Careful what you read

In cancer reading, one should be careful because so much remains unknown
most of the time, the reader is exposed to the writer interpretation of facts.
One may suggest that a gene amplification, mutation or repression is bad for the cancer as if that gene presentation is notoriously bad for the patient.  The statement tends to suggest the presence of this gene variation from the norm to be either predictive or prognosis.   But little is said on whether that gene happens to be bad because the use of the current therapy ensure a poor response!   What is bad is not the gene presence, it is the use of a poor therapy that worsen the situation.   This is why target therapy is warranted!  Now it is true that at current time, we don't know it all, but one thing is for sure, as we progress with medicine, and as we know more, our therapy is improving sharply...our patient are noticing the difference.  Our Colon cancer patients have ripped the benefit...and so do those with Multiple Myeloma.

But there are recalcitrant cancers such as the Gliomas in which we are still struggling!  But so we intensify our research...

One other area of caution is the weight loss in our cancer patients.  We like the idea that there is associated production of cytokine or growth factors that accompany cancers and causes the cachexia or marked weight loss in these diseases.  Cachectins and other cytokines have been thrown at our faces as a reason for the phenomena.  We fail to recognize that deep in the belly of genes draining the cancers, these unique perturbations of genes actually directly affect other genes compromising the Glucolysis or Glucogenesis.  ie TPI genes (G3P combination to DHAP). And that may be supplying the end result to this combination to these patient should be a therapeutic intervention to be incorporated in the therapeutic strategy (if the failure is diagnosed).  We could use Giardia infection as a sign this is actually happening!  wake up folks we see this all the time!

(to be continued)