RE: Cancer: better know it than fear it!!
@bio-tech sorry to hear about your grandfather. Cancer is a complicated topic and you have contributed a great overview. Douglas Hanahan and Robert A. Weinberg wrote an amazing perspective in Cell in 2000 and I am happy to see that you have a figure from their original article. In 2011 they wrote a follow up review and I encourage you to read it if you haven't already. It is one of the most read reviews on cancer. As you mentioned, chemotherapy is the most common treatment of cancer. But there are targeted therapies and personalized medication based on the individual cancer. In the near future genome sequencing of tumours will be common and drugs aimed at targeting the underlying cause (eg. which oncogenes are active or which tumour suppressor inactivated) will be used more often than generalized chemotherapy.
Thank you for your kind and fruitful comment. In the reviewed article, it has stated two more emerging hallmarks that are evading immune destruction and reprogramming energy metabolism based on Otto Warburg concept of “aerobic glycolysis” which are beautifully explained in it. Therapeutic intervention based on the immunologic study of cancer has become the field of great interest for the researcher as well as a pharmacist. Although recent immunomodulatory therapy has promise the less side effect and efficacy it has of less use because this is less affordable for long run especially in the less developing country like Nepal. As you mentioned specific mutation and target based chemotherapy are practice in the recent year. Let's hope better newer drugs will be synthesized in near future for cancer treatment.