healthrevolution.com/ NTP%20carcinogen%20list.htm>). Awareness of these carcinogens is futile in the prevention of cancer. Avoiding these and many others at all costs is the first step in cancer prevention.
The best method of prevention and treatment is to regularly check for cancer. Annual doctor visits and breast self-examinations for women are helpful. Cancer, when it is caught early, is easier to treat. The stages of the disease are hard to classify, but there are generally three stages to go by in order to diagnose the severity of the disease and to find the best method of treatment. Normal human cells reach a growth capacity and cease multiplication to avoid overgrowth of the cells. This is not so with cancer cells. A small mass of cancer cells will grow exponentially (without stopping) and continue to do so until the mass becomes a tumor. This tumor will then metastasize, or spread, to other parts of the body via lymph nodes and capillary beds. With metastases, the most common sites are lungs, liver, bone, bone marrow, and brain. (Carter 10). This is the stage which is most difficult to treat because so many organs and parts of the body are diseased. If caught before this stage, the likelihood of beating the disease is far greater because the chance of destroying all cancer cells in an isolated area is much more likely than when they have spread to organs, tissue, and travel through the bloodstream creating many tumors throughout the body. When the cancer becomes this complex, from a research standpoint it is difficult to completely study all forms. The liver and skin offer the most biochemical data, though liver cancer is not often found and skin cancer is beatable more often then not (Suss 12). However, we press on with these forms as our main study point in the fight against cancer.
Tumor suppressant gene therapy is an ongoing process which holds a promising future.
