In 2005, approximately 570,280 United States residents died of cancer. In the same year, 1,372,910 more people diagnosed with cancer began their long, hard stare into the eyes of death¹. These ridiculously high numbers provoke researchers to develop solutions that can extend the life spans of cancer patients. The difficult part is that there are many different types of cancer and they all have diverse treatments. There exist five major categories of cancer and cancers also develop as a mixture of these five categories. Although all these types of cancer possess different properties, they all share cancerous cells with the ability to divide uncontrollably and therefore are all categorized as cancers. The goal of this research project is to find the best innovative solution that can treat all types of cancer in order to tend to the needs of all victims.

What is Cancer?

A group of cancerous cells that contain damaged DNA, which causes them to divide uncontrollably, can form a tumor³. Any given tumor can contain about 100 million cells². While normal cells in the body will grow, divide, and then die; cancer cells don’t die. They survive longer than normal cells and continue to divide, creating more cancerous cells. When this damaged DNA isn’t repaired in cancer cells, the result is congenital cancer. Most cancers spread to form a tumor, however not all tumors are cancerous. A benign tumor is one that doesn’t spread to other parts of the body and is virtually harmless. On the other hand, a malignant tumor is one that can spread and poses a life-threatening risk to its unfortunate host³.

Cancer is the second most cause of death in the US, exceeded only by heart disease. The expenditure of cancer is extremely high. In 1995 all cancer-related costs of the National Institute of Health summed up to approximately $210 billion, of which $74 billion was for direct medical costs. Cancer murdered 6.7 million people world-wide in 2002¹. It is clear why a cure to this terrible disease needs to be discovered. Cancer is a mass murderer that must be stopped.

Causes of Cancer

Cancer can be caused by a combination of both external and internal factors. External factors that can cause cancer include tobacco, exposure to excessive chemical radiation, and infectious organisms. Internal factors can be inherited mutations, hormones, immune conditions, and metabolic mutations ¹. These factors may act alone or together to initiate a sequence of events that promotes carcinogenesis. In most cases, even after much exposure to external factors, it would take ten or more years for any cancer to be detectable. Tobacco use accounts for 30% of all cancer-related deaths and 87% of all lung cancer deaths¹. If these people were to stop smoking, their risk of getting cancer would be severely decreased. However, for those who don’t smoke, a cure is needed to counteract the internal factors that cause their cancer. This paper will focus mainly on the internal factor of nucleotide mutations in one’s DNA.

Categories of Cancer

Cancer is not just one specific disease, but it is a class of many diseases with the common trait of uncontrolled cell divisions. These cells are also able to invade other tissues, which can lead to spreading cancer throughout many parts of the body. This invasion happens because cancer cells lack the contact inhibition exhibited by normal healthy cells. Contact inhibition is the ability of cells to stop reproducing when they contact each other or the sides of a culture bowl. The lack of this trait in cancerous cells is what causes the unusual protrusion of some tumors on the patient’s body. The cancerous cells invade other tissues by two means called invasion and metastasis. During the process of invasion, cancer cells attack adjacent tissues and will grow directly on that new tissue. During metastasis, cancer cells are transported through the bloodstream to other parts of the body and attack a new organ⁴.

Cancer can attack any organ of the body. Cancers are classified by the type of tissue in which the cancer originates and by the primary site/location in the body where the cancer first developed⁵. There are hundreds of different histological origins, but all of these are grouped within five major categories: carcinoma, sarcoma, myeloma, leukemia, and lymphoma (mixed types also exist).

Carcinoma

Carcinoma is the most common type of cancer. It is a dangerous cancer growth that originates in any epithelial tissue⁶, which is any tissue that covers a surface or lines a cavity of the body. Carcinoma accounts for almost 80 to 90 percent of all cancer cases. There are two major types of carcinoma: adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma. Adenocarcinoma develops in an organ or gland, usually in mucus membranes, and looks somewhat like plaque-white mucosa. These tumors have the ability to easily spread through the soft tissue of its origin. Squamous cell carcinoma can develop in many areas of the body that contain squamous structured epithelial cells. Most carcinomas affect organs that have the ability to secrete a bodily fluid, for example breasts, lungs, colon, or prostate. If skin cancer is excluded, breast, lung, and prostate cancer have by far the most incidents.

Sarcoma

Sarcoma is the second type of cancer which refers to cancer that develops in supportive and connective tissues, for example bones, tendons, muscle, etc. Sarcoma is more frequently seen in younger patients and there are hundreds of different kinds of sarcomas of which can be broken down into two major subtypes, soft tissue sarcomas and non-soft tissue sarcomas⁷. Sarcomas usually invade surrounding tissue and can metastasize (or spread) to other organs of the body and form secondary tumors.

Myeloma

The third type of cancer is myeloma, a cancer that originates in the plasma cells of bone marrow that produces some of the proteins found in blood⁶. Often referred to as multiple myeloma, this cancer type affects the anti-body producing cells normally present in bone marrow, which are usually at 5% of the total cells, but with myeloma this can become greater than 20% and often spreads to other parts of the body. This increase in myeloma cells in the bone marrow can bring about many problems such as anemia, high protein level, bone damage, high blood calcium, and reduced normal immune system functions against infections⁸.

Leukemia

The fourth type is leukemia. Leukemia is a cancer of the “liquid”, better known as a cancer of blood. Leukemia is actually a cancer of the bone marrow, but it is associated with the overproduction of immature white blood cells. Since the white blood cells that are produced are immature, they cannot defend the body from infections and diseases. Due to these immature white blood cells, the patient’s immune system weakens and makes them more easily prone to diseases. Leukemia can also affect red blood cells and cause poor blood clotting and fatigue due to anemia⁶.

Lymphoma

Lastly there is Lymphoma. Lymphomas develop in parts of the body that purify bodily fluids and produce infection fighting white blood cells also known as lymphocytes. The sites affected are usually the glands, nodes of the lymphatic system, a network of vessels, and organs such as the spleen, tonsils, and thymus⁶. While leukemia is often referred to as the ‘liquid cancer’, lymphoma is often referred to as the ‘solid cancer’ because lymphomic cells often develop into solid tumors. Lymphoma can also develop in the stomach, breast, or brain area. Two subcategories exist for lymphomas are Hodgkin lymphoma and Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The difference is that the there is a presence of Reed-Sternberg cells in Hodgkin lymphoma where as the non-Hodgkin version does not contain these cells.

-Amy Shah