Amongst the first world countries cancer is one of the most common diseases and takes many lives each year. All over the world scientists work together to create therapies for all types of cancer occurring in all types of body tissue. A problem with most of these therapies is that they are still crude. There is still much work to be done in improving these treatments as well as developing new approaches to treating and detecting cancer.
Although cancer is different from tissue to tissue, the principle of how cancer occurs is, among all types, similar.
All organisms are made up out of cells; microscopic compartments that together form the tissues of our body. All cells, except blood cells, contain a nucleus; a compartment within the cell surrounded by a membrane. Within the nucleus inherited genetic information is stored in the form of DNA; a large molecule made up out of four building blocks that code for proteins according to their arrangement across the DNA molecule. In order to maintain the integrity of body tissue, cells have to renew and they do so by replicating themselves, forming a new cell and an old cell both containing a nucleus with the same genetic information. This process is called the cell cycle. The cell can signal itself or other cells to initiate the cell cycle when the proper conditions are met.
However, our bodies are exposed to many external factors that could damage our DNA, such as cigarette smoke, toxins, radiation, infections or a hereditary disposition. These factors could disrupt the arrangement of the building blocks of DNA, which is called a mutation. The cell has different mechanisms to detect these mutations, which acts as a signal to the cell prompting it to cease its cell cycle in order to repair the damage or, whenever this is not possible, destroy itself.
If a cell’s DNA is thusly damaged that the signal to initiate a cell cycle becomes incessant, uncontrolled division occurs.
A cell that divides uncontrollably eventually forms a group of uncontrollably dividing cells. This group of defective cells are called a tumour, which harms the tissue integrity and leads to loss of function of the tissue.In what type of tissue a tumour occurs, can be an important factor to the threat posed by the tumour to the individual’s health.
Between different tissues are divisive barriers. When a tumour surpasses this barrier, this is called metastasis. When this occurs it becomes more difficult to apply the proper treatment to get rid of the cancerous cells, which in turn decreases the odds of remission.
Most forms of treatment are designed to damage cancerous cells to such a degree that they will self-destruct. An example of such a treatment is chemotherapy that applies toxins in order to inflict this damage. A downside to this treatment is that toxins do not discriminate between healthy and cancerous cells. This is why chemotherapy is extremely taxing for an individual’s health, as the treatment causes healthy tissue to atrophy as well. The biggest challenge is to develop treatments that minimise the
collateral damage done to non-cancerous tissue.
It has been proven that treating cancer in an early stage significantly increases the chance of remission. A currently expanding field of research pertains the early detection of cancer by looking at tumour specific markers that indicate that an individual is developing cancer. A cancerous cell acts differently than a normal cell as it divides more frequently and thus uses more energy than a healthy cell. Screening individuals for such cancer specific markers is imperative for decreasing the mortality rate of cancer-patients.
Cancer has an impact on all of us. Statistically it either affects you directly or indirectly.
Some people do their best to avoid the external factors that have been linked to increase one’s chance of developing cancer but might develop it nonetheless, whilst some who subject themselves to such factors all their lives might not. This leaves us with more questions and shows us that we still do not know all underlying processes and machinations that lead to cancer development and how to prevent and cure this omnipresent disease.
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