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Cancer and Chemotherapy

Ian J. McCoy

DuBois Area High School

Biochemistry

Period 1

March 12, 2018

Abstract
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Cancer is a disease that affects millions of lives nationwide and is continuing to grow in

numbers. One in two people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. This disease can

affect nearly any part of the human body, from the pancreas and brain, to even the skin and

bones. This genetic disease is one that can be treated and even cured, but none of the treatments

are easy and painless. There is no magic potion that will cure you instantly of the dreaded

disease. A person diagnosed with cancer will have to go through many treatments and

procedures to ensure their survival. One of the most used treatments is chemotherapy. There are

many different types of chemotherapy. Two of these are neoadjuvant and adjuvant

chemotherapy. These two treatments are paired with operations to remove tumors.

Chemotherapy can be administered in several ways to the patient depending on their cancer.

Some of these include administering the drug through injections, oral pills, topically as a cream

and intraperitoneally.

Keywords: cancer, chemotherapy, neoadjuvant, adjuvant.

Cancer is a disease that everyone fears, and sadly, one in two people will hear the words,

“You have cancer” during their lifetime. This is the sad truth, but it needs to be known. Cancer

is a general term for a disease characterized by abnormal body cells dividing uncontrollably.

Usually when cells get old and damaged they die and are replaced by new healthy cells. Cancer
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develops in the body when the cells become abnormal or deformed. When the deformed cell

gets old it would normally die and be replaced, but it continues to divide uncontrollably and

creates more, deformed cells. This causes tumors to form, and these tumors can continue to

grow without stopping. The cells in these tumors are not like normal cells. They do not perform

their normal functions. These cells are not specialized in any way, which normal cells would be.

Cancer cells are able to ignore the signals sent to them that would initiate apoptosis. This is

programmed cell death, which is used to kill a cell that is no longer needed or that has become

threatening to the organism. The cancer cells are even able to influence normal cells surrounding

the tumor in order to bring nutrients and get rid of waste. Once a tumor has formed, the

cancerous cells can spread to anywhere in the body through blood or through the lymph system.

Once the cancer spreads, it can continue to spread until it is found and eradicated, either through

therapies or surgeries to remove it (“What Is Cancer?”).

Cancer has many different causes. This disease is mainly caused by deformities that arise

in a person’s genes. Deformities in genes can be inherited through one’s parents or can be

developed due to certain environmental exposures. Examples of environmental exposures that

can contribute to gene deformities include carcinogens in tobacco smoke or damage caused by

the sun’s UV rays (“What Is Cancer?”). In recent years, the work of scientists and doctors has

been able to decrease the lethality of the disease, but they have not been able to decrease how

many people are developing the disease. Some argue that it is due to the amount of chemicals

and carcinogens that we are subject to in our daily lives. One source argues that it is not

necessarily the chemicals we come into contact with, but the fact that humans are living longer

and longer. One’s chances of getting cancer increases with age, so it would make sense that
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America’s aging population would be more susceptible to the disease. As America continues to

improve in medical advances and quality of life, the average life expectancy will continue to

grow. This leads to a population that will live longer, and the consequences of living longer

have not been experienced since life expectancy is the highest it has ever been. One of the

consequences of living longer could be an increased likelihood of getting cancer (“Why are

cancer rates increasing?”). Smoking is considered to be a major cancer causing agent, but it does

not make sense that cancer rates continue to increase even though the number of smokers in the

United States is the lowest it has ever been (“Trends in Current ,” 2016). This could point to the

validity of the point that the aging American population could be one of the major factors to why

cancer rates continue rise. Though cancer is a terrible disease, there are treatment options out

there.

A popular treatment for cancer is chemotherapy. This medicine targets rapidly growing

and dividing cells throughout the body. It does not target specific areas in the body so it can

cause many side effects. These side effects can affect the hair, skin, intestines, and bone

marrow. Chemotherapy is often not the only treatment a person undergoes to treat their cancer.

It is often paired with surgery to remove the tumor. Depending on the type of cancer,

chemotherapy can cure, control, or ease the symptoms of the disease. In the case that the

chemotherapy cures the cancer, often in the early stages of the disease, it completely destroys all

of the cancerous cells. Sometimes the cancer cells can come back, so the patient is often

checked up on for any signs of the disease returning. When the treatment is used to control the

disease, it is used to slow or stop the growth of the cancer cells but does not destroy them. If

chemotherapy is used to treat the symptoms of a certain type of cancer, it is used to shrink
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painful tumors but is unable to completely get rid of them, and they often grow back. There are

many different forms of chemotherapy. Two of these are neoadjuvant and adjuvant

chemotherapy (“Chemotherapy: How It Works and How You'll Feel”). Chemotherapy first

became successful in patients in 1956. A patient was cured of a rare tumor called

choriocarcinoma. The drug used is called methotrexate. This drug is still commonly used to

treat cancer today. Since then, chemotherapy has been found to effectively treat people with

cancer (“Evolution of Cancer”).

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is used as a preoperative drug before surgeries to remove

tumors. The goal of the drug is to reduce the size of tumors in patients. Often tumors are so

large or in an area that makes it non-operable, but this is able to shrink the tumors enough that

the surgeon is now able to operate on it safely. Shrinking the tumor preoperatively ensures that

the surgery to remove the tumor causes less damage, decreases the chances of complications, and

increases the probability of a successful recovery. The downside of this chemotherapy, and most

chemotherapies, is that the drug has potential side effects that have the possibility of making the

patient so sick that they could become unfit for surgery. This risk needs to be taken into account

by doctors when they are deciding whether or not a patient should begin the treatment. Since

this treatment is so hard on the patients receiving in it, it is often administered in cycles. The

drug is given for a certain period of time and then they are given a resting period from the drug

to recover (“Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy”). Some specific drugs used in neoadjuvant

chemotherapy include anthracycline and taxane based therapies (“Neoadjuvant therapies”). A

look at the side effects of chemotherapy, briefly mentioned earlier, shows that the main side

effects after receiving the treatment include nausea, fever, loss of appetite, fever, pain and
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bruising. These symptoms may not show up right away after taking the treatment. They may

arise weeks or even months later. Some of the extreme side effects associated with this drug

include infertility, nerve damage, or even lung damage. Since this drug targets fast growing and

dividing cells, healthy cells can also be affected, and this is why patients often receive these

symptoms (“Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy | Denver Gynecologic Oncology”).

Adjuvant chemotherapy is similar to neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The only major

difference is that adjuvant chemotherapy is used postoperatively rather than preoperatively. This

treatment is used to prevent the cancer from returning once you have had a tumor removed.

When a tumor is removed, the doctor may say that it was successful and that all of the cancer

was removed, but there is really no way of knowing if all of it was completely removed. There

is a possibility that there are microscopic bits of the cancer remaining in the site surrounding the

surgery. So the adjuvant chemotherapy is used to prevent the disease from returning and to kill

any remaining cancer cells. Similarly to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, this treatment is most

effective against breast cancer and colon cancer. Adjuvant chemotherapy tends to be more

effective in the later stages of cancer since, by then, it will most likely have had time to spread to

other areas of the body (“Adjuvant therapy: Balance side effects”).

There have been questions of whether chemotherapy is actually effective in treating

cancer. Some believe that in certain types of cancer that all it does is make the quality of life of

the patient worse and just makes them miserable. In older cancer patients who already have

weaker immune systems, chemotherapy makes them even more susceptible to other diseases. So

although they might get rid of the cancer, they have a high chance of getting another disease, and

their body may not be strong enough to fight off this disease. Doctors should question whether it
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is really worth jeopardizing a patient’s health and whether the chemotherapy is really the best

option to fight their cancer (“Chemotherapy: Another Study”).

Cancer is a disease that is devastating to many families. Chemotherapy has been used for

many years to treat the disease, but maybe doctors and scientists should look in another direction

to treat cancer considering chemotherapy’s harsh side effects. Maybe they should even put more

resources into researching why chances of getting cancer increases with age and how to prevent

getting it. Cancer rates continue to go up, while cancer mortality is going down, so they should

put more research into cancer prevention instead of treatment. If we can stop people from

getting the disease, then the impossible job of finding the cure for all cancers would no longer be

needed.
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Works Cited

Adjuvant therapy: Balance side effects with benefits. (2015, April 02). Retrieved March 11,

2018, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/cancer/in-depth/adjuvant-

therapy/art-20046687?pg=2

Chemotherapy: Another Study Shows that it 'Just Doesn't Work'. (n.d.). Retrieved March 11,

2018, from http://www.livingforlonger.com/chemotherapy-another-study-shows-that-it-

just-doesnt-work/

Chemotherapy: How It Works and How You'll Feel. (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2018, from

https://www.webmd.com/cancer/chemotherapy-what-to-expect#2

Evolution of Cancer Treatments: Chemotherapy. (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2018, from

https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-basics/history-of-cancer/cancer-treatment-

chemo.html

Mauri, D., Pavlidis, N., & Ioannidis, J. P. (2005, February 02). Neoadjuvant Versus Adjuvant

Systemic Treatment in Breast Cancer: A Meta-Analysis | JNCI: Journal of the National

Cancer Institute | Oxford Academic. Retrieved March 11, 2018, from

https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/97/3/188/2544093
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Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy | Denver Gynecologic Oncology. (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2018,

from https://cancer.coloradowomenshealth.com/cancer-

treatments/chemotherapy/neoadjuvant/index.html

Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy. (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2018, from

http://chemoth.com/neoadjuvant-chemotherapy

Neoadjuvant therapies for Breast Cancer. (2017, August 5). Retrieved March 11, 2018, from

https://ww5.komen.org/BreastCancer/Neoadjuvant.html#HER2

Trends in Current Cigarette Smoking Among High School Students and Adults, United States,

1965–2014. (2016, March 30). Retrieved March 11, 2018, from

https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/cig_smoking/index.htm

What Is Cancer? (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2018, from

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/what-is-cancer

Why are cancer rates increasing? (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2018, from

http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2015/02/04/why-are-cancer-rates-increasing/

Appendix A
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This chart shows that cancer rates are increasing because people are living longer. The life

expectancy is significantly higher in 2012 compared to 1960, and people 80 years old and higher

have the highest rate of cancer.

Appendix B

This chart shows that smoking rates have been decreasing for years and are the lowest they have

ever been, but cancer rates are increasing, especially in women, as shown in the graph. This
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could prove the point that the major reason why cancer rates have been increasing is because

people are living longer.

Appendix C

This picture shows the many different side effects of chemotherapy. Chemotherapy attacks all

areas of the body, targeting fast growing and dividing cells. This can be hard on the body.
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