Terminate Cancer: A model of viral infection and immune response as a potential means to treat cancer

ISBN-13: 9781514843239 / Angielski / Miękka / 2014 / 38 str.

Kevin a. Figueiredo

Opis

Terminate Cancer will define cancer and the immune system from a scientist's perspective. Learn about cancer immunology and what viruses can teach us about the immune response. Learn the important implications that this frontier science has for cancer patients. Cancers are vast and quite different from a macroscopic viewpoint. Types of cancers have many different symptoms for the patient. The signs of cancer and the impact of each cancer on the patient can be dramatically different. However, at the molecular level most cancers are quite similar. Prostate cancer awareness and breast cancer awareness are the most publicized cancers, and funding support for these is greatest compared to other types. However, the molecular similarities of most cancers means that most of them end up as liver cancer or bone cancer since these are the organs where metastasis eventually occurs most frequently. Prostate cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, thyroid cancer, testicular cancer, colorectal cancer, uterine cancer, kidney cancer and many other cancers all could potentially form solid tumors and are similar at the molecular level as all are regulated by the immune system. Lymphoma cancer is unique in a sense in that it is a cancer of the blood and a cancer of the immune system itself. However because of the crucial controls of the immune system in regulating cancer progression, cancers in general may possibly be considered immune system disorders where the immune system is failing at its normal functions. Terminate Cancer introduces a new field of cancer immunology and describes a critical immune response that can potentially be induced to treat cancers. With a better understanding of how virus have been manipulating the immune system of humans for thousands of years, we can now attempt to copy their methods to our advantage in treating cancer patients. Terminate Cancer describes this emerging field of immunotherapy as a potentially much safer option for many cancer patients when compared to conventional therapies like chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The book describes cancer as an evolutionary process, and outlines the immune system and its critical roles in switching between an inflammatory or immunosuppressive response. The direction towards which the immune system is skewed will determine whether the cancerous tumor grows or is destroyed... and this in turn will ultimately determine the fate of the cancer patient. For this reason, understanding the immune response in the context of a tumor-controlled microenvironment will be essential for improving survival rates among cancer patients. Although oncology and immunology have classically been considered distinct fields, Terminate Cancer introduces them as inseparable in the emerging field of cancer immunology: the new frontier of cancer treatment.