Breast Cancer. Lung Cancer. Liver Cancer. Skin Cancer. Are All Cancers Created Equal?

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…

My wife and her sister are breast cancer survivors.

My wife’s mother died of lung cancer.

My wife’s brother has liver cancer.

My sister, sister-in-law, brother and dad have had skin cancer.

Are all cancers created equal? Are some “worse” than others? Are some more survivable? Are some “the worst kind of cancer to have”?

First order of business is to define cancer in a general way. Most people “know” that cancer happens when cells grow out of control.

But is this general wisdom correct? From the American Cancer Society: “Cancer is the general name for a group of more than 100 diseases. Although there are many kinds of cancer, all cancers start because abnormal cells grow out of control. Untreated cancers can cause serious illness and death.”

By way of comparison, from the Cancer Council of Australia: “Cancer is a disease of the body's cells. Normally cells grow and multiply in a controlled way, however, if something causes a mistake to occur in the cells' genetic blueprints, this control can be lost. Cancer is the term used to describe collections of these cells, growing and potentially spreading within the body. As cancerous cells can arise from almost any type of tissue cell, cancer actually refers to about 100 different diseases.”

And from the Chinese Anti-Cancer Association: “Jia Kun, a Chinese traditional medicine oncologist writing in 1980, says that whatever upsets normal body function can lead to tumor formation, causing cancer. Tumors are the end result of a prolonged process of accumulation and densification of tissue due to the persistent stagnation of qi and blood, which, if unrelieved, becomes toxic, critically damaging the healthy function of the organ systems.” [My half hour search of the website did not turn up a clear definition of what Chinese medicine considers a ‘tumor’.]

At any rate, it seems pretty clear that the world knows that there is SOMETHING going on no matter how you explain it.

As to the “worst” cancers, this article published two years ago on MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39102353/ns/health-cancer/t/top-deadliest-cancers-why-theres-no-cure/) rates the cancers based on the number of deaths. Other factors that work into this are how common a cancer is determines if there are treatments and detectability of the cancer can also affect how deadly it is.

As I wrote two weeks ago, “…cancers of ALL TYPES need to be destroyed…”

Today’s oncologists can identify some 100 cancers. But how? And HOW does cancer start?

“Cancer…does not develop all at once as a massive shift in cellular functions that results from a mutation in one or two wayward genes. Instead, it develops step-by-step, across time, as an accumulation of many molecular changes, each contributing some of the characteristics that eventually produce the malignant state…the time frame involved also is very long— it normally takes decades to accumulate enough mutations to reach a malignant state...Cancer is, for the most part, a disease of people who have lived long enough to have experienced a complex and extended succession of events…each [cell] change is a rare accident requiring years to occur, the whole process takes a very long time, and most of us die from other causes before it is complete…[P]eople who experience unusual exposure to carcinogens... inherit predisposing mutations…increases the likelihood that certain harmful changes will occur…[and] developing cancer during a normal life span…[I]nheriting a cancer-susceptibility mutation means [it has happened in] all the body's cells. In other words, the process of tumor formation…may take place in one or two [decades]…[C]ancer as a multistep process also explains the lag time that often separates exposure to a cancer-causing agent and the development of cancer.”

The how and why and where are fairly well understood today. Doctors, molecular biologists, geneticists, biotechnology experts and oncologists are working constantly to meet the 100 different cancers head on, to understand the mechanisms that cause them – and finally to create a strategy that will not only slow the progress of cancer cell growth down, but stop every form of cancer in its tracks by discovering the key to shutting cancer down.

Resources: http://www.chinese-medicineworks.com/pdfs/cancercmbeinfieldkorngold.pdf, https://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih1/cancer/guide/understanding2.htm

Image: http://www.omnimedicalsearch.com/conditions-diseases/images/cancercells.jpg