Cancer: Treatment

Therapeutic measures include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and natural medicine. Currently studying the usefulness of immunotherapy and biological response modulation.

Surgery

The most used is the excision of all malignant cells by surgical intervention. In the past, this involved the excision of all affected tissue and as many potentially affected tissue, including the surrounding tissues and lymph nodes.

However, many cancers are too extended in the time of diagnosis to make possible a curative surgery. If the local extent of the tumor affects surrounding tissues that can't be resected, or if there are distant metastases, surgery is not curative treatment. However, it may be beneficial for symptom relief in certain situations such as obstruction, or may have the target to reduce the tumor mass in order to allow better response to chemotherapy or radiation therapy treatment thereafter.

Radiotherapy

Ionizing radiation can be electromagnetic or by particles and produce tissue destruction.

Electromagnetic radiation includes gamma rays, a form of radioactive emission, and X-rays, which occur when an electron beam strikes a heavy metal. The particle radiation include electron beams, protons, neutrons, alpha particles (helium nuclei) and pions. See Physics: Elementary Particles. The sensitivity of tumors to radiation is highly variable. Sensitive tumors are those whose sensitivity is higher than the adjacent normal tissue. When such tumors are well-accessible surface tumors or tumors in organs like the uterus which can introduce a source of radiation, can be cured by radiotherapy. The property of radiation to respect (to some extent) the normal tissue allows treatment of tumors in locations where surgery is not possible by the proximity of vital tissues or because the tumor has begun to infiltrate adjacent structures that can not be sacrificed. Radiation therapy is commonly used as palliative treatment, especially in metastases.

Radiation therapy may be useful as an adjunct to surgery. Preoperative radiation may sterilize the tumor cells rapidly and prevent its spread during surgery. It can also decrease the tumor mass to facilitate the surgery, or transforming an inoperable tumor in an operable one. In other cases the radiotherapy is employed postoperatively.

Chemotherapy

Is the use of drugs for the treatment of cancer. Since the drugs are distributed in the body through the circulatory system, chemotherapy is useful for those tumors whose spread makes them inaccessible to surgery or radiotherapy. There are many anticancer drugs, most of which act by interfering with DNA synthesis or function.

Therefore dividing cells are more sensitive to chemotherapy. The cancerous tissue has a higher proportion of dividing cells than normal tissues (in which supporting cells are in a quiescent phase and are resistant to the effects of the drug). In normal tissues, those with a more rapid rate of proliferation are the bone marrow and cells lining the gastrointestinal tract. The two tissues are most susceptible to the effects of chemotherapy and the toxicity depends on the lesion of these ones, which limit the maximum tolerable dose of anticancer drugs.

For treatment to be effective, the sensitivity of the tumor must be greater than the most sensitive normal tissue. While some tumors are many times more sensitive, others are only slightly more sensitive.

The two main problems that limit the use of chemotherapy are toxicity and resistance. The techniques that prevent or control the toxicity and reduce the risk of resistance have been refined. It is important the establishment of early treatment, use of optimal doses of the drug, the repetition of cycles with shorter intervals if possible, always allowing patient recovery from toxic effects.

Natural Medicine

The results, often classified as miraculous and amazing in the evolution of the disease have led the natural medicine to position itself as a method of first choice for fighting cancer. The technique used by Dr. Juann M. Bazan, product of many years of research and his tenacious struggle to find a cure for this disease, have given rise to an effective treatment for cancer that many patients have followed, in all with more than positive results. You see a reduction of their tumors.

In the early days of starting treatment, patients feel improvement, it show the effects, cutting the vascular system of tumors that with out receiving nutrients,die; then there is the destruction of these cells and their elimination from the body.

Many of these patients were declare terminally ill by conventional medicine, but yet today those same people are shown without illness being living witnesses of the defeat of the disease. This technique is gaining attention, becoming known as the definite cure for cancer.

Research in laboratories and cancer centers in the world have begun, at the Purdue University, University of Illinois, HEALT Sciences Institute and the National Cancer Institute of the USA that are testing the effectiveness of treatment used by Dr. Juan M. Bazan and TOXOYA (medicine focus of treatment).

Hormone Therapy

Many cancers from tissues that are sensitive to hormone action, such as breast, prostate, endometrium and thyroid, respond to hormonal treatment. Involves the administration of various hormones or anti-hormones or the elimination of the stimulating hormone source.

Cancer Curability

In recent decades, the number of cancer deaths has increased rapidly and progressively: from 1965 to 1989 the number of cases doubled. This figure does not represent a retreat but reflects the growing and aging of the population (the incidence of cancer increases with age).

It also reflects the failure (until recently times) of anti-smoking campaigns. This has allowed the incidence of lung cancer (the leading cause of cancer death) continue to increase. This incidence has increased tenfold in the last fifty years. The dramatic decline in the tabaco consumption over recent years should translate into a decrease in mortality from lung cancer. But excluding the latter, mortality from cancer (age-adjusted) has stopped growing.

Other cancers continue to increase in incidence, but in many cases the improvements in the cure rate has exceeded the increase. Cancer mortality has declined steadily in all age groups below 55 years. This fact may be related with a reduced exposure to carcinogens through improved health habits and environment, as well as earlier diagnosis. This decline is expected to be extended to older age groups.

The risk of lung cancer decreases dramatically a few years after quitting. Efforts at early diagnosis of lung cancer have had little impact on the cure rate. Most skin cancers are curable. They are preventable, if you reduce solar radiation exposure, the main factor related to their appearance.

The effectiveness of treatment used by Dr. Juan M. Bazan to fight cancer, patients who had cancer and now no longer have it and the surprising improvement of new patients make us assert that the cure for cancer is possible.

Cancer Control

The most effective measure in preventing cancer is the elimination of the tabaco use, because 30% of cancer deaths are caused by its consumption. The diet control also reduces the mortality; decrease calorie intake to avoid obesity, reducing fat calories to 20% in the diet, reduced consumption of red meat, increasing intake of fiber (cereal fruits and vegetables) and protective foods (containing vitamins C and A, vegetables like cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli or Brussels sprouts). To limit the consumption of smoked foods, salted or rich in nitrite, and alcohol consumption. People should limit sun exposure or using protective creams to prevent skin cancer.

Control over environmental factors include the elimination of carcinogens in the workplace and at home, such as the elimination of exposure to asbestos fibers or the reduction of radon at home.

Screening techniques can be performed for cervical cancer (cervix), breast, colon, rectum and prostate. We recommend conducting an annual checkup starting at age 40 even in the absence of symptoms, countries with public health system may not always offer this service and the patient must cover the cost. Women over 20 years should perform a breast self-exam every month. Breast cancer is considered a major health problem in developed countries and many women die each year from this cause. Women over 50 are at greatest risk of developing breast cancer and the maximum risk is for patients older than 75 years.

Widespread adoption of early detection measures could eliminate lung cancer, reduce the incidence of breast and colon cancer, and increase the cure rate of breast cancer, colon, rectum, cervix and prostate.