History of Cancer: Radiation There is a broad group of different types of cancers and they all have a wide range of causes. Each cancer is different according to its biology and pathophysiology. Cancer is a very broad topic but chose four topics that show that radiation is the main cause of cancer. Before I can prove radiation is the cause of cancer, there needs to be an introduction as to what cancer is and how it spreads. After showing what cancer is, the next thing to talk about is what did people think caused cancer before scientist and technology got a better grasp of the causes.
My third topic is radiation and the different types and how they are big risks for getting cancer. My last topic is the treatment of cancer and how we developed the treatments. Cancer is a term used for diseases in which abnormal cells divide without control and are able to invade other tissues. In the human body, normal body cells grow, divide, and die. While the person is a child, normal cells divide faster to allow the person to grow. When the person becomes an adult, most cells divide only to replace worn-out or dying cells or to repair injuries.
This unfortunately is not the case for cancer patients because instead of the cells dying and repairing, the cells start to grow abnormally and multiply. Cancer cells can also invade other tissues, something that normal cells cannot do. They grow out of control and invade other tissues and that’s what makes a cell a cancer cell. Cancer cells often travel to other parts of the body where they begin to grow and form new tumors. When the cancer cells get into the body’s bloodstream or lymph vessels. After the cancer cells get into the body’s bloodstream then tumors begin to replace normal tissue.
The process of cancer spreading is called metastasis. The type of cancer is always named for the place where it started. An example of this would be breast cancer that has spread to the liver is called metastatic breast cancer, not liver cancer. Certain types of cancer can behave very different than other cancers. For instance, lung cancer and skin cancer are very different diseases. They grow at different rates and respond to different treatment. This is the reason why people with cancer need treatment that is aimed at their kind of cancer. Tumors that aren’t cancerous are called benign tumors.
Benign tumors can cause problems and can grow very large and press on healthy organs and tissues. Although they cannot grow into other tissues. Since they can’t invade, they also can’t spread to other parts of the body. In the United States it is shown that half of all men and one-third of all women will develop cancer during their lifetimes. Today millions of people are living with cancer or have had cancer. The risk of developing many types of cancer can be reduced by changes in a person’s lifestyle, for example, by staying away from tobacco, limiting time in the sun, being physically active and healthy eating.
In general the inochate a cancer is found and treated; the better the chances are for living many years (Cancer Basics). There are at least 200 known types of cancer and they each have different factors that cause each and every one of them. There have been a variety of things that people thought caused cancer throughout the ages. An example would be the ancient Egyptians, who blamed the Gods for cancers. While in ancient Greece, Hippocrates believed that the body had 4 humors (body fluids): blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile.
He suggested that an imbalance of these humors with an excess of black bile in various body sites could cause cancer. He called this the humoral theory. After the humoral theory came the lymph theory. After the theories of the ancient Egyptians and ancient Greeks, Stahl and Hoffman theorized that cancer was composed of fermenting and degenerating lymph, varying in density, acidity, and alkalinity. When technology started to get better John Hunter created another theory. He was a Scottish surgeon from the 1700s, who agreed that tumors grow from lymph constantly released from blood.
Zacutus Lusitani (1575? 1642) and Nicholas Tulp (1593? 1674), doctors in Holland, concluded that cancer was contagious. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, some believed that cancer was contagious. It was it 1838 that German pathologist Johannes Muller showed that cancer is made up of cells rather than lymph. Muller proposed that cancer cells developed from budding elements (blastema) between normal tissues. Rudolph Virchow (1821? 1902) suggested that all cells, including cancer cells, are derived from other cells. He proposed the chronic irritation theory.
He believed that cancer spread like a liquid. In the 1860s, German surgeon, Karl Thiersch, showed that cancers metastasize through the spread of malignant cells and not through a liquid. Until 1920’s trauma was thought to be the cause of cancer (Dr. Ananya Mandal, MD) Radiation is a common cause of cancer, but there are different types of radiation out there that cause cancer. Cell Phones, Magnetic Field Exposure and Accidents at Nuclear Power Plants, are all different examples of radiation and how they are all such a big risk for getting cancer.
The first form of radiation that is a cancer risk is cell phones. Cell phones emit radiofrequency energy, a form of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation, which can be absorbed by tissues closest to where the phone is held. The amount of radiofrequency energy a cell phone user is exposed to depend on the technology of the phone, the distance between the phone’s antenna and the user, the extent and type of use, and the user’s distance from cell phone towers. Studies thus far have not shown a consistent link between cell phone use and cancers of the brain, nerves, or other tissues of the head or neck.
More research is needed because cell phone technology and how people use cell phones have been changing rapidly (cancer topics/factsheet/Risk/cellphones). The second cancer risk is Magnetic field exposure. Since magnetic fields are more likely to penetrate the body, they are the component of EMFs that are usually studied in relation to cancer. Overall, there is limited evidence that magnetic fields cause childhood leukemia, and there is inadequate evidence that these magnetic fields cause other cancers in children.
Studies of magnetic field exposure from power lines and electric blankets in adults show little evidence of an association with leukemia, brain tumors, or breast cancer Past studies of occupational magnetic field exposure in adults showed very small increases in leukemia and brain tumors. However, more recent, well-conducted studies have shown inconsistent associations with leukemia, brain tumors, and breast cancer (Cancer topics/factsheet/ risk/Magnetic Field Exposure). The third cancer risk is Accidents at Nuclear Power Plants. Ionizing radiation is a form of energy that is present naturally in the environment at low levels.
Natural sources of ionizing radiation include radioactive minerals in the earth and cosmic rays from outer space. Ionizing radiation is also given off, or emitted, by medical x-ray machines, by some other man-made devices, and by radioactive isotopes produced in nuclear reactors and explosions of nuclear weapons. At high doses, ionizing radiation can cause immediate damage to a person’s body, including radiation sickness and death. Lower doses may cause cancer, usually many years later. The cancer risk depends on the amount of radiation, the type of radiation, and the parts of the body exposed.
Accidents that cause severe damage to nuclear power plants may result in the release of radioactive materials into the environment and associated exposures to ionizing radiation. The two radioactive isotopes released in such accidents that generally pose the greatest cancer risks are iodine 131 (I-131) and cesium 137 (Cs-137). For decades, the National Cancer Institute has been studying groups of people who were exposed to ionizing radiation from nuclear accidents and above-ground atomic weapons explosions to learn about the cancer risks from these exposures.
The information that is given will help researchers understand and minimize the health effects of future nuclear accidents. Cancer patients residing near nuclear power plants at the time of an accident should be relocated immediately so their treatments may continue without interruption (cancer topics/ risk /Accidents at Nuclear Power Plants). Cancer is a widely spread disease and has a variety of different treatments for each specific cancer there is. Before technology came to be as developed as it is today, scientists had to theorize treatments.
The first screening test to be widely used for cancer was the Pap test. It was developed by George Papanicolaou as a research method in understanding the menstrual cycle. He then noted that the test could help in finding cervical cancer early and presented his findings in 1923. It was then that the American Cancer Society (ACS) promoted the test during the early 1960’s and it became widely used as a screening tool. Modern mammography methods were developed late in the 1960’s and first officially recommended for breast cancer screening by the ACS in 1976.
Once scientist developed a way to find cancer, they discovered they had to come up with a way to remove the cancer. It was quite early in the history of knowledge of cancers that surgery was considered a modality of treatment of cancers. Roman physician Celsus had noted that despite surgery the cancer seems to come back. Galen wrote about techniques of surgery for cancers. Surgery then was very primitive with many complications, including blood loss. Surgery for cancers flourished in the 19th and early 20th centuries after advancement of anesthesia.
Bilroth in Germany, Handley in London, and Halsted in Baltimore are the pioneers of cancer surgery. William Stewart Halsted, professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University, developed the radical mastectomy during the last decade of the 19th century for breast cancers. His work was based on W. Sampson Handley. Stephen Paget, an English surgeon during this time found that cancers did spread via blood circulation. This understanding of metastasis became a key element in recognizing patients who might and might not benefit from cancer surgery.
After coming up with ways to get rid of cancer through surgery, scientists began to develop recovery methods. The Development of radiation therapy happened in 1896 when a German physics professor, Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, discovered and presented the properties of x rays. It was within the next few months that x rays were used for diagnosis and in the next 3 years it was used in treatment of cancers. Radiation therapy began with radium and with relatively low-voltage diagnostic machines.
Once they created radiation therapy they started the development of chemotherapy. It was seen that during the World War II, soldiers exposed to mustard gas during military action developed toxic bone marrow suppression. Soon similar chemical nitrogen mustard was found to work against a cancer of the lymph nodes called lymphoma. This laid foundation for several new drugs that could be used against cancers (news-medical). The first topic that proves radiation causes cancer was what cancer is and how it spreads and the types of tumors there are.
The second topic that proves my theory is what people use to think caused cancer before scientist discovered more information. The third topic explains how different parts of radiation cause cancer, not just the radiation from the sun. The last topic of my paper I concluded my theory by explains the types of treatments for each and how the treatments came to develop. In conclusion I talked about different branches of cancer topics, but as of right now there is no official cause of cancer, yet there are many ways to help prevent cancer.