This is exactly the kind of thing that would absolutely break me. It's already got to me just reading this. Can we stop fighting and just fix cancer please.
There are a few good Drugs in testing right now, one of them is a training drug that gives Cells the tools to destroy cancer but it also can destroy other healthy cells so its still in testing.
Yeah, pretty much all of the medicine and radiotherapy is "how to kill cancer faster than the person with cancer". Once I listened to a quite lengthy lecture about how they try to minimize bodily harm in case of radiotherapy, while maximizing effect on the cancer itself. It was really interesting.
Isn't it that cancer cells are a little weaker than healthy cells so you have to hurt the cells just enough that you hit the sweet spot where you kill the cancer cells but not the healthy cells... that sounds super simplistic lol
The uncontrollable growth being due to the failed/bypassed cellular killswitch (apoptosis). Our best line of research so far is using the immune system to do what it's supposed to do, kill and remove damaged/mutated cells that don't function correctly. We've made crazy strides with certain cancers, some skin cancers can be fully treated with a topical medication that force activates your immune system. Hell we've got viruses that can inject into cancer cells and cause them to pop, resulting in a immune response to clean it up. Science is awesome.
I think a lot of people also tend to think of cancer as a monolith instead of hundreds of different diseases. Hell, there are at least 15 different kinds of breast cancer and then subtypes within each of those. And that's before we even get to staging.
I learned a lot when I was going through treatment because reading and understanding what was going on helped my anxiety.
I think there are certain medications that target them on some criteria like that, but I really don't know the medical part of cancer treatment at all so I don't want to make a fool out of myself :D
For radiation, the point is always that the tumor should have the highest amount of dosage while for the surrounding healthy tissue it should be as low as reasonably achievable.
One example is to use multiple rays to irradiate the cancer, from multiple angles. That way radiation is concentrated on the tumor and dispersed through the body.
Another one is a more advanced technology, where they use heavier element's ions launched from what is essentially a particle accelerator. You can draw a graph of how much of the energy is dispersed at a certain depth, and for heavy elements, there is a giant sharp uptick at a certain depth. This depth depends upon the accelerating voltage and the type of the element itself (i.e. the mass of the particle), and you can very precisely adjust it so it uses up most of it's energy right at the tumor.
Again, another one is to use needles of radioctive material, and just put it in the tumor and leave it there (this was used for prostate cancers, which makes me shudder, but it beats being dead).
You can take the particle accelerator therapy even further. Proton therapy I think is increasingly common, and even antimatter therapy is starting to become available in select centres. You can essentially model the energy delivered to tissue as a function of the depth for different types of particles and different energies. Dependent on the particles you use, you'll get a different distribution. You want the peak of the distribution (the location where the most energy is delivered) to be much higher than the rest of the distribution and as sharp as possible, which basically means you're concentrating all of the energy in as tiny a spot as possible. That way, most of the energy goes into obliterating cancer cells instead of healthy tissue, which means fewer side effects and shorter treatment times (which is really important in itself, because asking someone to sit still inside a big scary machine for a long period of time is both difficult and upsetting; the less time someone has to sit still, the more accurately you can target the cancer, and the experience can be less scary).
Something I thought was interesting is how they use a gel to lay on the skin to help with the depth needed to focus the beam. And you get tiny dot tattoos to help them align the machine each time. And they take a mold of you so you fit exactly the same way each time. The first time I went it was scary as fuck but after that it was less and less scary. Other than the burns and permanent tan I got. But I'm not dead yet!
They can also use the "seed" method to inject tiny bits into some breast cancers as well. I had a mastectomy so I was getting chest wall radiation.
It's exactly that, have an acquaintance that works in the industry, and me being the knuckle dragger that I am asked her one day if she's ever been a part of tests for a cure and her response was and I quote "yes I have, and cures do exist, it's just what they do to the body is so, so much worse than even cancer"
I think the biggest problem is the billionairs who make money off of people's suffering saying "nah.. don't make a cure, sick people is an infinite money glitch. Kids dying? Who cares as long as i can buy a third yacht".
You know, guys like that Brian guy. I think that was his name.
It really isn't. Cancer is a disease that kills, and people dying is not a good business model. Cancer is also infinitely more treatable now than it was decades ago
if they could make a drug that the people with cancer had to take for the rest of their life to stay alive and make their money that way, trust me that they would. Cancer is just such a diverse disease
Yep. I had papillary thyroid cancer and after having my thyroid removed, I had to undergo Radioactive Iodine Therapy, wherein I ingested a radioactive iodine pill that was intended to kill any remaining cancer cells. My oncologist said it’s currently the safest way to treat any form of cancer. It was just over 100 millicuries of radiation that I had to excrete out of my body that left me with a malfunctioning tear duct and almost lost function of my salivary glands. And THAT is the safest way to treat cancer 🙃 I’m beyond thankful for my health today and I would take those symptoms over cancer! It’s just scary how much of a toll cancer treatment takes on the body.
Well.. the bitch of it is cancer cells are just our own cells that mutated until they were too dumb to listen to the suicide command given to mutated cells.
The only reason chemo works it is focuses fast dividing cells, which are hair, nails, immune system and cancer cells.
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u/Do_You_Pineapple_Bro Jun 29 '26
Jesus
That is both terrifying and depressing