Talk:Cancer/Archive 1

message: "Benign tumors are named using -oma as a suffix. For instance, a benign tumor of the smooth muscle of the uterus is called leiomyoma (the common name of this frequent tumor is fibroid). This nomenclature is however somewhat inconsistent, since several "malignant" tumor growths also have this suffix in their names, e.g. neuroblastoma, lymphoma and melanoma."
This paragraph doesn't make sense to me. Surely all tumours end in -oma whether they are benign or malignant.  Maybe this paragraph needs to be reworded to start "Benign tumours are also named using -oma as a suffix".
Radstudent 11:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "-oma"

message: The section on oncogenes is rather outdated and simplistic.  For example "proto-oncogenes" can do a lot of other things besides "promote growth" and "mitosis".  For example the genes abl and TrkA are tyrosine kinases which become oncogenes through translocation-induced mutation, causing the constitutive activation of the kinase.  Also, a myriad of other gene types can cause cancer when mutated.  It may be better to caveat the section, and give examples of typical oncogenes, rather than make sweeping statements.  If you like, I could do this edit.  Gacggt 16:55, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Mechanism Section

message: I was attending science class when our class had a discussion about cancer cells and the whole mitosis thing. Turns out, my science teacher was at a workshop at the local university and there is an acutal cure for cancer... the only catch is, is that 1. the price of the substance is approximatly $10,000 (Canadian Funds) per micro-gram (0.001 gram). The substance would stop cell reproduction in a certain stage of mitosis, therefore eliminating the spread of cancer in the body. The only downfall is that it has a low percentage of success. It would either cure the cancer completly, or kill the person immediatly. Can anyone explore this further and add it to the page. Im sure a lot of people would be interested in finding out
:I'm not sure what you are specifically talking about, could you provide more details?  The general strategy of stopping cell reproduction during mitosis, to prevent the formation of new cells, is one used by many anti-cancer drugs.  See Taxol or chemotherapy, for instance.  The two major problems with these approaches are (1) it is not specific to cancer cells, causing many side effects and (2) cancer cells can evolve resistance to the drug, see multi-drug resistance.  
:The costs that you mention are probably not a significant barrier.  Almost any unique compound would cost as much as you quote.  These costs drop quickly once mass production begins. --- Jpbrody 17:47, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  "Killing the person immediately" sounds like a non-trivial side effect of this dubious "cure for cancer."  Andrew73 18:21, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cure for cancer...

message: There should be an entry for Mesothelioma under "Forms of Cancer". There could be a link to Asbestos in the "Carcinogenesis" section of the Cancer article. There is no need for "Cancer of mesothelium: Mesothelioma - Information about cancer which results due to exposure to asbestos" in the "External links" section of the Cancer article; that link is already at the Mesothelioma article. JWSchmidt 13:45, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Done for mesothelioma in the classification. Emmanuelm 19:28, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Mesothelioma

message: As I write, the link above to throat cancer is red. Given all the coverage on cancer we have, this seems quite odd. Is there a better name to redirect it to - or is there a gap here? Pcb21| Pete 22:40, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Throat cancer]]

message: "Also recent studies have found a very close relation betwen obesity and cancer, the main reason for that is that your lever can't process all the toxins of your body."
:I agree this is a bit short. The relation between obesity and cancer has been proven in many tumours, but hepatic detoxicication is hardly an issue. Elevated concentrations of insulin and estrogens have been blamed, especially for breast cancer. The relation is not "very close". JFW | T@lk 16:08, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: There should be something in the article about obesity; "we estimate that overweight and obesity now account for one in seven of cancer deaths in men and one in five in women in the US" . JWSchmidt 05:15, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Sentence moved from [[cancer]]

message: I'm not at all happy about the graph showing the connection between smoking and lung cancer.  Where does it come from?  Was it plotted by a Wikipedian?  If so, where did that person get their data from?  No sources are cited, which leads me to suspect that this graph has just been fabricated.  If so, that's a terrible deception.  I don't doubt the link between smoking and cancer, but the lines on the graph look conveniently and improbably similar.  Somebody please clarify. Palefire 22:24, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)
:I was not the Wikipedian who uploaded the graph, but a simple Google search revealed that the graph is published on the NIH website.  No references were given on that particular web page, so I'm not sure how the graph was generated, but I would believe that the data are valid if they're from the NIH. — Brim 01:52, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)
:It doesn't look that unlikely to me. Of course there are other factors affecting Lung Cancer, but only smoking continually increased in this period, the others are unlikely to have changed, so a corresponding increase 20 years later is what you'd expect.
Exile 11:21, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Graph 

message: Original paragraph:
: <<Mutations can also be inherited. Inheriting certain mutations in the BRCA1 gene renders a woman much more likely to develop breast cancer., chronic inflammation from any cause.>>
Deleted fragment: <<, chronic inflammation from any cause.>>  ---Rednblu | Talk 10:21, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleted sentence fragment 

message: (Unconventional Medicine)
I need guidance as to were to put on the Wikipedia an article on Alternative Cancer Treatments, or at least non-proven novel therapies (for example patents on treatments). Any Ideas? Dr. Gabriel Gojon 22:03, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: NON PROVEN NOVEL THERAPIES

message: I'm quite doubtful that geopathic stress is accepted in mainstream (non-alternative/complementary) medicine as a component cause of carcinogenesis. Perhaps someone could correct me / correct the article? Thanks.
--Guohao 14:26, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's raving pseudoscience. JFW | T@lk 19:21, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Geopathic Stress as a cancer risk factor? 

message: I was wondering what other health professionals around the globe believe about Acrylamide, whether it is Carcinogenic or not.
:In vitro it appears to be a carcinogen, but cancer indicence due to the consumption of acrylamide-rich foods is not as shocking as has been suggested. JFW | T@lk 19:31, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Acrylamide

message: Please can we have some information of the relative frequency of different types of cancer. Even a simple pie chart would be useful.
:Hmm, these are different in each country. Are you asking for worldwide statistics? There may be obtained from the WHO. If you provide an URL, I'll gladly make an OOo pie chart! JFW | T@lk 12:48, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Frequency of different cancers

message: This article is getting a little on the long side. Does anyone have any ideas about shortening it? --Mike C | talk 11:00, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this is just about right. You can't make such a major topic much shorter than this. You may want to find redundancies, and some sections may be shortened with more information added to subarticles, but on the whole I don't think you can slim this down any more. JFW | T@lk 06:41, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I felt the molecular biology section was a little long, perhaps it could be trimmed down if anything. The explanations are excellent, but it could be simplified a bit allowing the reader to go into more detail if they wish to read the main article. Richard001 08:05, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Length 

message: I don't think this paragraph is required. A sentence elsewhere (beginning of treatments?) could provide links to clinical trials and experimental cancer treatment. But as it stands, it is just information about clinical trials and not cancer related, particularly. I have removed the experimental treatments bit from the title, as it had nothing about this and I think that is best left to a sub-page anyway. --Mike C | talk 13:33, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Mike, a very large proportion of cancer treatment takes place in the context of clinical trials, as ideal treatment is simply not yet established in many scenarios. I think we should distinguish between clinical trials, which are usually with established agents, and those with newly-developed treatments (such as the TK inhibitors) which are yet in their Phase II or Phase III stages. JFW | T@lk 15:40, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Brilliant. You know how I'm concerned about the size. But you've convinced me. People are going to come here wanting information about the reality of cancer as well as the theory. Clearly treatment in trials is important to someone wanting to know about the implications of having cancer. --Mike C | talk 22:26, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trials and experimental treatments paragraph 

message: Contrary to the guidelines on the Wikipedia:Categorization page, this page is currently a member of a category (Cancer) and its sub-category (Oncology). Should this stay this way? --Mike C | talk 16:06, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right. JFW | T@lk 11:35, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: When people categorize things, they normally do not use a linear chain of subcategories. Different people use different, overlapping categorizations. It is futile for Wikipedia to try to enforce a single linear chain of categories and subcategories. Too strict enforcement of this rule (avoid using a category and one of its subcategories for the same article) can weaken the power of Wikipedia that grows out of the flexibility of hypertext. Rational arguments could be made for making "cancer" a subcategory of "oncology". --JWSchmidt 13:26, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In that case, is there really a need for these two categories "Cancer" and "Oncology"? Having the two is potentially confusing. What content should belong in "cancer" that shouldn't belong in "oncology"? See here Category Talk:Cancer--Mike C | talk 15:54, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: I try to think of categories in terms of causality. Oncology is the consequence of cancer (not vice versa - no cancer means oncologists go looking for other work). I think "cancer" alone is fine, although Mike is right that easy access to the oncology category would be nice for the reader. JFW | T@lk 19:40, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categorisation 

message: Okay guy's, let's do it again. Can we identify problems with the article, and how we should go about solving them? What sections, in particular, need attention?
Another question is: how are we going to make good references and external links? I want to keep these sections concise and very to the point. I'd like to limit the references to 3-4 papers on cancer incidence & epidemiology, mechanisms, and directions in treatment. This will be hard to find - no author will attempt to tackle the whole field of oncology in one paper. Nonetheless, these may still be available.
Concerning history: what is the etymology of cancer, when was it first recognised as a disease, and who identified such crucial concepts such as dysplasia, invasive growth, metastasis, etc. Was it just Virchow? JFW | T@lk 09:20, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: After the peer review process in WikiProject Clinical medicine, I recommend going through Wikipedia:Peer review for review by the general nonclinical people.  "This page is for nearly Featured-standard articles that need the final checking by peers before being nominated as Featured article candidates."  Petersam 19:27, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Peer-review

message: I added to the intro paragraphs that cancer is the #2 cause of death in the US and in the UK, but we need a worldwide number instead, which I can't seem to find.  The WHO statistics are helpfully divided between the low/middle income countries and the high income countries, which would be useful to discuss with some precision, but unfortunately WHO lists each cancer as a separate disease, so the highest ranking one, lung cancer, is rated #10 overall.  Can someone find a better reference?  Tempshill 23:27, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Look further down tha page. JFW | T@lk 23:34, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where do cancers rank in cause of death worldwide? 

message: I want to put in a line defining malignancy early on in this article, probably in the first paragraph or two. It's referred to a lot during the article and for the first time in that second paragraph. However, I'm having trouble actually defining the term. Malignant is often used instead of "cancerous" by most doctors and academics when referring to cells or tissues, but is it quite as simple as being synonyms? I don't think so, but I can't put my finger on it. --Mike C | talk 22:56, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it is synonymous. alteripse 23:05, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes. Its sounds wrong in almost all circumstances. --Mike C | talk 22:12, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Malignancy 

message: I just made a few edits to the introduction paragraph, which I thought was difficult to read. Do people like the rewrite? I think this is an important paragraph to get down perfectly, since many people with little knowledge of biology will be reading this to understand exactly what cancer means. 
The molecular biology section really needs to be re-written. Lots and lots of statements are disjointed, and the whole section has no flow at all. A few examples of confusing or irrevelant information:
*Jpbrody pointed this out earlier: "Proto-oncogenes are involved in signal transduction by coding for a chemical "messenger", produced when a cell undergoes protein synthesis." 
::This sentence is generalized to the point that it means nothing, even to a specialist. Also, cells don't "undergo protein synthesis" - protein synthesis is a continuous process.  
*"Frustratingly, the chance of cancer cannot be reduced by removing proto-oncogenes from the human genome as they are critical for growth, repair and homeostasis of the body. It is only when they become mutated, that the signals for growth become excessive." 
::This statement is based on a naive assumption that if something is bad, you should just get rid of it. I think this needs to be re-stated.
*"Other types of mutations can be caused by chronic inflammation, as neutrophil granulocytes secrete free radicals that damage DNA." 
::Assumption: the reader knows what neutrophil granulocytes have to do with inflammation. 
*"Tumor viruses ... usually carry an oncogene or a gene inhibits normal tumor suppression in their genome." 
::Assumption: the reader understands the mechanisms of viral infection and how a virus with an oncogene could turn a normal cell into a cancerous one. 
*"It is impossible to tell the initial cause for any specific cancer." 
::This is quite a blanket statement. It's hard to tell the initial cause, but not impossible. Just before, the article listed many mutagens that have been proven to lead to certain cancers. 
Last but not least, the last paragraph of the section reiterates what has already been said (how a cell becomes cancerous), but in a different way. For instance:
*"A first step in the development of a tumor cell is usually a small change in the DNA, often a point mutation, which leads to a genetic instability of the cell." - oops, haven't we said that already?
Mr.Bip 20:06, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Molecular biology problems

message: As it stands, the information presented regarding the incidence of various cancers is completely US-centric; this needs to be altered, as this is NOT a US-specific reference work, but rather one which is used by English-speaking persons all over the world. The information in this section should be altered to reflect the incidence of various cancers worldwide, and could perhaps link to a separate article giving a breakdown for specific nations. Just a thought.
Spider Jerusalem 22:36, 10 Aug 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, go ahead. The American stats were just 1000x easier to find, and cancer numbers in Europe are not much different. JFW | T@lk 23:42, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Statistics

message: I move that adding a large list of genes is not conducive to this article. Saving certain translocations etc in haematology, mutations have little bearing on the care of the bulk of cancer patients. This should be on cancer research or cancer genetics, but certainly not on this page. JFW | T@lk 16:58, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of genes 

message: This article goes into a lot of detail about what cancer does at a cellular level, and then says that cancer is a very prominent cause of death.  But it doesn't seem to explicitly state how cancers kill people, or why they're dangerous.  Do tumors produce toxins?  On House, M.D. they talked about blood clots once; is that a common method of death from cancer?  Are all cancer deaths caused by post-metastasized cancers?  Are the exact causes of cancer death unknown?  I mean, I find it very unintuitive that a disease in the skin, breast, or testicles is often fatal.  This information seems really fundamental to the topic; I think that it should be mentioned in the first few paragraphs of the article, and in later sections in more detail.  I'd appreciate information about this.  Thanks. -- Creidieki 03:12, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This needs elaborating in the article. The main causes of death are infection, malnutrition, any problem due to organ failure (e.g. liver failure from hepatic metastasis) etc. Breast cancer etc is generally metastatic by the time it kills. JFW | T@lk 07:43, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  How does cancer kill people? 

message: I'm puzzled how a huge encylopedic article on cancer and the discussion that followed does not have a single reference to the most powerful drug to counter the illness' most devasting effects.
"This needs elaborating in the article. The main causes of death are infection, malnutrition, any problem due to organ failure (e.g. liver failure from hepatic metastasis) etc. Breast cancer etc is generally metastatic by the time it kills"
Incidently my father died 'whilst suffering from cancer' recently and the cause of was a chest infection. He underwent several blood transfusions prior to his death, his immune system was clearly weakened by his lack of bone marrow, and consequently white blood cells,  as the cancer spread into his bones.
If his immune system wasn't so weak at the time he might not have died. However he was in such awful pain it was just as well.
There are three mentions of 'pain' in the whole article, all in the same small paragraph. I think some of you are forgetting what cancer actually is.
:A large proportion of cancer patients never needs morphine. To push this point too much adds to the misunderstanding and stereotype that all cancer patients are in wrenching pain and spend their last months drugged up. Yet, a mention of opioids is a good idea. JFW | T@lk 10:34, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I wrote cancer#symptom control to address these points. You were quite right that this important dimension of cancer medicine was missing from the article. JFW | T@lk 10:45, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

text: It depends completely on the type of cancer and where it has spread. Melanoma patients with cerebral metastasis may not have pain at all. I'm trying to explain that you shouldn't generalize on the basis of your own personal experience. Have you actually read the new paragraph I've written to address your points? JFW | T@lk 02:33, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Morphine? 

message: This page looks great. I'm putting it up for peer review here. JFW | T@lk 21:20, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Peer review

message: The page is looking great now, but it seems odd to me that the diagnosis section is before the sections detailing what the cancer disease process is. Wouldn't it be better for the diagnosis bit to be with the rest of the clinical information, before the treatment section? I don't want to make this change without support, because it would be a lot of effort to get everything working well. --Mike C | talk 14:11, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: All medical pages on Wikipedia follow the outline mentioned on Wikipedia:WikiProject Clinical medicine. This outline suggests that the clinical syndrome needs to be discussed before pathophysiology. There are things to say for both approaches, but I'll say that the intro already explains what cancer is (in a nutshell). Long rambles about pathophysiology make the average reader fall asleep. JFW | T@lk 15:23, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Diagnosis Section 

message: I do not agree Jfdwolff's revert. GRID.org needs hundres of new members. People does not join, if they do not know about the project. How many people uses the keyword "Cancer research"? Not many. How many people uses the keyword "Cancer"? Very many. So, it would be sensible to put the link on the Cancer-page, so that many people would find it. Henri Tapani Heinonen 06:44, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but Wikipedia is to provide information, not to recruit new participants. JFW | T@lk 07:32, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jfdwolff - I do not agree