Cancer

 ONCOLOGY: IN PRESENT AND UPCOMING ADVANCEMENTS

Aloysius yagapparaj V

23Uch255.

II B Sc CHEMISTRY B       

    The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that cancer claims the lives of approximately 10 million people globally, making it one of the major causes of death. Numerous studies have shown that cancer medications are not very effective, although they may be able to extend the deadline by a few more years. Numerous malignancies remain highly dangerous and challenging to identify. 

      Cancer is a highly prevalent disease in India. Due to inaccessible medical care, about 2.5 million people in India suffer from cancer without receiving treatment. Over 7 lakh new cases of cancer are reported each year, and 5 lakh deaths are attributed to incurable cancer. Lung and mouth cancers are the most prevalent cancers among Indian men. The main factors of this cancer include drinking alcohol, smoking, and occasionally using medications improperly on our own.

Definition of cancer:

      Cancer is defined as an uncontrolled cell growth that begins in any area of the body, spreads across it, and damages healthy cells in its progression. 

      Normal human cells grow and multiply through the process known as cell division, in which the cell nucleus divides and the whole cell gets separated. The new cell further moves on to its process, and the parent cell dies.  

     Tumors result from a cell’s escape from apoptosis. The wounded old cell will keep growing larger if it didn't die. In that region of the body, these cells develop into a soft tumor growth. Not all tumor growths are malignant; some are benign and exhibit few symptoms; nevertheless, when these symptoms are ignored, the tumor growth becomes aggressive and develops into cancer.

     Even a damaged wound can form cancer, but cancer is not a deadly word; it is also like a damaged cell or wound.

       Cancer cell grows in the absence of signals that telling them to grow but the normal cell grows only responding to the signals. Cancer cell ignores the signals that tell to stop, cell growth or to die. Cancer cell spread to the nearby areas and spread over the body. 

       

      Cancer cell tells blood vessels to grow towards the tumor. The blood vessels supply oxygen, nutrients and removes the waste product from the tumor. They act like a normal cell, so it is undetectable for the immune system to destroy the damaged cell. They make the immune system as a protecting guard for the tumor growth. Some cancer cells have double the number of chromosomes. They may perform changes in the genetics in their own like deletion, duplication, etc…. 

     

   Some cancer cells rely on different kind of nutrients than normal cells, that makes the cancer cell to grow faster than a normal cell. The body normally eliminates the damaged cell from our body before the turn into cancerous, but this process may malfunction due to aging, and insufficient nutritional balance.

          Basically, cancer is a genetic disease that modifies the DNA genome and modifies the sequence of the DNA series or breaks the DNA chain, the cancer may also occur due to the long endless sequence of the DNA. [1]

Types of cancer:

Carcinoma

Sarcoma

Leukaemia

Lymphoma

Multiple Myeloma

Melanoma

Brain and Spine cord tumor

 Diagnosis:

             Diagnosing cancer in earlier stage can provide many options for complete curable treatment, but delaying diagnosis may leads to difficulty in treatment and sometimes leads to death. There are many diagnosis technics few are here,                                                                  

Physical exam

Laboratory test 

Imaging test

Biopsy

Physical exam: 

            This method is usually used for diagnosis external tumor or the tumors in the outer surface of the internal organs, through feeling the lumps.

Laboratory test:

              Lab tests include blood test, urine test, etc... These tests are used to find the abnormality in blood cell which may also result in cancer (Blood cancer).

Imaging test:

              Imaging can give a clear idea about how big the tumor is? Imaging test like CT, MRI, PET, Ultrasound, X Ray, Bone scan, etc...

Biopsy:

This is the main test used nowadays to confirm the tumor is cancerous.[5]

Treatment methods for cancer in present:

          There are six treatment methods,

  Surgery

Chemotherapy

Radiation therapy

Hormonal therapy

Immune therapy

Bone marrow therapy

 Chemotherapy:

          Chemotherapy drugs are used to kill the fast growing cells. There are many chemo drugs:

Carboplatin- used to treat ovarian, head, neck, lung, neuroblast, brain cancer.

Cis-Platin- used to treat testicular, ovarian, cervical, bladder, oesophageal, lung cancer.

Capecitabine- used to treat breast cancer, gastric cancer, colorectal cancer.

Paclitaxel- Antitumor antibody.

Cyclophosphamide- to supress immune system and to treat leukaemia, lymphoma.

Radiation therapy:

   Chemicals used in radiation therapy:

Iodine-125

Radium-226

Palladium-103

Ruthenium-106

Hormonal therapy:

      Chemicals used for hormonal replacement:

norethindrone acetate

ethinyl oestradiol

medroxyprogesterone

 These treatment methods are effective against the cancerous cell, but these methods cause more damage and side effects to the patients.

        There is another method which is very effective, and the side effects are low, the method is “Targeted Drug Therapy”.[3]

UPCOMING ADVANCEMENTS:

 IN TECH:

CRYO EM

CRISPR

Robotic surgery

Artificial intelligence

Nano particle targeted drug delivery.[4] 

CRYO EM: 

          Recent research show that a new imaging techniques called CRYO – electron microscope imaging has been used to view the cancer cell small molecular binding of the key protein and drug.

CRISPR: 

             After making key discoveries about CRISPR, Drs. Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier won a Nobel Prize in 2020. A year earlier, the first US clinical trial of a CRISPR-made cancer immunotherapy began, and more studies are exploring CRISPR-made cancer treatments.

Robotic surgery:

               Future if mostly based on robotics, not only other fields but mainly the medical field. In surgery the robots controlled by human can be used to remove the tomorrow precisely.[2]

Credits: National Cancer institute

Reference:

1.National Cancer Institute. (2021). “About cancer”. Retrieved from [about-cancer]

2. Tech Revolution: - National Cancer Institute. (2023). “The Tech Revolutionizing Cancer Research and Care”. Retrieved from [tech-advancement]

3.National Cancer institute (2022).”Treatment methods”. Retrieved from [treatment-methods]

4.RCS (Smart Drug Delivery):

   - RCS. (2024). “Smart delivery vehicles for cancer: categories, unique roles and therapeutic strategies”. Retrieved from [royal-society-of-chemistry]

5.Mayo clinic(2021) “Cancer diagnosis “. Retrieved from [cancer-diagnosis]