Cancer is not scary, it is scary when it is discovered. Many early cancers have the opportunity to be cured. Even if it is like the so-called "king of cancer" pancreatic cancer , if it can be discovered in a very early stage (phase 1) and treated in a timely manner, its 5-year survival rate can reach more than 70% or 80%, and the median survival time can be close to 10 years.
Most advanced cancers cannot be cured, and the long-term survival rate is generally low. Pancreatic cancer, which makes everyone feel scared, once the median survival time is only about one and a half years old.
The most important reason why pancreatic cancer is called the "king of cancer" is that it is difficult to detect early, and the other is that there is no effective treatment method in the late stage and the survival time is short.
What should I do? Is there really nothing to do?
In advanced cancer, cancer cells have metastasized and spread, and it is unrealistic to rely on surgery to directly eliminate cancer cells by relying on drugs. This is the traditional idea and the most mainstream practice at present. For advanced pancreatic cancer, there is currently a lack of effective anti-cancer drugs, and the worst thing about this strategy is that while killing the enemy, it is inevitable to hurt yourself. Anti-cancer is like fighting a war. There is no price to pay for when fighting, and war is a bit cruel.
You might as well change your thinking. Cancer cells are actually transformed from normal cells. Just as bad people are transformed from good people, in addition to finding ways to eliminate cancer cells that have become bad, is it possible for us to transform bad cells (cancer cells) and make them turn back? The answer is yes.
The most typical example of is the induction and differentiation therapy of acute promyelocytic leukemia , that is, chemotherapy does not use "toxic" to kill cancer cells, but uses a chemical drug called all-trans retinoic acid to induce cancer cells to redifferentiate into normal cells. Through this treatment, leukemia has been successfully cured, making acute promyelocytic leukemia, once regarded as the most dangerous leukemia, the world's first curable leukemia.
allows malignant cells to differentiate into normal cells, turning bad people back into evil, perfect, simple, not too perfect!
Is there any possibility for other malignant tumors?
Along this line of thought, similar studies are actually not uncommon. Faced with the "cancer king" of pancreatic cancer, after continuous exploration and research, scientists finally made new discoveries. On June 29 this year, the top journal " Nature " published an important research result:
GREM1 protein is very important for the occurrence and development of pancreatic cancer. If GREM1 is inactivated, pancreatic epithelial cells can become pancreatic cancer cells (mesenchymalization) within a few days; and if GREM1 is overexpressed in cancer cells, almost all cancer cells will become "epithelialized", and the process of interstitial epithelialization occurs. In the end, pancreatic cancer, which is already "extremely evil", turns into a low-malignant cyst, and the "cancer king" becomes a good person!
is incredible!
How scientists discovered the functions of GREM1, which is too professional, so I won’t discuss it here. As long as you know, the research has discovered a crucial GREM1 gene/ protein . If the Grem1 gene is inactivated, pancreatic cancer will run wildly in the direction of "bad", with the degree of malignancy and metastasis increasing; if you can find a way to overexpress the Grem1 gene, under its "command", the "pancreatic cancer" that has become bad may turn into a good cystic tumor, which is much easier to deal with. That is to say, by manipulating the level of GREM1, may reverse the growth and spread of cells of pancreatic cancer.
Of course, this is still just basic research, and it is still far from what we want to achieve. Whether the basic research results of this type of cell and animal experiments are still the same mechanism and principle, and whether it has the same effect is unknown, and further research is needed.But at least it has opened up a new idea for the treatment of pancreatic cancer, and also provided us with important directions and inspiration:
For evil-turned cancer cells, on the one hand, we must continue to study how to more effectively eliminate it (chemotherapy, targeted drug treatment, immunotherapy , etc.). On the other hand, we must also devote more energy to studying how to transform it so that it becomes less evil, and even abandon evil and do good. Elimination and transformation are both possible!
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