We live in a world of exciting innovations. We also put men on the Moon, created alternative sources of energy, and treated countless diseases. A cancer treatment, though, may still seem beyond our reach. This disease continues to affect far too many persons, despite billions of dollars in research each year. Although every cancer organization is working hard to change the future of cancer.
It may sound like a desperate situation at times. Yet, there are significant advances in the fight against cancer.
You can see that in the data from the American Cancer Society. The death rate is going down. We need to make a lot of change, and this plague is far from over.
Cancer Treatment: Present and Future of cancer
How do we apply our growing understanding of cancer biology to battle the disease? Prevention is always better than treatment, and we can prevent many cancers. We can prevent cancer by first and foremost by preventing the use of cigarettes. The cigarette is a hazard much more important than any recognized carcinogen that is a by-product of our industrialized culture. Also, we can test cancers in the bud. We can diagnose primary tumours early and removed before they have metastasized. For example, this is true for cervical cancers. Many options for improved prevention and screening remain, some using modern molecular assays that are highly sensitive. Advances in these areas can offer chances of reducing the cancer mortality rate. But prevention and screening can never be fully effective. The full-blown malignant disease will certainly continue to be present for many years to come.
The Search for future of Cancer Cures Is Difficult but Not Hopeless
The difficulty of treating cancer is similar to the complexity of getting rid of weeds. Cancer cells may be surgically removed or damaged by toxic chemicals or radiation. But every single one of them is hard to stop. Surgery will rarely ferret out all metastases. Also, cancer cell destroying treatments are often typically toxic to normal cells. They will increase the resurgence of the disease where even a few cancerous cells remain. Unlike normal cells, they often develop resistance to the poisons used against them. Some previously highly lethal cancers, especially Hodgkin’s lymphoma, testicular cancer, choriocarcinoma, childhood leukaemias and other cancers, successful cures using anticancer drugs (alone or in combination with other treatments) have now been discovered despite the difficulties. Some therapies can extend life or relieve distress. But what is the possibility of getting better and finding cures for the most common type of cancer?
Can cancer be cured?
It sounds like something to find out the list of future of cancer treatments. But that makes a multifaceted problem oversimplified.
Why have not we cure cancer? It isn’t because we’re not smart enough. It’s a very complicated problem, more than we realized 50 years ago. It turns out that cancer is a general term. There are many different forms of cancer in different tissues that function in different ways. Not all of them are related to the same mutations. So, not all can respond to the same treatment type.
According to the American Association for Cancer Research, there is likely to be no cancer treatment. And more than 200 different diseases fall under the “cancer” umbrella. All these diseases are characterized by uncontrolled cell development. Malignant cells replicate and develop tumours or spread normal cells in the bone marrow and bloodstream in blood cancers.
People are diverse, and there are also cancers. There may be two forms of cancer in the same organ. But they may not act or respond to treatment in the same way. Genetic makeup can further complicate identification, diagnosis and treatment.
New advances in detection and treatment
Despite all the challenges that cancer presents, experts are making progress. They made progress in diagnosing, detecting, treating, and recovering the disease.
Maybe the best successes have been in prevention. Look at smoke cessation on your own. The reduction in smoking rates has affected the percentage of people with lung cancer. Maybe more lives have been saved by public education and subsequent behavioural improvements.
Prevention, of course, is always necessary. But so is finding newer, improved treatments. And cancer treatment has changed dramatically. Chemotherapy and radiation are no longer the only choices. Immunotherapy, for example, has marked a huge breakthrough in cancer treatment.
You can’t speak about cancer treatment without learning about immunotherapy. That’s been a big step forward in the last 20 years. The immune system plays a part in the battle against cancer. There are ways to make the immune system more active in the fight against cancer.
Researchers are now exploring new detection-based treatments. They are developing blood tests to diagnose cancer before symptoms begin. This kind of testing is experimental right now. Costs and false positives are of concern to researchers. It’s a very exciting vision of the future.
The latest research in cancer
Cancer is the only focus of work at Fox Chase, and their scientists are researching every part of it. One field they are working with a lot of momentum is the epigenetics program for cancer.
Epigenetics is far more subtle than regular genetics. They are looking at the second stage of genetic code—not sequence changes. The epigenetic profile of cancer is changed. Drugs are now in use that can control the epigenetic profile. This is a hot field.
New fields and major cancer findings tend to draw a lot of attention. But incremental developments are going on all the time. They’re making things a little better. Add a few incremental developments together. Then you have a big shift in cancer treatment.
We’re all moving up the hill of cancer. If you make enough progress, you’re going to make a difference. Generally, this leads to new ideas on how to treat cancer.
The Bottom Line
Our understanding of cancer cell biology could lead to better ways to treat this disease. Researchers can design anticancer therapies to destroy cancer cells. They have to manipulate the properties that separate them from normal cells. This includes defects in their DNA repair systems, cell cycle checkpoints, and apoptosis pathways. Their dependence on their blood supply may also attack tumours. Understanding the normal regulatory processes and the exact manner in that they are subverted to specific cancers makes it easier to create drugs more precisely to target cancers. When we become more able to identify which genes are amplified, deleted, and mutated in any given tumour cells, we will begin to tailor treatments more precisely to each patient. We can be hopeful for the future of cancer treatment.
