Rethinking Cancer

The Foundation for Advancement in Cancer Therapy (FACT) has long worked to educate cancer patients about alternative therapies, enabling them to make informed decisions on treatment options. Unfortunately, there still remains a major gap in the distribution of information. To meet this challenge, Ruth Sackman has written Rethinking Cancer. Here, you'll find pertinent information on a wide range of topics, including the role of nutrition in health and strategies for achieving detoxification. The author provides both valid research and specific advice.

Leading scientists argue for a new paradigm for cancer research, proposing a complex systems view of cancer supported by empirical evidence. Current consensus in cancer research explains cancer as a disease caused by specific mutations in certain genes. After dramatic advances in genome sequencing, never before have we known so much about the individual cancer cell--and yet never before has it been so unclear what to do with this knowledge. In this volume, leading researchers argue for a new theory framework for understanding and treating cancer. The contributors propose a complex systems view of cancer, presenting conceptual building blocks for a new research paradigm supported by empirical evidence. The contributors first discuss the new research framework in terms of theoretical foundations and then take up the relevance of a systems approach, reviewing such topics as nonlinearity, recurrence after treatment, the cellular attractor concept, network theory, and non-coding DNA--the "dark matter" of our genome. They address the temporality of cancer progression, drawing on evolutionary theory and clinical experience. Finally, they cover the dominant role of the tissue microenvironment in cancer, analyzing topics including altered metabolic pathways, the disease-defining influence on metastasis, and the interconnectedness of different environmental niches across levels of organization.

"Steps toward an explanatory paradigm for cancer that integrates its different levels of organization (molecular, genetic, etc.) and also integrates theoretical and experimental biology with oncology"--

"The experiences of the families rang true throughout. I have experienced many of these personally. ...It made me think differently about my personal experience as a parent of a child with cancer and my son's current social experiences." Macmillan Cancer Support This book offers a radical critique of existing psychosocial research on children’s experiences of cancer and proposes an alternative view informed by recent interpretive perspectives. Exploring topics from obtaining a diagnosis of childhood cancer through to sharing decision-making and communication, it reviews a wide-ranging body of research and theory on childhood, chronic illness, and cancer. The book also examines research that has focused on how parents and other family members experience childhood illness. Written by a sociologist, a psychologist and a practising paediatric oncologist, this book is unique in its approach and provides key reading across traditional disciplinary boundaries. In particular, the book highlights the emerging contribution of interpretive work to understanding chronic childhood illness and further develops the dialogue that has only recently emerged between the sociology of illness and the sociology of childhood. Rethinking Experiences of Childhood Cancer is aimed at researchers, students and practitioners in the fields of social science, childhood studies, nursing, medicine, mental health care, social work, clinical psychology and other professions allied to medicine, and will also be of interest to families who have been affected by childhood cancer.

This exciting SpringerBrief presents evidence for new ideas that will challenge several theories of how cancer biology is understood. Cancer biology has undergone several intellectual revolutions in the past 50 years. A mutation-centric view of cancer has given way to the tumor microenvironment view. Reductionistic studies of one gene at a time have given way to systems biology approaches that analyze the whole genome (omics) at the same time. However, this text combines the complex levels studying cancer at the molecular biology level, endocrinology level, and transcriptomics level. What researchers are now realizing is that there is a need to combine omics with physiology concepts in order to better understand cancer and this book will give insight to the merging of these two fields in order to define how cancer is studied in the future.​

This thesis describes the authors’ pioneering efforts in the conceptualization and implementation of combined platinum-based immuno-chemotherapeutics, which represent a significant paradigm shift from the conventional approach of directly targeting cancer. The work described has opened up a rich and largely unexplored area for platinum-based drug design, and ultimately paves the way for superior immuno-chemotherapeutics with better clinical outcome for patients. Historically, the contribution of the immune system to chemotherapy outcomes has been neglected, as anticancer drugs were believed to be immunosuppressive. However, this has been challenged by contemporary evidence suggesting that many chemotherapeutics, including platinum-based agents, stimulate the innate and/or adaptive immune system and that these “secret allies” contribute tangibly to clinical outcomes. A multi-pronged immuno-chemotherapeutic approach not only shrinks tumors, but more importantly, reactivate dormant immune responses to malignancies, eliminating residual cancer cells.

THIS BOOK IS MANY THINGS AT ONCE. It is a guide to: avoiding cancer; managing side effects and thriving during cancer treatment; complementary treatments that can supplement and make traditional Western treatments more effective; staying sane, alive, and positive during the journey; and facing the end of life with an open, positive frame of mind. How we prevent and treat cancer falls woefully short of what we need as humans. This book is a manifesto on rethinking cancer care to make it more effective and sheds light on how empathy is the compass we need to turn the situation around.

Every expert in journalism and politics has jumped into the arena of thought with a multitude of books on their opinions The Book `FOCUS' is a look at Arrogance and Greed as an American cancer, it applies analytical engineering skills to humanities problems in today's world from an engineer's stand point, that of an everyday citizen; a `Joe plumber', whose had all we can take of being told we are un-American by our politicians, it intends to speak out on behalf of the everyday citizen who may have serious doubts as to what is what. It offers solutions which seem to be logical and somewhat easy to see. Though easy to see they require a major rethinking of the constitution to fit the modern society's situation. Simply tired of talk show host and media moguls pointing out the problems but shy of offering difficult solutions for which they could be held accountable. Engineers or Plumbers just aren't satisfied with finding a cause of the problem, but are about fixing it. That sometimes requires redesign or fix, correcting design errors. But we do eventually FIX IT. The Lawyer wants arbitration until either a compromise or settlement occurs. Media Moguls want to have an endless supply of Sensational Stories. Politics may be how it sounds, Poly (many) + Ticks (blood suckers). Political (this or that occupation) well, draw your conclusion.