer.In conclusion, cancer is not only a genetic thing, but an environmental thing too. We need to find a cure for all cancers to be able to help those patients with cancer and maybe even find a way to prevent cancer.