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Question: If chemotherapy and cis-platin can cure cancer, why is cancer still such a big problem?
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anon answered on 21 Mar 2013:
Hello – it sounds like you know your drugs well! Cisplatin is a type of chemo, and different chemotherapies are used for different cancers. Sadly, chemotherapy doesn’t work for all patients – their disease is called “chemoresistant” – which is why cancer is still a problem. For blood cancers – like leukemia or Hodgkin lymphoma, another treatment option is bone marrow transplant. Doctors take samples of your bone marrow (spongy cells from inside your bones), then give you very high dose chemo to kill cancer cells. As it’s so powerful though, it kills off normal cells but by transplanting the bone marrow back in, you can then develop new cells.
At the moment scientists are looking for new ways to treat cancer – including vaccines.Maybe one day – probably a long way in the future – we’ll be able to prevent cancer rather than have to treat it.
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