Is All Cancer the Same?

Question

Is all cancer the same? I know you can have breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, etc. However, is it all the same and just in different places or is each cancer different? If it is all the same and just in different places, why are there separate movements for said cancers? If it was all a movement for just cancer, much more money would be raised and thrown to one cause instead of spread around.

Answer 1

"Inverse" has your best answer here. Every woman with breast cancer is different, and the breast cancer cells in each woman with breast cancer are not all the same - they are heterogeneous. Some chemotherapy drugs work for one woman's breast cancer cells and not for another woman.



Even in one woman with breast cancer (or another type of cancer - I just use breast cancer as an example), a combination of chemotherapy drugs ( we have at least 75 of these - all different ) plus hormonal therapy may kill or suppress 99% of the cancer cells, but there may be a different group of cancer cells that have mutated further and are resistant. This clone of resistant cancer cells will come back and eventually end the person's life. [The same thing occurs with bacterial infections that become resistant to antibiotics. Cancer is a microscopic disease of aberrant cells just like infectious bacterial diseases are illnesses caused by single cell organisms.]



Maybe this will give you an idea why cancers are so difficult to cure once they have spread beyond surgical resection. There are hundreds of different cancer types and there is person to person variation PLUS variation of cancer cells within each person.



There will not be a one size fits all cure for all types of cancer in all people. There will never be a way to prevent all deaths from all diseases. We were not designed to be immortal.

I'd be happy to see cures for the younger people with malignancies first and foremost - so they have a chance for a full life. Those of us who are older and have had a fair chance, including me - well, we gotta go sometime. We can work on helping the older people when we give the younger folks the best chance for survival. Every treatment we add to our arsenal of scientifically proven remedies for cancer is very expensive. How do YOU decide to apportion the funds available?

Answer 2

There are over 230 different kinds of cancers in humans (almost every part of the body can have cancer). Not to mention in animals- my mom's dog had breast cancer and her neighbors dog had brain cancer (the poor little dog had to ride in a stroler his last days). They thought my cat had Luekemia caused from a virus (she did not she was just malnutritioned from birth) humans can have T-Cell virus. Some cancer organizations are there just to make money for themselves and some make money for hospitals, clinics, research studies etc. As for the movement the STEP UP TO CANCER on tv was the first movement to gain so many networks attentions. Some organizations are more well known than others- I usually ask where the money goes too and how it is distibuted especially I donate thousands a year in my own money for a tax write off and others.

Answer 3

Not only is each "type" of cancer different from the others, but increasing evidence suggests that each *person's* cancer is different. While certain similarities exist (and this is why treatments are able to be effective), the fact that some cancers in some people defy successful treatment is testament to the variability of the disease. Different arrays of cell mutations in individual people yield the birth of cancers in those people. Recent research has shown that pancreatic and brain cancers can have up to 60 different mutations in the DNA. That's far too many for each patient to have the same set of mutations.

Answer 4

There are many types of cancers and many types for the same area. Example there are 4 types of lung cancer, 5 different types of breast cancer, 3 types of pancreatic cancer.



Cancer is a very complex disease with many causes, etc. The heredity factor also enters into cancer. Many scientists are working on trying to solve the problem but due to the many aspects of cancer, it has been impossible to isolate just one common cause that always exists if all patents have one specific types of cancer.



I wish it were so simple.

Answer 5

it extremely is only certainly one of 1000's of varieties of maximum cancers. Cancers all contain cells dividing abnormally and transforming into uncontrolled yet can impression distinctive tissues and organs and the treatment for all varieties of maximum cancers isn't precisely the comparable. there is even one extra beneficial than a million variety of breast maximum cancers -consisting of the elementary one, adenocarcinoma, and the fewer elementary, inflammatory breast maximum cancers.

Answer 6

Absolutely not! Some cancers are curable (rarely). Some cancers are expand exponentially and that is the worse one! No all cancers are not the same, they are all in different parts of the body. Hope this helped!