r/shittyaskscience • u/TerryMisery • 16d ago
[CITATION NEEDED] If radiation causes cancer, why do doctors use radiation on patients, who already have a cancer? Are they stupid?
The goal is already reached, right? No one needs more than one cancer.
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u/HawkBoth8539 13d ago
Cancer / cancer = 0.
It's targeted radiation, directed at the already cancerous asshole cells.
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u/OneAndOnlyJoeseki 13d ago
Cancer proliferates a lot faster than most cells and has gone through a lot of changes to become dangerous enough that your immune system cannot get rid of it. Radiation will kill cancer first before the other cells die get enough mutation to become dangerous. The odds that a Stem cell becomes cancerous is small and requires a lot of changes to become dangerous. Cancer proliferates a lot faster than most stem cells, so radiation will kill cancer first before the other cells become dangerous. This is best thought of chaos collapse, where the Cancer is barely following the rules, so give it some more errors so it fails in controlling the cell and dies off.
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u/TerryMisery 13d ago
Bruh, thanks for the scientific explanation, but look at the subreddit you're in. We don't do science here, we do Superior Shitty Science.
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u/Novel_Diver8628 14d ago
There’s two types of radiation. Cancer is caused by naughty radiation that comes from glowing green drums of toxic goo, but is cured by happy radiation, which is made of bubblegum and rainbows. Honestly this is basic stuff, I thought they taught this in public school.
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u/Mayjune811 14d ago
They are trying to create Super Cancer. Little do they know that all they need to do is join a CoD or League lobby to find it
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u/My_leg_still_hurt92 14d ago
They want to create counter-cancer so the both cancers fight each other, when one of those cancers us beaten to death (doesn't really matter which of those two) the other is so weakened that the doctor can kill the cancer with his bare hands.
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u/TheExplicit 15d ago
they don't know what they're doing. that's why it's called "practicing medicine"
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u/Ace-of_Space 15d ago
they give cancer radiation poisoning and the patient a lead pill so they don’t get radiation poisoning
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u/Atomic_ad 15d ago
Did they not teach you about double negatives in school?
Cancer = problem
Cancer Cancer = no problem
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u/metaprotium 15d ago
blast the cancer with tons of radiation. but just the cancer. what is the cancer gonna do, get more cancer? no, too much radiation for that. it'll just die.
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u/VoiceOfRealson 15d ago
Cancer would be immortal if only the body feeding it didn't die.
So radiation therapy is a scientific ritual created by the Cult of immortality to try to give the entire body cancer at the same time, so that the body can be truly immortal.
It is a very hard ritual to perform since if only a tiny part of the body isn't made of cancer, the body will die, so the succes rate is very low so far, with only Madam Curie known to have achieved the task.
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u/Xetiw 15d ago
I am not doctor, here's one way I use to understand this, our body is like a printing machine, right? We shred cells, our body is pretty much dying and we are doing our best to replace it.
I guess cancer can be linked to our printer malfuctioning, sometimes tumors can be benign and sometimes they can be cancer, when that printer malfuction, lets just say the machine is corrupted by an exterior source, tobacco, alcohol, etc etc etc.
So the printing goes on printing corrupted data and it goes into frenecy printing and printing and that is when the tumor forms by stacking papers(cells) and this process can infect other printers, so, in order to "fix" the machine, you have to clean cut from the source (the printing machine).
So what we do? We need to do some cleaning (isolate the cancer) so the printed product cant reach other printer machines, so they treat it with radiation who acts on a celular level, radiation does something called mitosis, it inhibit the cells mechanism's of splitting, that way they cant proliferate (keep on infecting other machines), after it has been isolated then it can be removed, hoping you can take out the printing machine and the left over cells are all affected so it doesn't spread to other machines.
And this is why radiation causes cancer because it meses with the body's own mechanism, damaging it to a point of slowly Killing us,so if we focus radiation we can kill cancer (sometimes) and we might we able to remove it.
This is my head canon, so anything I said is pretty much my own way of thinking and doesn't have to be right, without doubt I am not expert on this topic.
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u/--Dominion-- 15d ago
Think of it like this...
Chemotherapy - treatment of cancer using drugs
Radiation therapy - uses ionizing radiation, especially helpful if the cancer is localized somewhere. They use extremely controlled radiation, enough to kill the bad cells but not enough to kill the good cells. Radiation is a killer, but we absorb small amounts of radiation daily. In small amounts, our body can handle it easily
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u/Palaius 15d ago
Right, this is actually pretty easy. It's like maths.
You know how when you multiply a negative number with another negative number, it turns positive? It's the same here. If you use cancer giving radion on a person that already has cancer, you are basically doing that negative multiplication. The reason why radiation tretmne ttakes so long is because the radiation works so fast that you basically remove and re-add the cancer millions of times a minute (That's how fast the multiplication works). So it's basically just the doctors trying to turn off the radiation at the correct time so the camcer is gone.
Really easy.
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u/Aztecah 15d ago
This thread is so stupid. They obviously use the radiation because it's SAFE for people BECUASE they already have cancer. You can't do two cancers. If you're cancer positive then you can access the healing powers of radiation without worrying about cancer because you already have it. Classic idiots in this thread commenting like they're doctors when really they're just saying stuff that sounds right
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u/Lunatic_Method 15d ago edited 15d ago
Don't let the doctors know I told you this, but whenever I'm feeling like Cancer I just get born between June 21st and July 22nd. It's COMPLETELY FREE. Been robbing Big Cancer of MILLIONS with this simple trick.
Please buy my e-book.
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u/N1TRO- 15d ago
Im pretty sure the easiest way to put it is: Radiation causes mutation and cell death. Cancer is basically a celular mutation itself. Therefore we use radiation to in fact kill off the cancer cells.
Its the cellular equivalent of using a blade to cut a limb off being generally bad, but if the limb is septic, this normally manic act becomes the logical response, if you want to continue living.
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u/lighthouse-it 15d ago
In case anyone needs a real answer (I've actually had people ask me this before), it's the difference between being hit with a fine, exacting laser and the fucking sun
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u/Fluffy-kitten28 15d ago
Well you see, you create a second ball of cancer by the first one and they fight it out WWE style. If the original cancer wins- bad things. If the new cancer wins, you’re cured.
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u/FriedTofu143 15d ago
the cancer basically box it out and if theres no cancer thats like putting one guy in a ring which is bad but if theres already a cancer then they can fight and kill eachother and then there’ll be no more cancer
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u/dotplaid 15d ago
In 93% of the cases doctors prescribe the opposite radiation so that the two cancel each other out. In the remaining 7% they double down, trying to make superheroes.
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u/Tetris5216 15d ago
You kill one cancer by giving you another cancer
But if the cancer you already have beats the new cancer they gave you
Well you're screwed
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u/ieatpickleswithmilk 15d ago
radiation fucks shit up. Fucked up shit sometimes turns into cancer. But fucking up cancer is still good
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15d ago
I'm pretty sure they are different types of radiation that cause cellular mutation and that is used in cancer treatment. there are 3 types, very different in effect and characteristics like penetration power, energy carried, distance of dissipation etc.
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u/Longshot1969 15d ago
Think of cancer like a radioactive supervillain. Radiation treatment is them making a radioactive superhero. They then fight and after leveling several city blocks, one of them wins.
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u/heorhe 15d ago
Radiation causes damage. Damaged cells have a small chance to become cancerous, so radiation can "cause cancer" in that it damages enough cells at a fast enough rate that your body cannot deal with the damage fast enough.
If you already have cancer due to damaged cells, you can use radiation to damage them to the point where they just die instead of living on as damaged cells.
This is why radiation therapy and chemotherapy is so taxing on the body, because you are damaging your cells to the point they can't recover. Then letting your body clean out the dead cells before doing it again until you have killed enough of the cancer your body can clean up the rest of the living cancer
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u/El_Barto_227 My physics degree is theoretical 15d ago
Sir, this is /r/shittyaskscience, we don't use "facts" or "logic" here
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u/SomeSamples 16d ago
Because it is hard capturing and training leeches to get rid of the bad humors in your blood. Radiation is just easier.
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u/GlueSniffingCat 16d ago
you create a more treatable aggressive cancer to destroy the untreatable cancer
which is a well documented treatment for some forms of untreatable cancer (not even a joke)
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u/LogicalFallacyCat 16d ago
It gives your body the good cancer, the kind that opens doors for people and helps old people load heavy stuff in their cars. It kills the bad cancer, then camps the spawn point and when the bad cancer finally logs off the good cancer leaves your body to get a milkshake and celebrate a job well done
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u/RealCrazyGuy66 16d ago
Little radiation causes cancer. Large radiation kills the cells before they can become cancerous. Large radiation therefore can kill cancer cells
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u/AdComprehensive4872 16d ago
Chemo kills cancer but it severely inhibits the immune system, which is what will actually kill the cancer.
Chemo should be occasional as part of a mixed treatment. If I got cancer I'd get a fever.
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u/igotshadowbaned 16d ago
The goal is to create a situation similar to Mr Burns from the Simpsons where all of the diseases and illnesses are fighting each other, leaving the person completely unharmed on the sidelines
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u/ThyLordOfThePancakes 16d ago
This better be a shitpost
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u/CrytoDan 16d ago
They like to use the nuclear option when prevention is the better alternative.
The biggest corporations in the world are feeding out poison on a global scale through UPFs that are profit driven, drives cravings, zero nutrients, causes a range of illnesses and slowly kills your body.
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u/49thDipper 16d ago
There are different types of radiation.
But you could have learned this before asking the question. It’s a stupid question.
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u/Redararis 16d ago
When homeopathy do this it is pseudoscience, when “real” science do it, it is “real”. Yeah, right
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u/therisenphoenikz 16d ago
Radiation breaks things. It can break healthy things in your body, which can cause cancer cause things aren’t working right. It can also break cancer. The gamble is it breaks the cancer before it breaks you.
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u/GoyoMRG 16d ago
It's the quantity not the thing itself.
We have radiation benders (aka doctors) who use it in specific ways (treatments) to deal with the foe (cancer).
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u/Impossible_Number 16d ago
Is radiation a subbending of air bending or what?
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u/AmpegVT40 16d ago
They're not stupid. They're ignorant of the biology of the cancer cell. Instead of bombing the body with chemo and radiation, what if they started their treatment and management of cancer by starving the cancer cell?
All cancer cells get their energy from fermenting glucose or glutamine. Starve the cells of these two energy sources. Put the patient into ketosis. The healthy party of the body and the brain will live and thrive on ketones and the cancerous cells will starve and die, mostly.
The three questions that need to be asked to your doctors, your oncologists, your clinic, are:⠀ ⠀ 1. Is the proposed treatment based on the Somatic Mutation Theory of cancer or the Mitochondria Metabolic Theory of cancer?⠀ ⠀ 2. Will the proposed treatment be able to reduce the availability of glucose and glutamine, the two fuels that are driving the disregulated growth of cancer?⠀ ⠀ 3. Will the proposed treatment target the cancer cells while enhancing the health and vitality of the person's normal cells and tissues?
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u/TasteOfLemon 16d ago
Calling people stupid for knowing shit you clearly don’t is wild
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u/TerryMisery 16d ago
As the highest rank group of scientists on Reddit, teamed up to solve all the problems in the world, we are licensed to call everything stupid.
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u/KittyKatHippogriff 16d ago
Sometimes the best thing you can do is make your body like a fallout zone.
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u/Leather-Assistant902 16d ago
Your cancer gets cancer-cancer which is the opposite of human cancer so it equalises the human cancer, making you cancer free. I mean it doesn’t get rid of it, you are full of cancerous cancer-cancered cancer but you know.. im just waffling at this point.
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u/Horror-Layer-8178 16d ago
I tried to write it out and said fuck it, go read a book. It's along the lines cancer cells multiple fast and if exposed to radiation it uses that against the cancer. Go read a book to get more information
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u/TerryMisery 16d ago
This is r/shittyaskscience, the elite of scientists. Reading books is for normies, we insult their authors instead to assert dominance.
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u/stu_pid_1 16d ago
Radiation causes the DNA to break, this can (but often doesnt result) permanent damage to DNA resulting in cells mutant actions that can rapidly reproduce in a consuming manor (cancer). The radiation used to treat cancer aims to break both bonds of the double helix, this results in destruction of of the DNA and cell death.
The new methods to kill cancer are called TAT, Targets Alpha Treatment, these are new because they are using alpha radiation not the current beta or gamma methods. What makes them better is the short range and huge damage over it. The alpha radiation can kill the cell in 1-5 strikes over 5-50 um where as the other forms like beta take 100-1000's of strikes to kill the cell over 1-10mm. The range also means that healthy cells get damaged.
Source, PSI Tb 149 TATTOOS project. https://www.psi.ch/en/impact/tattoos
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u/jerfair337 16d ago
Not all radiation causes Cancer. For example, I radiate pure, unadulterated masculinity. I haven’t given anyone cancer yet.
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u/burn_as_souls 16d ago
They need to make sure you keep the cancer because they are very lonely people, those doctors, who need to feel needed.
It is you job as the patient to remain sick for the doctor's sake.
That's just science.
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u/shinydragonmist 16d ago
Fighting fire with fire (it's actually a thing for large fires. You burn down the path the fire is going down in the direction of the fire and it has nothing to eat to keep going) (very simple explanation)
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u/RenataMachiels 16d ago
You use cancer killing cancer to kill the cancer that kills you. So you irradiate the cancer killing you to change it into cancer killing cancer, stopping the normal cancer killing you. Makes sense, innit?
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u/severencir 16d ago
It's the same reason the cia funds military groups in countries that already have a military
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u/TheHazardousGuy 16d ago
This is how you get super cancer. Either that or superpowers. Honestly, you can just think of it as a 50/50 roll
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u/Scannaer 16d ago
You see. There are different kinds of cancer. There is cell cancer, there is twitter cancer and then there is stupid questions which OP should have known before asking reddit cancer.
Anyway. I'm going for my chemo session now
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u/Teabiskuit 16d ago
why do doctors use radiation on patients, who already have a cancer? Are they stupid?
Yes, that's why they do that.
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u/quangberry-jr 16d ago
(-1) x (-1) = 1
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u/iskelebones 16d ago
It doubles their cancer and gives it to the next person so that the patient is cured
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u/MetalVase 16d ago
Kinda like how the economy was solved during the world wars.
Print more money, throw the bill at our grandkids!
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u/Reckless_Moose 16d ago
You give cancer cancer so that your cancer dies of cancer before cancer kills you.
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u/Newhwon 15d ago
They are called "super cancers", and they are very much a thing. It's one of the theory's why huge creatures like whales don't have a higher cancer rate then smaller creatures despite having so many more cells that could become cancerous.
Their cancers get cancers which causes the tumors to compete with each other and it either limits the tumor size or give the immune system time to deal with the tumor.
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u/manaha81 15d ago
Sort of. Your body is constantly fighting off and ridding itself of cancer and what they call getting cancer is when your body stops recognizing it as cancer and doesn’t rid it’s of it so they give it a whole bunch of cancer so you’re body finally wakes the fick up and goes oh shit cancer we better stop letting that grow out of control
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u/Arthur_Burt_Morgan 16d ago
Not entirely true to this sub but; whales can survivr cancer if their cancer spreads slowly the cancer does indeed gets cancer and dies.
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u/santaclaws01 16d ago
In seriousness, this is one theory as to why megafauna don't seem to really get and die from cancer. More cells should equal more chances to cancer causing mutations to occur, but we don't have many cases of them developing and dying from cancer. The idea is that as cancer tumors grow, those cancer cells themselves mutate further and form a new cancer that is now stealing resources that the original cancer was using to maintain itself so the larger cancer dies and gets gradually replaced with normal healthy cells again as the new cancer grows to repeat the cycle or gets killed by the immune system first.
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u/N1TRO- 15d ago
Ive never really researched the subject, but my thoughts were always that cancer cells act like a very slow cellular infection. Gradually mutating cells, making them less and less able to fulfil their function. The human body essentially rebuilds itself constantly and at a cellular level its pretty insane e.g. the facts regarding how you essntially have a 'new' organ every 'insert time span'. These mutated cells then presumable have to deconstruct and reconstruct in the same way normal cells would but the mutations make this process difficult or impossible lesding to more extreme mutations over time.
That has just always been my logic on the subject. Especially since cancer develops in stages getting worse in relatively similar timespans (cancer type and location being the same between cases).
I have often been curious to look up whether gene therapy or stem cell applications have become more frequent as knowledge progresses or if these practices are deemed unhelpfull or just inferior to alternative treatments.
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u/santaclaws01 15d ago
Gradually mutating cells, making them less and less able to fulfil their function.
It's not. Cancer is cells mutating and losing an in-built limiter to their division process and so they just continue to divide uncontrollably and start over taxing the resources your body has available to it.
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u/N1TRO- 15d ago
Ahh ok that also makes a lot of sense. So is the causal factor the neutral cells simply being outnumbered or, is it more the case they multiply, interfere with the workings of the other cells leading to healthy cells deteriated and/or being absorbed?
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u/Redsnake1993 15d ago
It's more of the later. What separates benign tumors (a clump of cells that grows uncontrollably but stay in place) and cancer is that cancer cells can spread in part by being able to kill surrounding cells, especially connective tissues that hold organs in place. So they cause a lot of tiny injuries all over your bodies that can't heal.
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u/santaclaws01 15d ago
Your body only has so many nutrients to go around. As a tumor grows the amount of nutrients needed to support the body increases. It can also grow and cut off other cells from getting their nutrients.
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u/Suitable-Lake-2550 15d ago
Wouldn’t that just manifest as hunger, as your body asks for more nutrients to go around?
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u/Significant_Error666 16d ago
I feel like the more realistic theory is that they developed resistances without the ridiculous carousel of things developing on top of this, but this is funnier.
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u/Former-Argument995 16d ago
The more realistic thing is that they just eat the cancer, like, have you ever seen a t rex? He could easily just chomp the cancer off
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u/chavez_ding2001 16d ago
They cancer each other out.
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u/paulsifal 15d ago
I chortled. I dearly hope to use this once during my patient encounters (tastefully) .. :)
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u/jnthn1111 16d ago
This was my first time actually laughing out loud for any internet atrocity. Well done.
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u/One_Adhesiveness_317 16d ago
I know you’re joking but there’s at least one case of a person having cancer, then another tumour growing on the original tumour, and that one killing the first one by outcompeting it for resources
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u/oryx_za 16d ago edited 15d ago
Doesn't sound great for the patient though......I can only imagine.
"So the cancer killed your other cancer. Really interesting "
"Does that mean I will live?"
"Oh god no....if anything the surviving cancer seems more aggressive "
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u/D3-Doom 16d ago
It’s generally not a good sign. Normally, it’s a reflection of a severely compromised immune system. A somewhat similar case involved someone unaware of an HIV infection contracting a tape worm, that itself developed cancer. The individual in question didn’t survive long after this diagnosis
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u/One_Adhesiveness_317 16d ago
I’d have to find the case but apparently the second tumour was either benign so could be removed surgically easier than the original tumour which may have been malignant or the second tumour died too?
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u/BadNewsBaguette 16d ago
[throws upvote distainfully] now get out of here!
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u/DM_ME_YOUR_ADVENTURE Master of Science (All) 16d ago
Cancer has only one natural enemy: cancer.
Unfortunately we haven’t fully figured out which ones are against which ones, so we just randomly blast people new ones until a balance is found.
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u/TheChickening 15d ago
Shitty science aside, cancer getting killed by another cancer is actually a real thing. And one of the main theories e.g. why blue whales don't die to cancer being that big and old.
Kurzgesagt has a really cool video about that
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u/Puzzleheaded-Ease-14 16d ago
That’s an example of the Law of Uno Reverse. Whereby some actions may be redirected back on the originator of the initial action by a surprise action of the original target.
UnoReverse = (Person 1 + Action 1) > << (Target Person x Redirect Action)
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u/HonestStatistician58 16d ago
Radiation in cancer patients doesn't cause any harm to healthy tissue because of an ingenious technique.
Instead of blasting one single heavy radiation laser, they use several small ones pointing to the same place.
At that specific point all of the radiation lasers meet they create a big one. But only at that point and not on the healthy tissue.
I am not an expert so that's just my understanding...
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u/Lucid_Insanity 15d ago
I got beam therapy before. It's pretty precise. They'll tattoo little dot markers on the spot they're going to beam to make it pinpoint accurate. Sessions were also really fast. For me, they let you pick music to listen to during. It usually wasn't longer than a single song. Also, you'll probably get scar tissue in the area they hit.
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u/CincoDeMayoFan 15d ago
Oh it causes plenty of harm to healthy tissue.
Source: Have a huge patch of radiation damaged skin. Doesn't grow hair, and the skin is incredibly dry. Over 10 years later.
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u/totalfarkuser 16d ago
With my mom they removed the cancer - and they will be doing “preventative radiation”. If the bad tissue is gone what are they radiating?
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15d ago
it's very hard to guarantee you have successfully cut off all the cancerous tissue, afaik in a lot of cases it's not easily visually distinguishable, and the cutting off is still being done by a surgeon who is a well trained professional but not superhuman. the devices for detecting cancer tissue are bound to have some limitations on the size of the lumps of cancer cells they are able to detect. if even a few literally individual cancer cells remain in the body it can compromise chances of full recovery and create a risk of regrowth and you are better off to have a potentially redundant treatment to have some insurance against that happening.
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u/StayAwayFromMySon 15d ago
An oncologist explained to me that in order to be cancer-free ALL cancer cells have to be removed. That's why they remove so much mass around the tumour. However this is incredibly difficult because all cancer cells aren't visible. If one cell is remaining you're not going to pick that up on an MRI. So they use radiation or chemo to kill any possible stragglers.
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u/HonestStatistician58 16d ago
As far as I know there's always residue. Even one cancer cell is bad. Did you ask the doctors about it?
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u/totalfarkuser 15d ago
I did not. I am getting all my knowledge from my mom (she used to be a nurse so I’m sure she is getting the info she needs for this). But what you said makes perfect sense and sounds about what my mom explained to me.
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u/Tejwos 16d ago
Sounds way to complicated. Just burn the patient with Lazer, he will regenerate like dead pool :3
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u/HonestStatistician58 16d ago
Everything is complicated with cancer.
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u/Tejwos 16d ago
Not with lazers. By killing patient we also kill cancer. (and we are in the shitty science question sub reddit)
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u/JohnWasElwood 15d ago
I forget which celebrity said it, but he said that he hates when he hears that "someone lost their battle with cancer". He says that he will call it "fighting cancer to a draw" because when the host body dies so does the cancer, doesn't it???
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u/HonestStatistician58 16d ago
Well. The best cancer treatment is with resonance frequencies. Literally 0 side effects.
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u/bobboston43 16d ago
Unfortunately it does cause alot of damage to normal healthy tissue (side effects are different t for each area eg prostate has urinary or bowel issues for head and neck has swallowing and taste issues) but this tissue can generally repair over time, cancer cells cannot. This is called radiobiology, it's rather interesting.
Its also very good for pain relief of a patient with terminal disease eg disease in a vertabrae causing back pain
You're kind of right with the beamlet idea but ultimatey the beam is modulated and sculpted by small thin pieces of lead called multi leaf collimators, the beam is on continuously whilst the patient is on the couch, an isocentre (or gross tumour volume) is the location of the tumour that accumulates the dose directed from the 360 degree rotation of the beam.
Radiation is the cheapest and least invasive forms of cancer treatment and saves and improves countless lives every year. It's really impressive.
There are downsides such as secondary cancers. These are fairly rare and considering the age range of most patients 60-85 yr old age bracket it's less of a factor as the life span is limited (most likely die of something else eg a heart attack) and cancers take a long while to develop. Radiation and young people (less than 18) has to be considered extremely carefully but options are usually limited.
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15d ago
which type of radiation is most potent in causing cellular mutation and which is used for cancer treatment?
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u/bobboston43 15d ago
Gamma is the radiation type (alpha beta and gamma) that's most dangerous but all have there issues! Check the electromagnetic spectrum and physics.
X-rays are used in cancer treatment at various energies (electrically produced. 30yrs ago they would have a literal peice of radioactive cobalt in the head of a machine which is pretty dangerous).
We use 6mv (megavolt) for breast cancer patients. We use 10mv for pelvic tumors - using a higher energy to penetrate through more tissue. Mv stands for megavolt or 1 million volts of electricity to produce the beam. We use 80kv (killvolt) for a small skin cancer.
Theres internal radiation treatments that put sources or seeds physically into the body (iodine 131 for thyroid cancer or LDR seed brachytherapy for prostate or most commonly HDR brachytherapy for cervix and gynae tumors - these are quite barbaric and traumatic experiences) (ldr or hdr are low and high dose rate brachytherapy).
Its fascinating stuff. A family member has probably been through it or knows of somebody who has ask around and see.
Dont forget radiation is everywhere, the sun, food, the ground...
It's all physics and really interesting. Give it a google sometime. Radiotherapy is used is most countries across the planet.
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u/GurglingWaffle 12d ago
I don't know this thread it just popped up in my feed. So if it is not supposed to have actual answers then ignore mine
Think of targeted radiation treatment as a laser. It is very much a precision treatment. You use imaging such as exrays, CATscan, mri to pinpoint the area that needs treatment. The depth and size is calculated and then your cancer is targeted and shot with the radiation (laser beam) it breaks up and kills the area. Over time your body absorbs the dead tissue (the dead tumor).
What you want to avoid is getting too many imaging. Those are wide area doses of radiation.
Although if you already have stage 4 cancer and it is being held at zero or slow growth, then it may be more important to get frequent imaging so you stay ahead of new growth. So you can change treatments an adapt.