Question

What goals must ideal cancer treatment achieve?

Answer 1

Cancer:

1. Cancer is a disease that is caused by uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in any part of the body.
2. Cancer can be treated by surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, bone marrow transplant, etc.

Goals of cancer treatment:

1. The treatment should focus on tumour cells and not harm normal cells.
2. Secondly, all the tumour cells should be killed, as they lose contact inhibition phenomenon.
3. The most practical approach for the treatment is to remove the tumour surgically.
4. This could be effective when there is no metastasis, and early metastatic cancer can be moderately successful if both the primary and secondary (metastatic) tumours are removed.
5. When tumours are not accessible to surgery, they can often be destroyed non-surgically by ionizing radiation.