Moncivaiz 1

Laura Moncivaiz

English 1201

Professor Kiewitz

March 29, 2020

Why is finding an effective cure for cancer so hard?

Very recently I had a teacher of mine pass away from breast cancer. This was

her second time fighting it after being told that she was cancer-free only one year

earlier. When she passed it impacted my life greatly because she had taught me so

much. I remember thinking “why is there no cure for cancer yet when this has been

around for so long?” “Why did the cancer come back when she had been cancer-free

just one year earlier?” One of the biggest health issues that is well known today is

cancer. According to the American Cancer Association cancer is when a cell in the body

starts to grow out of control and crowds out normal cells. This makes it hard for the

body to work the way that it should. There are many types of cancers that a person can

get. Some of the most common types of cancer are breast cancer, lung cancer, and

prostate cancer. There are millions of people in the world that have cancer and the

statistics of people getting this disease are only increasing every year. The three main

types of treatments that are used for cancer are chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery.

These have worked so far with most people and removed cancer from patients. Some

people will say that these various treatments are the cure to cancer today, while others

will say that doctors and researchers are doing nothing to find a cure for cancer. If these
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treatments are not the cure to cancer than what is? Why is it so hard to develop a cure

for this disease that has been around since 1500 BC? (Very Well Health)

One of the most commonly used treatments for cancer is chemotherapy. It was

first used for cancer in the 1930s. Discovered by a German scientist. (Journal List) The

way the treatment works is a drug is injected into the body which then spreads to kill

any cancer cells that may be in the body. (ACS) Depending on how far along cancer

has spread in the body, this will determine the number of treatments you will need, the

dosage amount, and which drugs to use. The most common types of drugs used are

Abaxane, Adriamycin, and Carboplatin. (Breastcancer.org) Since chemotherapy uses

these chemicals to destroy the cells, that means that it is non-specific meaning it could

result in not working to your specific type of cancer or the cells of your body/DNA might

not react to it or react in a bad way to it. If your cancer is small enough it can shrink

cancer enough that it can be removed with surgery. It may also reduce cancer making

you live longer and help with any symptoms being experienced. (pancreaticcancer.org)

The cons of using chemotherapy as a way to treat your cancer are experiencing hair

loss, nausea, anemia, infections, and destruction of the immune system. (udel.org)

Depending on the type of drug used the chemotherapy treatment can range from

11,000 to 12,000 dollars a month, out of pocket. This can become very costly if you

need to have various treatments done. During the time that my teacher had breast

cancer again, she would miss a lot of school because she had many doctor

appointments. She started experiencing hair loss and decided to microblade her

eyebrows because they were her pride and made her feel better. As I look back now I

realize that chemotherapy was really affecting her immune system because she was
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sick and not just from cancer. Although chemotherapy may have “cured” her cancer the

first time around it was breaking her down more this time through and there was no real

cure that could completely help her recover.

There is also a treatment of radiation that is dated to be first used in the late

1890s. Radiation is aimed at a specific part of the body to reduce the tumor and

eventually kill the cancer cells. There are three main types of radiation, external,

internal, and systemic. (ACS) Depending on what type of cancer you have and where it

is at determines which one(s) to use. Radiation is usually delivered daily Monday

through Friday and lasts about 10 minutes. The weekend is given as a break to allow

normal cells to grow. This treatment lasts around 5-8 weeks. (cooperhealth.org) After

one treatment is done you consult with a doctor to determine if you need more or if you

can combine with another treatment to kill cancer completely. The benefits of using

radiation to cure cancer are that it kills many of the larger cells in the tumor. If the cells

are small enough a couple of radiation treatments can kill all of the cells thus removing

the cancer tumor from the body. (cancerquest.org) The downside to using radiation as a

treatment is that it takes many treatments to shrink or kill the cells. There are also side

effects including tiredness, sickness, and diarrhea. (pancreaticcancer.org) The median

cost of radiation treatment per patient was 8,600 dollars. I did not realize until after her

passing that my teacher’s overall health was deteriorating. It had become so “normal”

for us to see her in a wheelchair because she was so tired and dizzy that she could not

stand. As well are her skin changed color and was a sick yellow/ green tone. When she

added radiation to her treatments, it may have been killing her cancer but her overall

health was not good anymore. If this was a treatment that could potentially get rid of this
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disease why has there not been a recent discovery to combine this treatment and help

cure the disease while also not making the patient’s health worse.

There is also a surgery that can be done to remove a tumor in the body. Although

surgery does not get rid of the tumor completely it gets rid of the tumor if it is damaging

an organ or is causing pressure pain. (cancer.gov) When you use surgery it can help

with any other treatment you decide to use. When you use surgery it is focused on

where the main source of cancer is coming from, removing the tumor and tissue around

it can help reduce the cells spreading to the rest of the body. Like any surgery the

procedure is critical and it does not guarantee that another tumor may form and bring

cancer back into the body later on.

Any of these treatments can be used for cancer. You can choose to do one or

have a combination of them. Most people will say that this is the way to get rid of cancer

but others say that there is not a cure for cancer yet. This is due to the fact that these

treatments do not guarantee that cancer will be gone forever and that it will not come

back. They are also very costly, my teacher was very lucky to have all of her medical

expenses paid by the military but not everyone may have the money to pay for these

treatments. If scientists have used these treatments to help with cancer, why has there

been no discovery for a cure that will be complete and effective for this disease? And

why is it so hard to discover a cure? This is the question that I kept asking myself as I

watched my teacher fight through her journey to beat cancer once more knowing that I

could not help make it better. The reason why no real cure has been discovered to kill

cancer once and for all is quite simple. Cancer evolves rapidly and our technology and

research can not keep up with it. Scientists use cancer cells grown in labs that help then
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understand better how they work but it is not the same as the cells that are living in a

patient. The drugs that they use of the lab-grown cells may be effective but once used

on living organisms in a patient it may become non-effective. There are also subclones

that grow off of one cancer cell. The treatments used may be effective to one but the

subclones could have already found a way to become resistant to that treatment.

Another reason why it is so hard to find a cure for cancer is because the tumors work

with the healthy cells and the immune system making it harder to use these treatments.

If used you can eventually kill healthy cells that are needed in order for your body to

function normally. There are also many different types of cancer and one cure may not

work the same on another type. There is also a cancer stem cell which is the cell that

even the cancer is gone, this cell may still be there and it is immune to all of the

treatments causing it to grow and evolve making cancer come back into the body.

Finally, the reason why no cure for cancer has been discovered even after the many

years of its existence is because scientists have not come up with better ways of

studying cancer. The research that they have is the same that has existed for years and

although it has helped, cancer grows and evolves every day making it hard for new

research to be useful. (WCR)

As technology evolves and researchers work more every day it will hopefully

become easier to find a cure or multiple that can cure all types of cancer effectively and

completely. To do this it will take a lot of research on how cancer forms, why genetics

takes such a big part in the data and finding a pattern in everyone. Although the

research that we have today has helped immensely we will continue to work on this

disease that has affected many lives around the world. So the answer to the question
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we have been asking this whole time is quite simple. Cancer is not as easy to be

researched as any other disease. It has many different variables that have to be taken

into consideration and although it has been around for many years it has adapted to the

treatments that we have come up with and use today. Our technology has advanced a

lot throughout the years but unfortunately not enough to the speed that cancer is

evolving at. As well as every patient’s body is different and can change the process of

how cancer is developed in the body. As for now, there is progress being done daily and

the average mortality rate for cancer has dropped significantly since the 1970s and

continues to drop. (WCR) Every new tool and advancement helps along with the

discovery of finding a cure for this life-changing disease. In spite of the fact that my

teacher did not survive her battle with cancer for the second time around, she always

had a positive attitude no matter how she was feeling and was sure that she would get

through anything that came her way. Although there may not be a real cure for cancer, I

believe that this positive attitude was also helpful in overcoming the disease the first

time around as well as all the other treatments received because of the fact that by

overcoming this she would return to doing what she loved most, teaching. Until then, the

treatments of radiation, chemotherapy, surgery, as well as a positive attitude can be

used to help treat cancer now and gives you a higher survival rate.
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Works Cited

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chemotherapy-used-to-treat-cancer.html.
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