Is there an alternate cure for cancer?

Question

Do not say 'there is no known cure' because that's doctor talk for 'you do not have enough money to purchase this cure'.
I know there is some type of cure for cancer because, like I stated in my last question, I read some type of science magazine on it.
It has to deal with the injection of some type of charged microscopic gold platelets into your blood stream. Then after a few hours or days they put you under a heat lamp.
Or something of that sort.

Answer 1

Cancer is not one disease. It is hundreds, perhaps thousands, of different diseases each characterized by the genetic mutations involved and the cell type afflicted. There is not one single disease of the genetic mutations that has a cure (MS, Tay-Sachs, Parkinson's, etc.). Cancer is no different except the mutations are multiple and some (if not all) mutations are accumulated during the patients lifetime not at birth. (Somatic versus Germ cells). We simply do NOT have the ability to detect and manipulate the human genome in vivo at this time.

As for the gold particle comment, I have read about this treatment also. It is part of the nanomedicine branch of researh and currently experimental. One of the biggest hurdles is to get the particles to just the cancer cells. Unfortunately, it has not all been worked out yet. There is potential though. Perhaps a bigger problem is the fact that the heated particles will only destroy the cancer cells in the noticable tumor. There is almost certainly other microscopic cancer cells lurking in the body capable of making a reoccurence. I'd imagine this nanoparticle treatment, like radiation, cyroabalation, RF abalation, heat abalation, etc. can only be tolerated only so many times by the body.

Answer 2

I haven't read about the treatment you describe, but my guess is it's something that's being tested somewhere that some people have great faith in.

What is for sure is that it's not a proven cure for cancer, tested in double blind clinical trials.

I don't have any illusions about drug companies having profits rather than people's welfare as their main concern. And nowhere near enough resources are being put into cancer research. But there isn't some big conspiracy to hide a tested and proven cancer cure from the world. As Panda asked when talking about another 'cure', wouldn't some of the thousands of people who must have been cured by it in order to prove that it worked go public (sorry Panda I know it's not an exact quote but I can't find the thread).

The treatments we have now are far from perfect, and I know from my own experience how grueling they are. But chemotherapy makes a small percentage difference to some patients, and saves some lives. We know this because there IS scientific evidence from double blind clinical trials.

In the future chemo and radiotherapy will be remembered with horror as archaic treatments. But one thing's for sure, it won't be because the medical profession has put its faith in apricot seeds, herbs, essiac tea, shark cartelage, peppers, or any of the other hocus-pocus that ruthless charlatans use to con desperate and vulnerable cancer patients and their families.

Answer 3

There is no documented scientific evidence that a cure exists for all types of cancer. There are treatments that may lead to individual remission and eventual cure.

I have no idea what you read about, but it sounds more like a 'therory' or 'proposal' . .of which there are hundreds of separate studies and researches going on. My son has a rare sarcoma in which there are no known treatments . . so like most people with a rare cancer he is often the first to try a treatment . . essentially a guinea pig. At the moment there are over 200 separate ongoing research projects just for sarcoma and Clinical Trials taking place just from the US gov, this does not include private research:

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct/search;jsessionid=42F0785DFD39E37E972D8CCAF454860B?term=sarcoma

You are probably thinking of the experiments taking place in the laboratory with nanoprobes and their effect on mice with tumors:

Nanoprobes destroy cancer
http://nanotechweb.org/articles/news/6/3/9

It is not yet a viable treatment on human patients as it is still in the research phase. As I stated, there are hundreds of these types of reseaches taking place all the time. The media will get ahold of a story, somewhat prematurely, and people will believe that it is already a tested and proven treatment for cancer.

While interesting, the chances of anything like this being able to immediately help my son fight his sarcoma . . it just won't happen. At the moment my son is a subject for experimental cancer research as we are looking for something to slow down the growth of disease in his pelvis. We communicate frequently with others in the same situation and ask constantly what is new on the horizon. Actually, sarcoma research has come a long, long way just in the past few years and we have do have hope in current sarcoma research (there are patients responding to new treatments, but because it is still in the experimental stage not much information is given out to the public)

Answer 4

Practically, for most types of cancer, if the cancer has metastasized, then you are dead. The new drugs do not cure you, only lengthen you life, so its not about money!
If the cancer is discovered before it has metastasized to other parts of your body, then a surgery might cure it.
You describe some kind of photo dynamic therapy which is experimental and is not intended for all types of cancer and rarely eliminates 100% of the cancer.
Cancer is a difficult desease because cancer cells easily mutate. It means that even if a drug or therapy can kill 99.9% of the cancer cells, if the rest 0.1% mutate and become resistent to the drug or treatment, they can easily regenerate the cancer within a few months.
The most theoreticaly promissing approach to cure cancer it to teach the immune system to identify the cancer cells as foreign, and attack them. However, the theory does not manifest well in practice, because cancer cells somehow escape detection by the immune system

Answer 5

I think this is what you are refering to

"Early Diagnosis and Treatment of Cancer Using Gold Nanoparticles"

However this only promises an early detection system, not a cure.

As there are many different forms of cancer, it is unlikely they will ever find a single cure.

WE live in hope!