The number of people with cancer in the world has significantly improved over the past 40 years. In the 1970s, only 25% of people with the disease would be able to survive for at least a decade after their diagnosis. Nowadays, that number has jumped to 50%. Despite the progress that’s been made, cancer is still a devastating disease that doesn’t have a single cure.
Understanding the various causes of the disease is the most important thing that scientists can do to prevent it from spreading.
Each type of cancer has its own sub-types, and they behave differently depending on their genetic and molecular properties. This is because the cells that make up the cancer are different from those that grow in other people.
Over 200 types of cancer have been discovered, many of which have had genetic mutations. Each of these mutations can cause a different type of cancer to grow. As cancer gets bigger, more and more mutations start to accumulate.
Every type of cancer has its own set of mutations, which means that a drug that targets one specific type of cancer won’t work for another. This makes curing cancer extremely difficult in many cases, which is why we still see this problem affecting so many individuals in this day and age.
Each type of cancer cell within a single tumor has its own genetic mutations. This means that treatments that target one type of cancer can only kill one type of cell. The cells that weren’t affected by this treatment can allow for the tumor to grow again.
The treatments that are currently being used in a patient to fight cancer can eventually stop working due to the genetic mutations that occur and the changes to behavior that they result in. This is an incredibly difficult problem to treat since the mutations can lead to the development of resistance.
If the cancer cells develop resistance to the new treatment, the patient will have to switch to a different type of therapy. But this same pattern could occur again.
Normal cells have certain control mechanisms that prevent them from growing or dividing uncontrollably. However, cancer cells can take advantage of these weaknesses by developing new strategies to fight back.
With the knowledge of these complications, it is not a surprise to learn that cancer still affects over 1.6 million people in the United States alone. As healthcare professionals and scientists continue to dive into this research, we hope to see this number decline.