‘The target against cancer must be the first cell’
Worldwide, 20 million people are diagnosed with cancer every year and nearly 10 million die from cancer. As scientific studies against cancer treatment continued uninterrupted, Prof. Dr., the director of myelodysplastic syndromes at Columbia University, USA, to Turkey at the invitation of the Cancer Fighters Association. Dr Azra Raza says studies on the treatment are being conducted in several lanes. “We need to focus on finding the cancer’s first cell in the body rather than trying to treat cancer in the final stages,” said Prof. Dr. “Today we are trying to treat the last cancer cell, but cancer starts with the first cell. Early diagnosis in cancer treatment offers significant success, but even in the stages we call early stage, cancers cannot be detected at an early enough stage. With a $1 trillion budget, we should be able to do better treatments and more than we do today. Today we’re trying to treat the last cell and we’re pouring millions of dollars into this, but we need to focus our investments on finding the first cell, on early diagnosis.”
Perspective needs to change
The famous oncologist Prof. Dr. Raza said, “I’m not saying you should never use chemotherapy. This is the only way we can heal people, and I give my patients these classic treatments. We just need to broaden our perspective. Moreover, these treatments are not equally accessible to people all over the world. As scientists, we are responsible for all the people of the world. Animal testing should be used to investigate tumor biology. There are many mice in the New York subway, but none of them are cancer, we make the mice cancer first and then we try to cure them. We are already treating leukemia in mice, but it is still difficult to cure it in humans with current treatments. Working on mice is not enough. Instead, we should be working with human tissue. Over the years, our team has collected and documented more than 60 thousand blood, nail, hair and bone marrow samples. Our goal here is to find the first cell and save the cancer-free patient and, in a way, protect against cancer.”
nightstand
Founder of the Cancer Fighters Association, Co-Chairman Prof. Dr. Mustafa Cetiner, Prof. Dr. He said Azra Raza’s book ‘First Cell’, in which he offers a different perspective on cancer research, should be a nighttime book for medical students and researchers. Çetiner said: “We have come a long way in cancer research with what has been done so far, but we need to accelerate. Current treatments have contributed enormously, bringing many people back to life. But now we need to take it a step further.” than the treatment.”If we can prevent the formation of cancer, this will be a real medical revolution,” he said.