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There are many effective strategies for the treatment of cancer for drugs derived from natural products. Nature and evolution have provided us with excellent strategies for cancer from compounds that have developed naturally. Sixty per cent of drugs approved for cancer treatment have a natural origin. Drugs such as taxol, irinotecan and trebetacan and many others have found their way into mainstream treatment for cancer. Just because these drugs are derived from natural compounds does not mean that they are not less toxic. Some of them do have significant side effects, which is a feature that renders them potent for cancer treatment.

Taxol is a plant derived drug used in chemotherapy across a wide range of cancers including: breast, ovarian, lung, bladder, prostrate. Side effects include: hair loss, diarrhea, low blood count, peripheral neuropathy, and nausea and mouth ulcers.  

Irinotecan is an example of a plant derived compound, which is a chemotherapy drug mainly treating cancer of the colon and rectum. Side effect include: diarrhea and extreme suppression of the immune system.

Trabectedin is a relatively new drug, which has not yet been widely approved, for the treatment of advanced sarcomas in patients who have failed on conventional therapy

Homeopathic medicines can not cure cancer.

Homeopathy is based on the idea of treating like-with-like and uses very small doses of a substance, which in large doses cause the symptoms of disease or illness. Homeopathic medicines are made from plants, minerals and animal substances, which are radically diluted in water. Homeopaths argue that the original substance leaves a molecular blueprint in the water that starts a healing process. There is no scientific or medical evidence that demonstrates that homeopathic medicines can cure cancer.

Cervical cancer is an unusual and exceptional disease. The human papilloma virus (HPV) is extremely common in the human population and is impossible to entirely irradicate.  The UK cervical vaccine program holds great promise for preventing cervical infections caused by the papilloma virus. Infections by the papilloma virus are not cervical cancer. Many people have cervical infections caused by the papilloma virus, but they do not have cervical cancer. Although the papilloma virus is a necessary pre-requisite for cervical cancer, it is not the only factor in the disease. With the cervical vaccination program we can look forward to a time when the incidence of cervical cancer will be very low.  

• The human papilloma virus is transmitted through genital contact, most often during vaginal and anal sex. Also, HPV may be transmitted during oral sex and genital-to-genital contact.
• At some point in their lives, nearly 50 per cent of all men and more than 75 per cent of all women are infected with HPV. Most HPV infections in young females are temporary and have little long-term significance. Currently, approximately 20 million Americans are infected with HPV and another six million become newly infected each year.
• HPV tests on the market are only used to help screen women at certain ages.
• Each year worldwide, there are an estimated 0.5 million cases of cervical cancer diagnosed and 270,000 deaths from the disease.
• The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the use of three shots of the HPV vaccine in females aged between nine and 26 years.

Common cancers are not infectious. You cannot catch cancer from your friends and family. However, there are some rare cancers that are transmitted by viruses. These are extremely rare and are not commonly transmitted from one person to another.   

Some strains of the human papilloma virus can cause cancer if not properly treated. Only females can get cancer from the papilloma virus.  A strain of the papilloma virus may be transmitted most commonly by vaginal and anal sex, but also by oral sex and genital-to-genital sex, that could eventually cause cancer.

Cancer treatment may be hazardous for pregnant women, but that hazard is principally related to the first trimester of pregnancy. It is not uncommon for patients in their second and third trimesters of pregnancy to safely receive chemotherapy and for the cancer and then go on and have a perfectly safe pregnancy.

Cancer treatment does not have to impair fertility. Indeed, for most women and men who receive chemotherapy there is no impact on fertility, especially if you are younger.

The future of cancer therapy is that no one should die or suffer from this disease. For some, this will be enhanced cure rates and for others, it will be the normalization of the word cancer to that simply of a chronic disease like diabetes and high blood pressure. You will not have to fear cancer, but file it in the background and get on with the rest of your lives.   

Hair loss with chemotherapy is emotionally difficult for patients. However, most chemotherapy drugs may not cause hair loss. Even in those that do, one can use something called a cold cap to prevent hair loss from happening. The reason chemotherapy causes hair loss is because the chemotherapy drugs travelling in the bloodstream can affect hair roots and inhibit hair follicles from dividing; thereby causing hair loss. The cold cap uses the cold to switch off the blood vessels to the scalp. This diverts the chemotherapy agents away from the hair roots and therefore for many people there is no hair loss that follows from chemotherapy

WHAT ARE THE THREE MOST IMPORTANT BREAKTHROUGHS IN CANCER THERAPY?

The three most important breakthroughs in cancer therapy are difficult to state because there have been so many advances over time. However, if I were to choose three, they would be for different reasons.

The first that I would choose is the transformation of the prognosis of breast cancer, which has been achieved not only through research, but through the political will of governments and lobby organizations to provide funding for research, almost in a space-program type way. This has demonstrated how you can really fix a problem if you throw enough money at it. We have seen dramatic improvements in breast cancer survival artes, despite rising incidence rates of the disease.

The second example I would choose is bowel cancer. Bowel cancer used to be an extremely poor prognosis and have a very poor outlook. For no other disease have we seen such incorporation of biological therapies into a disease, which has truly transformed bowel cancer’s outcome. In particular, it is an example of a very difficult thing called metastasis, which has been successfully dealt with and cured.

Metastasis means more than one cancerous tumour and describes when a tumour spreads to non adjacent tissue.

The third example I would choose is a rare and very bad outlook disease called GIST: gastrointestinal stromal tumors. These tumors use to have a very bad prognosis. The reason I choose GIST as a major advance is because of the fact that we have completely understood the biology of GISTs and this has transformed their prognosis. Using a single biotherapy drug called Gleevec has shown the way to the future and what research can achieve.  

Gleevec represents a new class of cancer drugs and a new way of thinking about cancer. These molecularly targeted drugs are different because they target abnormal proteins that are fundamental to the cancer itself.

Each year, approximately 3,300 to 6,000 adults in the United States will be diagnosed with a GIST. GISTs belong to a group of cancers called soft tissue sarcoma. Soft tissue sarcomas are a group of cancers that develop in the tissues that support and connect the body, and the sarcoma cells resemble the cells that hold the body together, including fat cells, muscles, nerves, tendons, joints, blood vessels, or lymph vessels. The most common locations in the body are in the stomach. GIST is a type of tumor that occurs in the gastrointestinal or digestive tract, including the esophagus, stomach, gallbladder, liver, small intestine, colon, rectum, and lining of the gut. GISTs are different from other types of gastrointestinal tumors because of the type of tissue in which they start

Radiotherapy is an important treatment for cancer. It is one of the most common used and consists of giving high energy Xrays directly to a tumor. The Xray beams are shaped to hit the tumor and not the adjacent tissue. The Xrays kills the cancerous tissue by affecting the DNA of the cancer directly. Radiotherapy is an essential treatment for many cancers.