It looks like we've cured cancer...

[SinbadEV]

... in 2007, but nobody cares.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Scientists_cure ... kes_notice

http://www.dca.med.ualberta.ca/Home/Upd ... Update.cfm

the news is blowing up across the social networks because apparently, because the treatment is cheap, effective and unpatentable... no one wants to fund further study... Hurray!

[dizekat]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichloroacetic_acid
Goes through human trials now. Probably not as effective as hyped.

[smoth]

You do understand cancer cannot be undone, saying it can be cured is a misnomer, it can be stopped or prevented but say your leg cells go cancerous, they are fucked, your cells have mutated in a way which prohibits their proper functionality.

[SinbadEV]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichloroacetic_acid
Goes through human trials now. Probably not as effective as hyped.

The article you linked to indicates the following two interesting things:

The official research being done has been entirely done by "philanthropic" donation due to no one wanting to fund the research in the private sector, so it's going slowly.

A number of private clinics are using the treatment "off-label" and getting very favorable results when it is combined with traditional treatments.

... but yeah... not as awesome as it was being Hyped to be

[SinbadEV]

You do understand cancer cannot be undone, saying it can be cured is a misnomer, it can be stopped or prevented but say your leg cells go cancerous, they are fucked, your cells have mutated in a way which prohibits their proper functionality.

Basically they have found a drug that... in some cases... causes cancerous cells to stop being cancerous... you still need to extract tumors and such but this is... if it works... an actual cure.

edit: technically, in this case... the "proper functioning" thats restored is for the cancerous cells to realize they are damaged and kill themselves.

edit: also: just found an entire website devoted to the topic http://www.thedcasite.com/ ... haven't looked it over but it looks pretty comprehensive.

[KDR_11k]

You won't lose many cells purely to the mutation as only one cell has to have the defect to start the cancer.

[smoth]

That's preventative kdr, what sinbad's link says is that the cancer cells revert(I don't believe it) to healthy cells.

[Wombat]

i also dont belive cell mutation can be reversed/cured. i dont rly belive it will be possible when im still alive.

[SinbadEV]

That's preventative kdr, what sinbad's link says is that the cancer cells revert(I don't believe it) to healthy cells.

That was my initial understanding too... further reading indicates that the cancer cells realize they are damaged and kill themselves... which is still very useful but not a cure.

[Wombat]

cancer cells realize they are damaged and kill themselves

the only difference between this and regular cutting the balls is that there could be possibly less healthy cells to cut out. rather rarely useful imo since u still have to remove dead cells.

i dont rly belive there will be any cure soon. too many 'versions' of cancer.

[SinbadEV]

On the subject of cancer treatment... the coolest one I've seen was where they targeted a "cancer stem cell" and found that this stopped the production of new tumors etc...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_stem_cell

edit: sorry... it looks like I got this one backwards... they are currently finding that most treatments fail to target CSCs and this is the reason for relapses and new tumors after treatment... the CSC targeting treatment I heard about must have been hypothetical.

edit: If you ever wanted to read a Wikipedia article related to cancer research and laugh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_hedg ... botnikinin

[smoth]

That's preventative kdr, what sinbad's link says is that the cancer cells revert(I don't believe it) to healthy cells.

That was my initial understanding too... further reading indicates that the cancer cells realize they are damaged and kill themselves... which is still very useful but not a cure.

Not really. If I take your hd, smash it and then someone removes all the bad parts, it is still fucked.

[Wombat]

lets be honest, there is no cure for flu, but there is big hoorey after each 'cure' for cancer, which doesnt work anyway.

[hoijui]

two main ways to treat cancer:
* cut it out
* throw radiation at it

the later is... killing you, and the first one...
it is usually very hard to cut out all cancer cells. a single one left behind is still too much because it will likely be transported to some other place of the body through the blood system, and create new tumors there...
if you have a secure way to tell all cancer cells to kill its-self/stop reproduction (and not tell the same thing to healthy cells, of course), you can cut out the big parts, and the remaining parts get handled by the bodies cleanup system.
so as long as the tumor(s) are not so big that they already harmed your body fatally, this would actually be a cure for cancer.

You know, cures in medicine/reality do not work like in SiFi TV; never! there you get infested by some hyper dangerous stuff, and are puking liters of blood, your skin is falling off, you fall into a delirium, your heart and lungs are failing... and then you get a little injection and your skin turns normal and 5 mins later you are like new again.
a cure for cancer means, a very good chance to survive, not getting away without any harm.

[smoth]

And that's if it doesn't come back or sinbad's "cure" doesn't cause you to go blind, shit organs or become suicidal from your brain chemistry reacting to it

[knorke]

the news is blowing up across the social networks

that usually means its bs...
Maybe it will be a really good step forward but as others already said , surely not some wonder cure.

(i actually expected this to be another BADSD thread)

[Wombat]

i actually expected this to be another BADSD thread

/starts touching himself

[Cheesecan]

One pill a day keeps the tumor away

[Panda]

... in 2007, but nobody cares.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Scientists_cure ... kes_notice

http://www.dca.med.ualberta.ca/Home/Upd ... Update.cfm

the news is blowing up across the social networks because apparently, because the treatment is cheap, effective and unpatentable... no one wants to fund further study... Hurray!

That first article that you posted sounds fishy. It says:

"In human bodies there is a natural cancer fighting human cell, the mitochondria, but they need to be triggered to be effective."

Mitochondria are organelles, not a cell.

Plus, the second article didn't give any detailed information about the experiments run to test the drug. I have my doubts about how safe something that affects mitochondria (the powerhouse of regular cells) could be. It would be nice if it mentioned what it's affects on Hela cells are. Hela cells just don't die:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRrNjHYxP_o

[KDR_11k]

Cancer is when one cell mutates and keeps duplicating, reverting those cells to their original function would be useless because there are still way too many of them. It doesn't kill off normal cells until the tumors are so big that they crush stuff like the brain.

cancer cells realize they are damaged and kill themselves

the only difference between this and regular cutting the balls is that there could be possibly less healthy cells to cut out. rather rarely useful imo since u still have to remove dead cells.

i dont rly belive there will be any cure soon. too many 'versions' of cancer.

The body removes dead cells automatically, you'd only have to remove tumors that are already damaging.