Cancer treatment paradigms

Published on June 27, 2018   38 min

Other Talks in the Series: Cancer Therapies in the Personalized Medicine Era

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0:00
Hello, this is Sharon Marsh and the topic of this session will be Cancer Treatment Paradigms.
0:09
During this session, we will cover cancer basics, the different treatment options available including surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, hormone therapy, treatment resistance, treatment side effects, and an introduction to palliative care. First, we will overview some of the basics of cancer.
0:30
Cancer is not a modern day phenomenon. The earliest description of cancer dates back to 3000 BC with the documentation of different types of breast tumors and ulcers. Signs of cancer have also been found on the bones of mummies from ancient Egypt and Peru also dating as far back as 3000 BC.
0:52
The origins of the terminologies around cancer are more recent. The original word cancer is credited to the Greek physician Hippocrates who is considered the Father of Medicine. Hippocrates used the term carcinos and carcinoma to describe both non-ulcer forming and ulcer-forming tumors. These words refer to crab in Greek and it was most likely that the word carcinos and carcinoma were applied to the disease because the finger-like spreading projections from a cancer called to mind the shape of the crab. This led to the rewording of the word carcinoma and carcino to cancer, which is the Latin word for crab later by the Roman physician Celsus. A couple of centuries after that Galen, a Greek physician first used the word oncos which is Greek for swelling to describe tumors. Although the crab analogy of Hippocrates and Celsus is still used to describe malignant tumors, Galen's term is now used as part of the name for cancer specialists, oncologists.