Why Don't White Blood Cells Attack Cancer Cells?

Question

I was told that cancer is not forigen to our bodies so white blood cells don't feel it's a invader. White blood cells also contain the cancer into the lumps or masses. So if that is true when a surgen cuts into a cancer mass by accident and it spreads to the body thats bad. So if Chemo lowers your white blood cell count are we doing a chemcial surgey on the masses to cause the cancer to spread attatch to another part of the body to create a different strand?

Answer 1

White blood cells DO in fact attack cancer cells.

My answer is a little long, so I apologize in advance, but I have tried to address the issues you raise in your statement. The wiki links at the bottom of my answer are also quite good places to check out some more in depth information about these topics.

One of the things that the white blood cells do in our blood stream is to go all around the body and to see if they can find our own cells that are sick - virus infected or perhaps cancerous - and then to trigger them to die.

However, one of the things that cancer cells can do is to turn off the cell death trigger ("apoptosis") and continue to grow.

White blood cells can identify the cancer cells by changes to the cell membrane - if the cells are not putting out the right signals on their surface.

If the cancer cells are growing and invading the local cells, this can cause a response in the body called Inflammation - and this tends to bring a lot of white blood cells to the area to fight the illness.

This is how the white blood cells can sometimes contain the cancer. The rest of the phenomenon occurs because of the way the body is organized with lots of cells all packed together and tightly joined - the cancer needs to push these cells apart to continue to grow - and tends to grow in a big clump until it reaches some form of surface where it can spread out.

If a surgeon cuts a cancer and some cells get into the blood stream - this is bad. The cancer can spread. This is especially true of some types like breast cancer. You will find that most surgeries for cancer involve taking out the cancer and a whole lot of tissue around the cancer too - just so we don't spread it around and to make sure we have got all of it.

Chemotherapy is not chemical surgery. It is poisoning the cells. The trouble here is that the cancer cells have the same chemical processes as our own cells. They used to be our own cells! The only big difference is that they grow and grow and grow, whereas our cells don't grow so much. So we give medicines that poison cells that grow and grow lots.

Unfortunately, some of our cells grow more than others - skin, hair, the lining of our guts. These cells can be affected by chemo as well and we can feel quite sick from chemo. Our hair falls out. Our skin can be very sensitive.

With some types of cancer, we use chemotherapy or radiotherapy after the surgery to make sure we have got it all and to knock of any small cells that might have spread. We are not usually concerned with the spread from the surgery because our surgeons are now quite good at getting all of the cancer in one big lump. It is more of concern with some cancers (like breast cancer or melanoma) where the cancer might spread early.

Answer 2

I am a chemotherapy trained nurse and I am not quite sure what youre getting at. Sorry. But in short No. Thats not the way it works. The cells are a complex system that we still fully dont underderstand. But what we do know is that cancer starts with one cell that is able to mutate and adapt to whichever part of the body it lives in. Cancers will spread through the body if left untreated sometimes in an organised manner. This spreading takes on has many forms ie- not just "masses" depending on where it originated from. ie lymph nodes, bones, liver Therefore many different treatments are necessary.Chemo, Radiotherapy and Surgery remain the most effective and available methods today.

Answer 3

Go to a Health Food Store as soon as you can! There are 2 products that could help. One is Essiac and the other is Flor-Essence. Both are great proven cancer remedies, and general detoxifiers for those without cancer. I had a friend who took Flor-Essence along with Cancer treatment, both Chemo and Radiation. She is the only person that has gained weight through treatments that I know of. She lost her beautiful long hair, but felt great through it all. 2 years later she is cancer free and has a beautiful head of hair again. She had Lymphoma! While you're still here, make the most of life. None of us knows when our number comes up, and none of us makes it off this earth alive! Don't have a fear of dying.....have a passion for living, one day at a time!!!

Answer 4

Everyone has the cancer cells but something triggers them to go awry in certain people through genetics or other issues.
I am not sure why they use chemo or radiation both seem to just weaken the person further, though radiation can be more focused on the tumor, I think chemo is rather evil.
My Mom was sick but in her 80s she refused treatment. She was happy and alert up to 3 days before she died, only in the hospital 11 days total. Much more peaceful way to go.

Answer 5

In some cancers the inflammatory response is noticeable as in inflammatory cancer of breasts. This type cancer is highly aggressive with rapid mortality.