In the latest part of the Cancer series we learned which traits that makes a cell a cancer cell. Today I thought we'd discuss the question: Is there a cure for cancer?
The quick answer is unfortunately "No", but lets try to understand why there is no real cure for cancer yet.
Cancer has been around for ages and about 1/3 of the population will develop a cancer at some point in their life, so it's something that affects lots of us and the motivation for a cure is strong. Considering how much progress we make in medical science and how much research that is done on cancer you'd think there'd be a cure. Many treatments and drugs exist against cancer, but not all patients respond in the same way to these treatments. One patient can take a drug and get better while another patient with the same type of cancer will not get any better.
The thing is, there is no one cure for cancer. It is impossible to find THE cure for cancer because all cancers are so very different. Cancer is complicated, not only can it originate in almost any type of tissue in the body (e.g. skin, breast, lung and so on), but each tumour that forms develops in its own way and differently from another tumour. Breaking it down further: Two patients that both have breast cancer can have tumours that have developed in totally different ways. So the tumours may look alike on the outside, but they will most probably act and react very differently to drugs.
So the easy answer is that we haven't found a cure for cancer because it is not one single disease.
It's a question wrongly asked; There is no one cancer to cure, but lots of cancers that we need to cure. And because each individual patient has its unique cancer, you need as many cures for cancers as you have cancer patients. However this is something that we are getting closer to achieving, and I will come back to this later on in the Cancer Series because it is very exciting and interesting, but we need to understand a bit more genetics to really understand it, so this will be the topic of the next part of the Cancer Series.
As always, if there are any questions please feel free to leave them in the comments section.
On to the outfit...
Turtleneck: H&M (old)
Tights: Primark (old)
This lovely pinafore from Mod Dolly is a fantastic autumn dress. It has endless outfit opportunities, and I believe that you will see much more of it on the blog during this season. In fact, you might even recognise it because I'm not the person to exclude tartan from my spring and summer wardrobe. I've worn this pinafore in the middle of the summer with a short sleeved blouse, see it here. However, there is something especially "right" about tartan in the autumn!
Much love!
