Anti-Tumor Therapies-Cases of Breast and Prostate Cancers (original) (raw)

2017, Journal of Tumor Medicine & Prevention

After a circuitous detour involving numerous and varied hypotheses as to the causes of cancer, and the associated developments in chemotherapy and synergy with other modalities (surgery, radiation), and with our deeper understanding of the biology of this disease, we have now come to the conclusion that cancer is braided into our genome. A cancer cell is an astonishing perversion of the normal cell in that both rely on growth in the most basic elemental sense, viz. the division of one cell to form two daughter cells. Whilst in a normal cell, division is regulated and growth stimulated by specific complementary triggering and arresting signals, a cancer cell grows and divides frenetically without a regulating mechanism-a clonal process. Cancer is more than a clonal disease, however, it is a clonally evolving disease. When mutating, it can resist attack by a chemotherapeutic drug or by the autoimmune system; generate new cells that are increasingly adapted to survival and growth, and even speed up other mutations. The fittest cancer cells survive-the ultimate product of Darwinian selection of the fittest. I will discuss the hallmarks of cancer and the principles of cancer therapy. I will recall the long history of breast cancer from ancient times to the present, and describe the various therapeutic modalities' principles, applications, evolution and synergy (surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, bone marrow transplantation) and the complementary therapies (adjuvant, hormone replacement treatment, and palliative) and the corresponding benefits. I will also discuss past clinical trials and their conclusions (or lack thereof) and remark on current tests administered for breast and prostate cancer. I will conclude with a critique of the test guidelines issued by various national and international regulatory bodies and professional societies, providing additional evidence that so-called "population medicine" (in this case, mass screening) disregards individual variability and promotes considerably more unnecessary medical testing and procedures.