Cancer, aplea for help!!

[Delvance]

Reading this thread instantly shoved me back into my bio classes from last year. I lost a family member to cancer a few years ago... GL!

 

[pedalinbob]

Cancer is extremely difficult to treat because the body generally does not recognize a cancer cell as an enemy. Cancer is quite stealthy.
In the absence of other disorders or diseases, the body is typically reluctant to attack itself...for good reason, of course.

Further, how do you create a treatment that is specific only to a cancer cell, a sort of "smart bomb", without harming the person treated?

There is no simple solution, and working at the University of Michigan, I can state first-hand that there is a LOT of research happening, and we are not short on funding.

The problem with finding a cure is not money. The problem is that cancer itself is very, very complex.
If you throw a trillion dollars into cancer research, I seriously doubt advances would come about much faster. Money is necessary, of course, but research simply takes a lot of time.

Cancer claimed my mom and two years later, my favorite aunt.
Disgusting disease.

Bob

 

[James S]

i understand your frustration, but there is no simple solution for cancer. There are MANY different kinds and a myriad different causes. Only some of which are even rudimentarily understood. Other types are quite well understood and depending on the kind of cancer can be treated pretty well.

If you want to understand how things go wrong you first need to understand how they work when they are working properly. You might consider picking up some night school classes in cellular biology and get yourself some idea s to just how complex even the simplest cell is chemically and how much more complex your own body cells are that way. Organic chemistry and molecular biology are really hard, complex topics, and you can't even begin to do better than a popular science understanding of the issues without quite a bit of that under your belt. You certainly wont find the double secret suppressed answer from google, though I'm sure you'll find many people there that claim to have that.

Your body can clean up from a tremendous amount of mess. You can smoke cigs and eat crappy foods and it will still take another 50+ years for it to kill the average person. Even shooting up heroine and sleeping in the gutter people can live for another 30+ years or so. Your cells and their systems work REALLY well in keeping the system of mitosis clean and free from errors. There are excellent systems in place to just let a cell damaged in other ways to die when it tries to divide instead of becoming cancer. Even a single celled bacteria living in a pond uses quite a bit of input, both on it's own state and the state of it's environment to decide when and how often to divide. Inside your own body the environment is much more complicated and the control of who divides and how and into what and in what direction is all programmed and controlled somehow. You can't begin to find a cure for how that system goes wrong until you understand how it works right 99.999999% of the time. As a human you're actually much less susceptible to cancer than almost all other animals. The mutation rate in people is very low, though it would appear to be getting higher looking at those statistics.

As my signline says at the moment, growth in knowledge is not linear. The more we learn the faster we can learn more. Biology is hitting that knee point in their graph along with many other sciences. But it is not ever going to be fast enough for the folks already sick. What your mother in law needs now is to follow the procedures and get the treatments and keep her spirits up, which will help her immune system both help to fight the cancer and deal with the chemo, and buy her time. That IS something you can help her with. A best guess of a few months to live may be stretched to years of life by a determined person with something to live for that gets the currently available treatment. And a lot can happen in those years as far as how much we know and how well we can continue to treat what they got.

Good luck.

 

[changsn]

jpfaff - I also understand your frustration. Been in the biotech industry for 20 yrs and have been providing tools to researchers to try and beat these diseases. As several have pointed out above, this is not simple. Cancer cells cannot be distinguished as different from ordinary cells by your body, so the challenge is to figure out how to differentiate them and then target them. There are many ideas on this, but each person is different and even having the same type of cancer does not mean that a successful treatment will work on everyone. This is part of what makes the cure so elusive. I truly believe that with the growing knowledge of DNA sequences there will be a day when individual cures will be available, but don't hold your breath. It won't be soon. Much as I would like it to be within my lifetime, I tend to be pessimistic. The positive is that there are a lot of brilliant minds working on this and we will beat it.
There is another thread on what we can do to help.
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/108351
http://folding.stanford.edu/

It's a small contribution that everyone can help with and it costs each of us practically nothing. The program runs in the background, you don't even notice it and yet your computer power helps research progress.
Sam

 

[greenLED]

...you are right to wonder why people didn't have cancer long ago...

Cancer wasn't routinely diagnosed, but that doesn't mean it didn't exist.

 

[BB]

As other have posted, cancer is just a "class" of medical problems. There are probably hundreds (or even thousands) of "types" of cancers--each with its own issues and possible methods of treatment.

As an analogy--look at a modern jet airliner. We should be able to eliminate all deaths related to passenger aircraft much easier than we can eliminate cancer.

However, when you look at what is involved with airplanes and people, you see that this is a complex problem--from the simple air traffic control, electronics problems, on-flight electronic gaming machine wiring catching fire, getting good fuel, correct metals that don't corrode, maintenance, electrical, weather, pilot training, hijackers, stupidity, workers sucked into jet engines on the ground, people falling off jet-ways, people dying of heart attacks during flights, food poisoning, derbies on the runway, shoulder fired missiles by terrorists, letting a 12 year attempt to set cross country records, etc....

All of the above have resulted in deaths--and there is not one solution that will prevent all deaths. And not all solutions that could prevent a death are acceptable (just look at all the people that object to security screening--but at the same time screening is very easy to bypass).

As an engineer, I am just amazed out how complicated human (and in general) biology is--when scientists think they figure out how something works--they find that there are further complexities to be probed... The complexity of today's modern aviation is probably one millionth the complexity of human biology.

For example about 10 years ago, Antisense-RNA was discovered... Basically a mechanism that helps prevents errors in DNA/RNA from replicating and causing problems (like cancer). It all derived from a, what was thought to be, as simple experiment. And this was found after a scientist thought he new everything about how to insert a purple gene into a petunia—and discovered a completely unknown mechanism that prevented—what he thought—was to be a simple demonstration for investors in his company to raise cash:

Antisense RNA:

The first discovery of this inhibition in plants was more than a decade ago and occurred in petunias. Researchers were trying to deepen the purple colour of the flowers by injecting the gene responsible into the petunias but were surprised at the result. Instead of a darker flower, the petunias were either variegated or completely white!

This phenomenon was termed co-suppression, since both the expression of the existing gene (the initial purple colour), and the introduced gene (to deepen the purple) were suppressed. Co-suppression has since been found in many other plant species and also in fungi. It is now known that double stranded RNA is responsible for this effect.

There was a very interesting NOVA program on this--but I can't find it right now...

The above may be buried in this 2001 2 hour show (viewable on-line if you have high-speed Internet):

NOVA Online: Cracking the code

I remember reading through the years about one or another miracle cure that was either made more difficult or impossible because of one or another confounding issue with human biology.

I don't think that cancer is going to "cured" with one (or even several) drugs/treatments. Our bodies are way too complex for something like that to work.

-Bill

 

[BB]

Here is another example of where a common "cancer cure" (UV blocking Sun Screen) may cause other health issues...

Sun Screen may affect Thyroids:

Chemicals found in many sunscreens can disrupt the production of thyroid hormone in rats, researchers report.

Their study raises concerns that chemicals that absorb ultraviolet light could damage the thyroid in people. The thyroid gland is located in the neck and secretes hormones that affect growth and metabolism.

UV light from the Sun can potentially cause skin cancer. But studies on the chemicals that block UV have already raised concerns over side effects. In 2001 Swiss researchers reported that 4-methyl-benzylidene camphor (4-MBC), among other sunscreen chemicals, mimicks the reproductive hormone oestrogen and accelerates the development of the uterus in rats...

-Bill

 

[Mike Painter]

Carrot,
What I don't understand is why 10,000 years ago people weren't dying of cancer.

People were dying of cancer 10,000 years ago. However fewer did because cancer for the most part is a disease of the old and people did not live very long on average back then. Up until *very* recent times on a 10k year scale there was about a 50% chance that you would die before the age of five and the average lifespan was close to 20 or so. In countries that still live as we did 200 years ago people do not form tight emotional bonds with their children until they are well over five and the didn't in Briton until well into the 30's.

Until 1936, pneumonia was the No.1 cause of death in the U.S. Since then, the use of antibiotics brought it under control.
If you've seen pictures of contorted civil war fatalities, realize that most of them died from tetanus.

 

[TedTheLed]

This makes me wonder if any significant links between diabetes and cancer have been found, since diabetes deals with abnormal glucose levels.

I can tell you when my ferret had pancreatic cancer and was diabetic, the cancer created insulin (hence the name 'insulinoma') which 'cured' the diabetes, for about a year or so. Either disease alone would have been much worse..
When the tumurous tissue was removed, the diabetes took over.. I was giving the animal insulin injections several times a day till she was 9 years old, quite old for a ferret -- back then (1990's) the average lifespan was 6 years (too short!) , but they are being bred for longer lifespans now..

 

[magic79]

Many people who died of cancer in the past were not listed as dying from cancer because it was not yet known. One of the most common causes of death in the past was called "consumption", which likely included cancer and heart disease since the official first listing of "heart attack" as cause of death wasn't until the late 19th century.

 

[BB]

And here is another interaction where nicotine (both in cigarettes and in nicotine anti-smoking gums/patches) block drugs used to treat lung cancer:

Moffitt reports more bad news for smokers

Nicotine can prevent chemotherapeutic drugs such as taxol from killing lung cancer cells, researchers at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute reported. While nicotine itself is not a carcinogen, it can influence biological pathways that help promote tumor growth, according to a release from Moffitt.


Researchers found that in a variety of lung cancer cell lines, the addition of a small amount of nicotine, what would be present in the blood of an average smoker, inhibited certain drugs' ability to kill the cancer cells.

"While this research is enlightening, the best thing is to stay away from nicotine in all forms and use behavioral smoking cessation therapies as a viable alternative," Srikumar Chellappan, associate professor of Moffitt's drug discovery program, said in the release.

Clinical studies have shown that cancer patients who continue to smoke during chemotherapy have lower response to treatment, and now these findings suggest that even people who quit smoking but use nicotine supplements such as patches or gum may not respond as well to drug treatment, the release said. Chellappan's findings will be publishing online this week in the journal...

-Bill

 

[J_Oei]

It's not much, but it is something.

Donate your unsed computer cycles to help cancer research.

link

 

[DrizzitT]

The main reason why cancer cannot be detected easily (or sometimes at all) by your body's immune system, white blood cells and the like, is the the simple concept that cancer cells use YOUR cells to destory yourself.

Bacteria, parasites, and viruses can be destroyed by white blood cells because they exhibit a signature that is different from the signature that your cells have. In essence, even though bacteria and viruses can "hide" in cells, they either exhibit something different on the surface, or the cell releases a chemical (too complex to get into) to indicate it has been compromised. In essence, you can think of your normal cells exhibiting a "signature" say, a square (of course, its not even close to this simple due to protein structures but yeah). EVERYTHING else in the world exhibits a DIFFERENT signature than a square. So, if bacteria gets in, it exhibits a "circle" on its membrane. The white blood cell says "OH! a CIRCLE! KILL IT!" and hopefully, the body's immune system can fight it off.

In the case of cancer however, there is nothing for the white blood cell to "find." As you read more sources, all "cancer" cells are classified as "cancer" due to one main specification: a rogue reproductive system with regards to the cell. Tumors are "harmless" cancer cells, but they exhibit the same problem. In essence what happens is that cancer is a mutation of DNA. Radiation sources, mutagens (things that make DNA mutate), even incorrect DNA reproduction will cause a cell to go rogue (you have a higher chance of getting cancer as you get older because of accumulated mutations as well as the fact that DNA replication has an "error buffer" that is used up every single time DNA replicates). The problem with cancer though, is that the signature that these cells have are the exact same as you're other cells. So in this case, the cancer would exhibit a square, rather than something else.

Carrot and you are correct in stating that Mitochondria is the powerhouse of all cells (other than bacteria, but they use a similar system). mDNA is passed on through mother to all children (family trees are constructed usually using mDNA). A cancerous cell does use more glucose/other nutrients (they make up for this by coaxing blood vessels to grow. Some tests for cancer basically inject radioactive dye into your blood and check for high areas of blood flow). But frankly, mitochondria has little to do with how a cancer cell works (at least, I'm pretty sure it doesnt)

The problem with cancer cells and why our body (and scientists) have a hard time in dealing with it, is that our body has no way of recovering from a rogue replicating cell. Our bodies have assumed that ALL the problems with DNA mutations will be taken care of by the "failsafes" and "checks" that DNA replication goes through (anti-sense RNA would fall under this category). White blood cells and the like look for foreign INVADERS, not our own cell. This is mainly because of efficiency purposes. Cancer, while becoming more prevalant due to our life span, is not that common (after all, we do live about 50 years before cancer usually becomes a reasonable risk). So our body has no way of detecting/correcting for this problem.

Our DNA consists a large portion of "Junk" DNA. DNA that basically just acts pretty (that's actually what DNA fingerprinting is looking for...). Becuase our DNA is such a large portion of "junk," mutations rarely impact day to day cell functions. Once they do however, problems may arise. I won't go into the fail safes in DNA replication, but yeah, there are a lot. What happens in most cancerous cells is that it screws with cell division, or mitosis (meiosis is the division of sex cells... just in case you see that some where). Basically for Mitosis, there are around 3ish? main "checkpoints" that the cell must go through before it can replicate. One of them is size checking (to see if it has enough mass to replicate). The end result of DNA mutations are that some, if not all, of these checks are overridden. This allows the cell to multiply much more rapidly than they normally would have. However, like I said before, the DNA replication failsafes have been breached, and there really is nothing our body has that will directly combat this mutation.

This is actually where all the research lies. We have not developed a reasonable way of "manipulating" genes nor specifically targeting solely cancer cells. Trying to "prevent" cancer is commonly percieved as impossible. You've heard of the "if you eat burnt bread," "if you do this..." you'll get cancer. Those myths are partially true, the chemicals you eat/drink/whatever are probably mutagens, but the effect is so small that it takes a lot before it will actively affect you. Even though we may be able to kill off MOST of the cancer cells using current methods, the ability for malignant cancer cells to detach and reproduce rapidly complicates things. Cancer eventually blocks key processes and kills, more or less overwhleming necessary cells with the useless cancer cells. Sometimes we try to fight bactiera/parasites and the like by giving a helping hand to our immune system (antibiotics), but int he case of cancer cells, theres nothing our body can do to attack what the body percieves as "good cells."

Uh yeah... I'm sorta tired right now, so I think I'll stop here. Ill add more if its needed, but most of the stuff can be found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer where they go MUCH more indepth than I do.

 

[Mike Painter]

Many people who died of cancer in the past were not listed as dying from cancer because it was not yet known. One of the most common causes of death in the past was called "consumption", which likely included cancer and heart disease since the official first listing of "heart attack" as cause of death wasn't until the late 19th century.

People die of heart failure. "Heart attack" is not fatal and would never be listed as a cause of death.

 

[Lightraven]

The following is an investigational cancer drug called Vitaxin. It is in Phase II trials by Medimmune, a company I own stock in. Stockholders want to see drugs work, because that is the only way the company makes money.


Vitaxin®

Vitaxin® is an investigational monoclonal antibody that reacts with αvβ3, an integrin found on new blood vessels as well as the surface of many solid tumors, activated macrophages, monocytes, and osteoclasts. As such, the antibody may be useful in several destructive diseases.

Significant medical attention has been paid to anti-angiogenesis products and their ability to slow or stop the growth of tumors and the surrounding vasculature. Once a solid tumor reaches a certain size and mass, it can no longer grow or spread without the help of blood vasculature. To accomplish this, tumors release specific growth factors which cause angiogenesis, or the growth of new blood vessels from existing vessels toward and into the tumor. During angiogenesis, proteins called integrins are expressed on the surface of these new vessels, which enable the integrins to adhere to the surrounding tissue, allowing them to continue their extension toward and into the tumor. Vitaxin has been shown to bind and block alpha-v beta-3, an integrin which is specifically found on these newly sprouting blood vessels, and to stop the growth of these vessels through an apoptotic (programmed cell death) signaling mechanism. This inhibition of new blood vessel formation has been shown to block the growth and spread of solid tumors in various animal models.

Status

In the second half of 2003, MedImmune initiated two Phase 2 studies with Vitaxin in patients suffering from melanoma and prostate cancer. The Phase 2 melanoma trial is a randomized, open label study involving 110 patients with stage IV metastatic melanoma at more than 20 sites in the United States designed to examine the safety and anti-tumor activity of Vitaxin. The Phase 2 prostate cancer trial is a randomized, open label, two-arm study involving approximately 110 patients with androgen-independent prostate cancer that has metastasized to bone designed to examine the safety and anti-tumor activity of Vitaxin in combination with chemotherapy.

 

[Nitro]

People were dying of cancer 10,000 years ago. However fewer did because cancer for the most part is a disease of the old and people did not live very long on average back then. Up until *very* recent times on a 10k year scale there was about a 50% chance that you would die before the age of five and the average lifespan was close to 20 or so. In countries that still live as we did 200 years ago people do not form tight emotional bonds with their children until they are well over five and the didn't in Briton until well into the 30's.

But then there's the argument that the "Average Life Expectancy" has increased over the years due to the decrease in infant deaths. And, people who survived past childhood lived longer then the Average Life Expectancy.

Until 1936, pneumonia was the No.1 cause of death in the U.S. Since then, the use of antibiotics brought it under control.
If you've seen pictures of contorted civil war fatalities, realize that most of them died from tetanus.

There's also the argument that Sanitation played the biggest role in increasing "Average Life Expectancy".

Here's an interesting article on the subject.

 

[Mike Painter]

But then there's the argument that the "Average Life Expectancy" has increased over the years due to the decrease in infant deaths. And, people who survived past childhood lived longer then the Average Life Expectancy.


There's also the argument that Sanitation played the biggest role in increasing "Average Life Expectancy".

Here's an interesting article on the subject.

Sanitation did play a huge role but once past childhood your life expectancy *today* increases every year. We can cure and control many of the diseases that used to kill. Much of the gain in life span has come since the mid 1930's when the first anti-biotics were discovered.

 

[magic79]

People die of heart failure. "Heart attack" is not fatal and would never be listed as a cause of death.

<sigh> That is why I put it in quotes.

However, some prominent organizations do use it in that way. For example, the Women's Heart Association lists in their Heart Attack Facts:

"A heart attack occurs about every 20 seconds with a heart attack death about every minute. "

More than that, it turns out that "heart attack" may indeed be listed on death certificates in Mass. This is from the Boston Globe, June 26, 2005:

"According to state figures on death certificates, 4,886 people in Massachusetts died from heart attacks in 1994."

Whether the term is used colloquially or actually on the certificates was clearly not the point of my comment.