Cancer cell

“ Our knowledge of the cell cycle and of the gene-action system has been useful in determining how organisms grow and how cancer cells behave. It has been determined that certain normal adult cells divide more frequently 46 than some cancer cells and that the growth of cancers depends not so much on the speed of cellular proliferation as on the number of cells actually dividing.
Figure 29 Radioautograph showing DNA synthesis during chromosome replication. Chromosomes from cells in the root tip of the Tradescantia plant were labeled with 3H-thymidine. ”

“ Not only are unicellular organisms immortal and the life of all their successive generations a continuum, but a bit of cancer tumor can be transplanted to other individuals and there grow larger, and a bit from this second individual transferred to a third, and so on indefinitely; so that the same cancer cell continues to live on in successive transplantations throughout many individual lives. It has thus outlived many times the natural life of the mouse. Indeed, it seems to be able to live on indefinitely and Carrel has shown that this is true of other normal cells. ”

“ Removal of a large mass of cancer cells can also lighten the immune system's task. Not having to kill off and reabsorb all those cells one-by-one from a huge cancer mass, the body can better conquer smaller groups of cancer cells. And the die-off of large cancers produces a lot of toxins, burdening the organs of elimination. This is an argument for the potential benefit of a lumpectomy. However, I do not support mastectomies, or the type of surgery that cause massive damage to the body in a foolish attempt to remove every last cancer cell, as though the cells themselves were the disease. ”

“ We noted also that some attributed cancer to independent cell action, relating to the polarity of cells, etc.; but it is inconceivable that a cell or cells can idiopathically start out on a rampant course and pursue it with increasing severity, even until death results, without, at least, some definite pre-disposing cause, even though diligent and earnest work has not as yet determined just what that cause may be. The error has been, we believe, in searching too exclusively by the microscope and by certain laboratory methods, and not sufficiently along clinical and bio-chemical lines. ”

“ Wakefield has pretty clearly shown that the developing cancer cell is the product of sub-catabolism, or a sub-oxygenation, induced by hyperacidity or oxidase deficiency in the surrounding medium of the blood plasma.
A great deal of thought, study, and speculation have been given in regard to the behavior of the cells themselves, and strong arguments are adduced for a local cell pathology, that is, regarding the cells as “autonomous beings, possessed of morphological 34and physiological independence.” ”

“ As yet we know little or nothing in regard to actual cancer-genesis; no one has ever demonstrated, and probably no one ever will demonstrate, the absolute beginning of the change in some normal cell or cells, in the breast or elsewhere, which eventuates in their taking on the rampant or malignant feature which we call cancer. But this change does occur, and though the exact alterations in the polarity of the cells and the disturbance of their centrosomes and nuclei, which have been described, may not be perfectly understood, there is some definite cause for their occurrence. ”

“ CANCER IN THE SKIN No one but an impostor will presume to cure a true cancer, containing the cancer cell, and situated in the muscles. Many times hard tumors, not containing the cancer cell, are called cancers, and are removed by different methods, which is very easily accomplished, without a danger of their returning ”

“ We have also seen that while there has not been demonstrated any very definite and specific change in the bio-chemistry of tumors, and no specific enzymes or poison secreted by cancer cells which can communicate 104the disease, there is evidence that the disordered cells secrete a something which deranges the blood and ultimately tends to end life; for the blood in advancing cancer undergoes very radical, degenerative changes, some of which improve decidedly when a cancerous mass is removed surgically, but return with the regrowth of the tumor. ”

“ To sum up, the tissues from which cancer grows, in their normal process of repair tend to reproduce themselves more or less exactly, or if the injury is too gross, they are replaced by scar tissue; but when we reach the age at which their biological work is done, there is a tendency to atypical reproduction, in which an atypical cell continues to reproduce itself atypically and grows at the expense of the organism, eating into or eroding it as it enlarges, till it finally kills the host on which it preys. ”

“ Personally I believe that sooner or later it will be generally recognized that the starting point of cancer occurs in some cell or cells, previously normal, probably as the result of local irritation, in which there is a deposit of some of the elements of faulty nitrogenous partition, induced by undue ingestion of animal protein: and that the malignant, reproductive process in the cells is kept up by a continuance of the same supply of imperfectly disintegrated nitrogenous matter. ”

“ We now know that so-called secondary cancers are the result of the spread of cancer cells from the original seat of the cancer to other parts of the body, and that this spread is much hindered by the ability of the lymph nodes to catch the cancer cells and hold them. Unfortunately sooner or later some of the cells will escape beyond the lymph nodes and so spread the malignant growth throughout the body, but until this happens the cancer is confined to the region where it started, and it is during this period that complete cure by surgical means is possible. ”

“ We have begun to see cancer not as a random event, but as an error in the normal process of growth and development. Researchers have found minute but critical differences in the genes of normal and cancer cells. They have identified and isolated oncogenes, which play a role in changing normal, healthy cells to cancer. ”

“ Cancer cells are self-reproducing cells, but do so in an uncontrolled manner. Hence cancer cells are particularly vulnerable to radiation. This treatment requires potent sources and correspondingly increases the hazards of use. ”

“ Cancer may be described as the runaway growth of cells. The secretions of the pituitary gland serve to stimulate cell reproduction, so it was reasoned that destruction of this gland might well slow down growth of a tumor elsewhere in the body. ”

“ Third, that a disease, eighty per cent of whose death-rate occurs after forty-five years of age, is scarcely likely to threaten the continued existence of the race.
The nature of the process is a revolt of a group of cells. The cause of it is legion, for it embraces any influence which may detach the cell from its normal surroundings,—"isolate it," as one pathologist expresses it. The cure is early and complete amputation of not only the rebellious cells, but of the entire organ or region in which they occur.
A cancer is a biologic anomaly. ”

“ Usually the proliferating cancer cells do not infect neighboring cells with which they may come in contact during their proliferation. While as a rule the neighboring normal cells do not become cancerous in contact with cancer cells, this does not hold good generally ”

“ To me, a cancer is a cancer is a cancer, and there is only one kind: it is an immune system collapse, consequence of the deadly triangle of weak spleen, thymus and liver, plus a toxic large intestine and weak pancreas. That organ profile is found in skin cancer, prostate cancer, leukemia, brain cancer, cancer of what have you. How fast or how slowly the cells multiply or spread, where they are located, what the cancer cells look like in a microscope, these are irrelevant factors compared to the body's ability to conquer the disease. ”

“ If the body's immune system can stop the growth of the cancers and begin to turn them back before the cancer cells impinge catastrophically on some vital function, the person can usually survive. Even if the body cannot completely eliminate all the cancer cells, but regains enough immune function to keep the existing cancers in permanent check, a person can survive many years with an existing, stable cancer without undue pain or discomfort. Still having a non-growing tumor after a long fast indicates that a person is a lot better than they were before fasting. ”

“ The National Cancer Program, established in 1971, is being conducted devotedly and on a massive scale by both Federal agencies and non-Federal organizations under the aegis of the National Cancer Institute. A substantial portion of the Institute's research is in such areas as cell and molecular biology, virology, immunology and tumor biology. There is also growing attention and progress in continuing care activities, such as hospices and rehabilitation programs.
Despite our aggressive attack on cancer, current statistics reveal that about 395,000 Americans will die of the disease in 1979. ”

“ From the biological point of view cancer presents another interesting feature. It used to be generally stated by biologists that acquired characteristics cannot be transmitted. In cancer we see a cell taking on foreign characteristics in response to some environmental stimulus and transmitting these to its offspring until the organism from which it sprang is destroyed. ”

“ How extraordinary and limitless this power is may be seen from the fact that a little group of cancer-cells grafted into a mouse to produce a Jensen tumor, from which a graft is again taken and transplanted into another mouse, and so on, is capable, in a comparatively few generations, of producing cancerous masses a thousand times the weight of the original mouse in which the tumor started! ”

“ Not only is there an incursion of lymphocytes into the parts but the connective tissue and endothelial cells in their vicinity revert to their embryonic state and begin the work of phagocytosis. But as a fact they have to deal with neither the effete products of molecular degeneration nor with an inert foreign body, for though virtually strangers cancer cells are by no means inactive. ”

“ A cancer is a malignant tumour which originates in epithelium. The cancer cells are derived by proliferation from already existing epithelium, and they invade the sub-epithelial connective tissue in the form of simple or branching columns. These columns are enclosed in spaces—termed alveoli—which are probably dilated lymph spaces, and which communicate freely with the lymph vessels. The cells composing the columns and filling the alveoli vary with the character of the epithelium in which the cancer originates. ”

“ I believe that virtually everyone has cancer cells in their body, just like viruses and bacteria. But most people do not develop cancer as a disease because their immune function is strong so these misbehaving cells are destroyed as fast as they appear. ”

“ In short, cancer-cells are obviously a small, isolated group of the body-cells, which in a ghastly fashion have found the fountain of perpetual youth, and can ride through and over the law-abiding citizens of the body-state with the primitive vigor of the dawn of life. ”

“ Experimental work has time and again demonstrated that cell growth, either good or bad, is modified in no uncertain way by the character of the nutrition furnished. Cancer has repeatedly been observed to disappear spontaneously, as such cases are 37on record by careful and competent medical men: in certain of these instances it has occurred in connection with a radical change in the mode of life and diet, but in the majority of instances there is no record of the special cause of its disappearance. ”

“ No, cancer cells have their own pattern of behavior which is very pretty and, of course, no longer at all deadly. You do not have cancer; but the cells of your kidneys, for instance, are doing something I've never seen live kidney cells doing. ”

“ By implantation, cancer cells, already started on their reproductive career, may be transferred to freshly cut surfaces, and 122there may develop new lesions, favored by the continued derangement of the blood current. ”

“ We see, thus, that cancer is not primarily a surgical affection, and that the mere ablation of an offending portion of the body which has become diseased can never preclude a new portion from becoming affected, or prevent a recurrence in the same location; indeed, this often seems to be stimulated and increased by the trauma and by the deranged lymphatic and vascular circulation caused by the operation and the dissemination of actively growing cancer cells through these channels. ”

“ Linkov, I & Dmitrovsky, E, “Aberrant expression of p53 or the epidermal growth factor receptor is frequent in early bronchial neoplasia and coexpression precedes squamous cell carcinoma development.”, Cancer Res 55: 1365–1372, pmid:7882337 ↑ Ayoub, J ”

“ This tends to limit the encroachment of the growing cancer, and were it not for the lymph spaces or capillaries, which are the gaps through which the growing cells escape, no doubt the limitation and strangulation of cancers would occur far more often than they do.
It will be noticed that the more nearly the cells of a cancer approach the embryonic state the more rapid will be the growth, and the less opportunity for fibrosis211 the more malignant the cancer. ”

“ By long study of sections of carcinomatous tissue he claims that the mononuclear leukocyte behaves in a very different manner from the polynuclear. Briefly he charges the mononuclear white corpuscles with actually producing the disease, by conjugating with certain epithelial cells, thereby giving them the reproductive capacity which enables them to push forward on their destructive career. The polynuclears seem to come up to the defense of the body, but are overcome by the poison secreted by the rapidly growing tumor cells. ”