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The Importance Of Cancer Screening |
By:
Lisa Ginger |
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The American Cancer Society recommends that even people with no
symptoms go see a physician for cancer screening. Early
detection is one of the best weapons we have against cancer.
Usually when a patient already has symptoms, the cancer has
spread (metastasized). This makes curing it more difficult with
the treatments offered today.
Both surgery and radiation are local treatments. That means they
focus at a specific region of the body and will not cause any
damage to tumor cells that "broke off" from the original tumor
and spread to a distant site.
Even some of the new treatments in clinical trials today will
not help cancers that have already metastasized. Some of these
new drugs are aimed at preventing the tumor from growing large
enough to invade and spread to other tissues (like angiogenesis
inhibitors, which stop the growth of blood vessels and cut off
the tumor's nutrient supply). If a tumor has already spread,
these types of new drugs will not be of much help to the
patient.
Chemotherapeutic agents and of course the presently evasive
"magic bullets" of the future offer the best hope for
metastasized tumors. When a "magic bullet" type of drug is
developed in the future, administering it at an early stage
versus a later one would always be more beneficial to a patient.
For these reasons, research efforts in the area of cancer are
divided, not only into new treatments, but prevention and early
detection. There are already several early detection methods
presently used and many others are hoped for in the future.
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Article Source: http://www.PopularArticles.com/article10340.html |
Article: The Importance of Cancer Screening
Author: Lisa Ginger
Total Views: 93
Word Count: 238
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