The Basics Behind Cancer
By: Devanshu Sen Pandey
Tags: Biology, Cancer, Science, Education

Overpopulation: too many people, scarce resources. This is a similar issue that, on a molecular level, cancer presents to the body. Cancer cells keep on multiplying with no means to stop, often taking the life of the host by interfering with their regular cellular processes. As cancer patients grow in number year by year, it becomes increasingly important to understand some basic facts about the disease.

What is Cancer?

Cancer is the name given to some cells in the body that begin to divide and spread uncontrollably. These cancer cells keep on dividing and spreading, and unlike normal cells, the cancer cells don’t go through apoptosis, which is programmed cell death (3). This allows cancer to easily spread throughout the body. This is detrimental for the patient because the excessive reproduction of cancer cells without death causes normal human cells to diminish, allowing the cancer cells to take over.

Because cancer is a genetic disease, these cancer cells originate from changes to genes. Cancer-causing DNA can be inherited from parents; it can result from errors in cell division that cause damage to the DNA; it can even be caused due to the environment such as UV rays from the sun (3).

Common Misconceptions

Because cancer is such a widely known disease, many stigmas lie around it; so many that people have adopted practices that they think will lower their chances of getting the disease. Knowing that cancer is caused by gene mutations, it becomes clear that getting cancer is more complicated than the misconceptions make it out to be.

Some people believe that radiation emitted from their mobile devices such as phones and laptops can cause cancer. So far, no study has suggested that phones can cause cancer since the waves that phones emit cannot alter genes (5).

It is also a common misconception that artificial sweeteners can cause cancer. Because artificial sweeteners taste much sweeter than sugar, some people naturally assume that it’s unhealthy. Contrary to popular belief, artificial sweeteners have not been shown to cause cancer in studies (6).

Lastly, because herbal and other alternative medicines are typically cheaper than normal cancer treatment, patients like to believe that certain alternatives can cure their cancer. Although some alternative medicines can help with the side effects of cancer, no alternative medication is effective in curing cancer (8). Often, alternative medication can get in the way of common treatments, reducing the chances of cancer’s removal.

Cancer Treatments

Although cancer is known as an incurable disease, treatments do exist. Some of these include surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy. Different treatments exist for the various types of cancer and patients.

During cancer surgery, surgical oncologists cut into the body and remove the cancer tissues along with some nearby healthy tissues to improve the chances that the cancer is completely removed (7).

When undergoing radiation therapy, doctors use high-powered energy beams such as X-rays or protons to kill cancer cells (4). Although this method of treatment is highly effective, it does have its risks as the radiation can also kill nearby healthy cells.

The process of chemotherapy involves using powerful chemicals to kill fast-growing cells in the body. It is the most common method used to treat cancer because the drugs that are used can kill cancer cells that are located far away from the original tumor (9).

Immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that helps the immune system fight cancer. It helps boost the immune system, allowing it to do a better job at killing cancer cells (10). Like other forms of treatment, immunotherapy may cause unwanted side effects as the immune system may also fight against healthy cells.

Future of Cancer

Over the past century, cancer has been one of the biggest challenges for the scientific community to grasp upon. However, our knowledge of the infamous disease keeps on increasing with time and research. Scientists are beginning to develop new technologies such as personalized vaccines, cell therapy, gene editing, and microbiome treatments that will change the way we treat cancer. These new methods of treatment can make cancer much more manageable, and additional options will allow patients to receive an extremely personalized cancer treatment (11).

Written by Devanshu Sen Pandey and Daniel Du

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