3 ms·
Traditional chemotherapy is toxic to all cells. Cancer cells grow rapidly (part of what makes them dangerous). So the toxic effect gets the cancer cells first,
by joshgel 7y ago
Traditional chemotherapy is toxic to all cells. Cancer cells grow rapidly (part of what makes them dangerous). So the toxic effect gets the cancer cells first, since cells that are growing take up the most chemotherapy. But other cells grow rapidly too, like hair and intestinal cells, which is why cancer patients lose their hair and have terrible nausea/diarrhea.
All (almost all?) cells take up some chemo. So, you are actually dying, just hopefully more slowly than the cancer. And then we stop the chemo before you all the way die.
This is why the bar for a cancer diagnosis is so high. We need biopsies to try to get as close to 100% accurate diagnosis as possible.
- nextos 7y agoThat's right. Chemotherapy is, sadly, a very primitive treatment. I regret we have spent so much money on cancer genomics, when some outsiders where trying to push for immunotherapies. Thankfully, that changed 3 or 4 years ago.
- jcims 7y agoCould you expand on the second half of your comment?
- imglorp 7y agoCut, burn, and poison: well practiced and sometimes effective but yeah it's horrific to experience and barbaric. I regret we aren't spending more on both genomics AND immunotherapies AND whatever else bears exploring.
- niketdesai 7y agoI am quite optimistic IO and cell based therapies will minimize these techniques. But there's more baking to be done before they can be rolled out. The "primitive" techniques can be quite reliable for specific cancer variants.
- russdill 7y agoSeeing the effect of chemotherapy in a pet though was mind blowing. Visible tumors disappeared over the course of weeks. Sadly she relapsed a few months later, but it's a very powerful class of drugs.
- timbit42 7y ago"We're dealing with medievalism here! ...Chemotherapy! ...Fundoscopic examinations!" - McCoy, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
- bigwavedave 7y agoExactly. The goal of chemotherapy is more or less to poison enough of the bad before too much of the good.