As human beings ply the long road called life, if they survive long enough, they will ultimately encounter renal failure or cancer.  Organ failure particularly renal failure happens from prolonged absorption of metal salts.  These salts once absorbed by the body decrease organ function in proportion to concentration and eventually cause failure.   Being a carbon nitrogen life form, salt accumulation is not the subject of this topic but cancer is.

Cancer occurs when the DNA of a cell is damaged to such an extent that normal existence is not possible.  Three things cause cancer: organic chemicals, ionizing radiation and specific viruses.  Before we ascertain the epidemiology of origin, let us look at the beginnings.  Many moons ago Bonner et al

Ran assays called hybridization curves on DNA.  On a plot of concentration versus time, he obtained a sigmoidal relationship he extrapolated to cell function.  DNA is composed of functional genes in the minority juxtaposed amongst a majority of spacer DNA.  The functional DNA was the low concentration DNA and spacer DNA the high concentration DNA.   With such a physical makeup, nature protects the functional DNA from mutation by interposing it with extreme amounts of spacer DNA.  It is extremely unlikely that chemicals or radiation can damage specific gene DNA because there is so little of it in proportion to spacer DNA.  If a gene is damaged by carcinogens and rendered non-functional, an alternate gene exists and an alternate protein is created by the cell to replace it.  The cell has all the genes necessary to maneuver the organism from Birth (ontogeny) to adultism (phylogeny).  If a carcinogen destroys a gene function by mutation, a gene with a similar protein during embryogenesis replaces it.   This is why cancer cells express somatic antigens similar or identical to primitive stem cells, these antigens are termed onco-fetal antigens.  If a carcinogen mutates a region of DNA that codes for replication, that cell grows continuously, out of context with a healthy adult cell.  This is called metastatic cancer.  The key element here is that carcinogens change the base structure of DNA or cross link it and when the damage is so extensive that the cell cannot repair itself it becomes cancerous.  It follows that cancer results from extensive damage to DNA not point mutations found and chronicled by molecular biologists

It is currently thought that a given cancer cell of a given tissue has characteristic gene damage characterized by restriction endonuclease mapping of the genome. This thought of genotyping a cancer cell to determine its biological tendency is post hoc analysis of the ultimate.  A cancer cell of a given tissue suffers from so much DNA damage that the endonuclease mapping characterizes the cell of a distinct cancer type only because so much DNA has been altered. Somatotyping a tumor has no diagnostic significance or clinical prognostic value.   In the cancer clinic the most vehement tumors evidence cells with extreme DNA damage.  Horrible cancers look like primitive stem cells histologically and biochemically.  This fact only alerts the clinician that the patient undergoes extensive exposure to carcinogenesis on a daily basis.

We see that nature protects the genes by distributing the functional codons amongst extensive spacer DNA making a direct hit on a codon by carcinogen a remote event.  However, when this does occur, the cell can use another copy of that gene from a more primitive aspect that may not function as well as the copy given to the adult form.  When the DNA alters irreversibly or a hit ensues on a proliferation gene, cancer ensues. 

Now that we know what cancer is, the question is how to treat it.  Statins or gene products are as relevant as snake oil. Alkylating agents and methotrexate destroy what is left of a functional immune system so the host dies of a septic infection.  The only possible way this author can think of to treat cancer is to mutate the cells even further, until they die with nucleotide analogue inhibitors or antimitotic agents.  This way the cellular limb of the immune response can eventually within five years identify the cancer as foreign and eliminate it.  Treating the neoplasm with antibodies created by mouse or tissue culture immunocyctes, directed against oncofetal antigens creates an autoimmune event further weakening the host immune system.

It says in the Old Testament, that all the medicine mankind needs to survive is right in front of us, waiting to be discovered.  Plant extracts like quinine, fungal extracts like cyclines and more might have activity against cancer. We have to look at them again.  Using HPLC and crystallography we might discover new potions or tinctures from eukaryotes that evidence activity against rapidly dividing cells. There is a lot of work ahead of us until we get to where we want to be.  Or as the marines herald; “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.”  I hope I live long enough to see it.