Authored by Nickie Fleming in Diseases
Published on 03-19-2009
Cancer is an ugly disease, and unfortunately no final treatment is yet found to cure it. Our doctors and scientists do a lot of research, and they have already come to a point where there is hope that cancer will be considered not worse than getting the flu – but that’s not for tomorrow yet!
Big efforts are put into cancer prevention, and it can go a fair way of helping cancer out of the world. In my country, Belgium, each woman over fifty gets an annual mammography free of charge, to test for breast cancer. Young girls of sixteen get an equally free shot with a medicine that helps to prevent ovarian cancer. Women are advised in the media to go and see their gynecologist at least once a year, and also men are stimulated to have a regular check-up:
Still, too many people do get one or other form of cancer. If the cancer is spotted in an early stadium, a treatment is started – whether this consists of radiology (the tumor is treated with x-rays or laser) or chemotherapy (a chemical mix of medicines, which has to be taken in a sequence). Doctors strongly advise the patient to accept the treatment they prescribe, as there are unfortunate cases where a patient tried to find a cure in homeopathy and died sooner than with the traditional treatment.
Treatment is necessary, otherwise the patient’s bodily health will deteriorate as the immune systems fails. When a form of treatment is started, there is a chance that the patient may recover, although he or she never gets cured. After a couple of months, the patient who is lucky (because some die, despite the treatment) goes into remission.
Remission is the period of time when the cancer is responding to the treatment, or is under control. All the symptoms of the disease will disappear and it will look as it the patient is cured. They will feel better, their hair grows again, the blood cells will show a more normal count. But alas, we all know that this is not always the case. Sometimes it may look as if the patient is cured, and then one day, the cancer will raise its ugly head again. The tumor had only shrunk and for some reason or other starts growing once more.
There is also a difference between remission induced by treatment and spontaneous remission. The latter refers to the unexplained and sudden disappearance of all signs and symptoms of cancer, which has been observed by doctors and physicians throughout the ages. Modern medicine has a lot of recorded cases about it. There are many ongoing theories as to what causes spontaneous remission, but the most popular is that the immune system is restored to its full strength. Other researches think that DNA modulation plays a key role in the cancer remission. Unfortunately, nobody knows the right answer. Finding out what causes spontaneous remission might well be the key to finding a definite cure for cancer.
