This Information About Cancer Treatments Will Leave You Speechless

Матеріал з Луцький НВК "Гімназія №14"

Many volunteers world-wide commit themselves to raising funds for cancer research and cancer charities. Many hundreds of thousands more work within the industry as carers, or researching, prescribing, identifying and manufacturing drugs. Huge companies spend fortunes on cancer research. After so long and so many billions spent what exactly has cancer research revealed?

There have been regular breakthroughs in our knowledge of cancer, but little progress in its treatment. Modern research into cancer began in the 1940's and 50's when scientists isolated substances that killed cancer cells growing in a petri dish, or leukaemia cells in laboratory mice. Early successes in chemotherapy set the pace and received much media exposure, despite the fact that they only applied to 5% of cancer treatments at most.

Serving humanity by solving its major diseases has a celebrity status, there is a lot of kudos and an air of Hollywood involved in such things. Cancer research is high profile activity and every now and after that a scientific treatment is discovered that gains wide recognition, such as the HPV-16 trial, but it only applies itself to dealing with a small percentage of cancers. Mass-media hype is included in the problem of how we see cancer. Early discoveries set up an expectation that there was a cure-all treatment, a 'magic bullet' that could make its discoverer famous by curing cancer throughout the world. The idea stems in part from aspirin, the original bullet that magically finds its way to the anguish and diminishes it.

In the 1950's and 60's huge and expensive research projects were setup to test every known substance to find out if it effected cancer cells. You might remember the discovery of the Madagascar Periwinkle (Catharansus Roseus), which revealed alkaloids (vinblastine and vincristine) that can be still used in chemotherapy today. Taxol, a therapy for ovarian and cancer of the breast originally came from the Pacific Yew tree. A remedy for testicular cancer and small-cell lung cancer called 'Etoposide' was produced from the May apple. In 'Plants Used Against Cancer' by Jonathan Hartwell over three thousand plants are identified from medical and folklore sources for the treatment of cancer, about 50% of which have been shown to have some impact right here on Setiweb Ssl Berkeley cancer cells in a test tube.

When these plants are made into synthetic drugs, single chemicals are isolated as well as the rest of the plant is often thrown away. The medicinally active molecules are extracted from the plant and modified until they may be chemically unique. Then the compound is patented, given a brand name and tested.

In the first phase it will generally be tested on animals, the other phase will decide dosage levels as well as in phase 3 it's tested on people. By the time it is approved by the Federal Drugs Authority (in U.S.A.) or even the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulation Agency (M.H.R.A.) in Britain, the development costs for a whole new drug can reach five hundred million dollars, which eventually must be recouped from the consumer.