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Asked by josiel487 to Eva, Chris, Michael, Paddy, Philip on 17 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by emochicinlove, bexstar.
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Eva Bachmair answered on 15 Jun 2011:
Short answer: I don’t know that. You might better ask an oncologist (someone doing research in the cancer area or treating cancer) for that matter.
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Paddy Brock answered on 17 Jun 2011:
Cancer is tricky to cure because it’s a result of our own cells losing control, rather than invading pathogens like bacteria. Invading bacteria can be eliminated (e.g. by antibiotics) because they have unique features (proteins etc.) that our human cells don’t have. But a cancer is made out of the body’s own cells, so it’s difficult to target.
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Michael Wharmby answered on 17 Jun 2011:
There are ways to fight against cancer. Various drugs are available which seek out and destory fast growing cells (cancer cells grow very quickly). But they’re not entirely selective, so attack the body’s own fast growing cells – this is one reason why people undergoing cancer treatment lose their hair.
Radiotherapy is also available where you fire high energy radiation into the cells in question, but this again is not targetted at the cancer cells only and will damage surrounding cells too.It is possible to cure it if these treatments kill the offending cells, but it’s not a certain cure. Scientists are looking to find things that mark out cancer cells as different from other cells (maybe they produce a certain protein that other cells don’t) so that drugs can be made to target them. But unfortunately they’re still looking. This is why scientific research is important though. 🙂
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Chris Jordan answered on 17 Jun 2011:
Maybe we can divert your question to another zone!
My take is that we can kill cancer cells (chemotherapy, surgery and radiation therapy) but the treatment also kills or damages other cells in your body. If the cancer is localised, this can be enough to get rid of it otherwise not. A lot of people are working on this, much of the work tries to find ways of targeting the rogue cells and ignoring the others.
None of us are experts in cancer treatment, but we all have enough basic science so that we can read up about this sort of subject and get a general understanding of the issues. (Another plug for doing a certain minimum of science at school even if you don’t want to be a scientist) -
Philip Denniff answered on 17 Jun 2011:
There are lots of different types of cancer, but they all have a common feature, as Michael explained, they occur when cells go out of control and grow too fast. Normally the body regulates how fast and how many cells are produced, but sometimes this control breaks down and a cancer forms.
The type of cancer is usually named after the part of the body in which it occur, so bowl cancer occurs in the colon or up your bum, breast cancer in the breast which males can also get.
There are three ways of curing it, cut it out (surgery), radiation (kill the cancer cells by burning) and chemotherapy (using drugs). Different cancers respond better to different treatment. The drugs used in chemotherapy are getting a lot better at targeting and killing just the cancer cells or interrupting the grow signal sent to the cancer cell. The problem is that the drugs are expensive. Obviously prevention is better than cure and the first anti-cancer vaccines have been developed to guard against cervical cancer.
The problem with all the cancers is making sure you get rid of it all, because if you don’t it can start to grow again. Catch it early is usually best, cancer is no longer the killer that it used to be.
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