Early diagnosis and prophylaxis

Cancer

What is a cancer?

Cancer is uncontrolled human cell division, when the main purpose of sick cells is just to grow up and divide as quickly as it possible. This happens because of the disturbance of cell replication caused by the DNA mutation. It could be dangerous because tumours

-taking up space in a body and creating pressure on near organs and tissues

-still consume oxygen, glucose and other stuff but not doing any useful work

Causes of cancer

There are lot of things that can cause cancer, and not all of them are known. The most frequently are

· Smoking

· Persons personal diet

· Viruses

· Radiation

· Natural disturbance of cell work due to a long lifetime

Smoking

In more then 20% times cancer is caused by smoking. It is the biggest value in cancerogens, and one of the most depended from human actions. Sometimes people can catch a cancer because of the smoke in an air, produced by other smokers, but in most cases it happens because persons smokes.
It is depended from how mush person smokes and for how long (second factor even more important). Tobacco contains a number of substances that damages DNA, the most common of them are benzene, polonium-210, benzo(a)pyrene and nitrosamines. Also, smoking decreases the natural ability of the smokers cells to resist against other cancerogens. There is no way to make tobacco less dangerous.

Diet and body type

A products, consumed by person with physical activity cause slightly less percentage of cancer then tobacco (also ~20%), and also easily preventable.

Overweight stimulates organism to produce a lot of testosterone, estrogen and insulin hormones, but it still not exactly clear why they cause cancer: possibly, they affects the cells mitosis.

Eating red and processed meat increases the chance to develop a cancer, because it contains cancerogens naturally, by storage methods or after cooking (white meat like chicken or fish is much less dangerous). The chemicals are:

· Haem(a red pigment)

· Nitrates and nitrites(used for a longer store of meat and both could be turned into the N-nitroso compounds inside the body)

· Heterocyclic amines and polycyclic amines (can be produced in a high temperature)

All of them also can damage DNA structure and cause cancer.

Fruits and vegetables can decrease the risk of cancer because they contain nutrients. They are increases the ability of body to avoid cancerogens. They main nutrients are carotenoids, folate, vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, flavonoids and other phytochemicals.

Also, salt makes cells(especially those ones in stomach) less able to resist other cancerogens.

All alcohol drinks contains ethanol. When it splits up by human body, it produces acetaldehyde and reactive oxygen species (both cancerogens) , impairing the body’s ability to break down and absorb a variety of nutrients and increasing the blood level of estrogen.

Drinking alcohol and smoking in the same time increases the risk of getting cancer rather then both of the factors, added together. Time between alcohol consuming is not affects the risk of getting a cancer.

Radiation

Radiation is not one of the biggest causes of cancer, but if you were radiated you are likely to get a cancer. Radiation can cause cancer by resonating with DNA molecules and destroying there structure. It could be a radiation from medical equipment (people already use protection against it), nuclear weapon tests and atomic stations explosions (H-bombs and high level of security at the station reduced them near to 0 today: unstable particles can trap to body through air, as well as strait radiation after explosion can damage cells DNA), mobile phones and sunlight radiation (use sun cream and do not overstay with no protection during the summers).

Treatment

Early diagnosis and prophylaxis

The easiest way to not die because of the cancer is not to get it. To avoid it, you should have a balanced diet, look after your body, do not smoke, reduce consummation of alcohol and avoid radiation.
Also, if it is a possibility that you are likely to get a cancer (for example, you worked at the street for a whole summer or you are a smoker) it would be a good idea to check do you have cancer or not. It is much easier to hill the earlier stage of the cancer then the late one. One of the diagnose is biopsy, when doctor cuts off small peace of the tissue and tests it for cancer. Another possibility is to cut off the part of the body that haven’t got cancer yet but likely to get it soon.

Surgery

First and simple treatment of cancer- tumor just cuted off and removed from the body. But in practice it could be difficult to define the borders of tumor or make operation safe . If the cancer in it late form so it spreader around or near the important organs, or at the delicate tissue, it could be nearly impossible to make operation successful (how you will treat a blood or a liver cancer?).

Also surgery could be use as a secondary treatment to cut off the parts of the tumor to reduce pressure or it’s size.

Chemotherapy

Second treatment, based on killing the cancer cells by different chemical substances (that would kill just cancer cells or locally). To deliver drug to a tumor could be used injections or nanoparticles. But mostly it is used at the whole body, and it is an advantage.
It is often used with other treatments to reduce secondary and primary tumor before treatment or the rest of cancer cells after.
It is a lot of drugs and I’m not going to mention them there. Mostly the are stopping the cancer cells dividing or breaking theirs DNA.

Because it is an attack to the whole body, it could have a lot of side effects and based on the persons stamina. Some of the side effects are:

· Fatigue

· Hair loss

· Small bleeding

· Weaker immune system

· Problems with digestion

· Anemia

· Problems with skin

· Bad affect on mood and memory

Radiotherapy

Third treatment. Based on killing the cancer cells locally by destroying them with a huge radiation level. Not a good idea if tumor is big or near the important tissues, because this would damage all near cells as well. It is useful because mostly affect cells that are dividing, and that’s the cancer cells. To decrease a side effects tumor could be attacked by several beams from different directions.

Sources:

Our textbook

Chemistry textbook

Those article about the immunotherapy that I read at N+1 or Naked Science and cannot find because it was a long time ago and I forgot the heading

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/smoking-and-cancer/how-smoking-causes-cancer

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/smoking-and-cancer/smoking-facts-and-evidence#smoking_facts7

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/dietandphysicalactivity/diet-and-physical-activity

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D0%BD%D1%81%D1%83%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%B0

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/bodyweight-and-cancer/how-being-overweight-causes-cancer

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/diet-and-cancer/how-healthy-eating-prevents-cancer

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/bodyweight-and-cancer/bodyweight-facts-and-evidence#bodyweight_facts16

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/diet-and-cancer/diet-facts-and-evidence#diet_facts2

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/alcohol/alcohol-fact-sheet

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/alcohol-and-cancer/how-alcohol-causes-cancer

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/alcohol-and-cancer/alcohol-facts-and-evidence

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/radiationexposureandcancer/index

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/radiation

http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/treatmenttypes/surgery/how-surgery-is-used-for-cancer

http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/treatmenttypes/chemotherapy/how-is-chemotherapy-used-to-treat-cancer

http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/treatmenttypes/chemotherapy/how-chemotherapy-drugs-work

http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/treatmenttypes/chemotherapy/whatitishowithelps/chemo-what-it-is-chemo-side-effects

http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/treatmenttypes/chemotherapy/chemotherapy-side-effects

http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/treatmenttypes/radiation/radiationtherapyprinciples/radiation-therapy-principles-how-is-radiation-given-external-beam-rad