How many mutations does a stage 4 cancer have ?
Friday, January 1st, 2010 at
2:58 am
Cherry V asked:
What are they and where ?
Does a stage one cancer have less mutations
and therefore more easy to kill?
Are stage 4 cancers resistant to chemo and radiation ?
do some types of cancer have a natural resistance
to chemo and radiation ?
What causes this?
Is it in the genes?
Tagged with: Cancer Treatment • Cancers • Chemo • Genes • Mutations • Natural Resistance • Pancreatic Cancer • Radiation • Stage 4 Cancer • Stage One • Types Of Cancer
Filed under: Cancer
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Stage 4 Lung Cancer
You are mixing up stage and grade of tumor. A stage refers to the progression of the disease . .how much it has grown, spread, or metastasized . . what you are asking about is the grade of the tumor which refers to how mutated the cancer cells look under a microscope. The more mutated the cancer cell, in general, the more aggressive the disease. Thus . . even if a cancer patient has a stage 1 cancer, if the grade of the tumor (how mutated the cells are) is high or aggressive than he is dealing with a deadly disease . . the cancer could progress very quickly into a stage 2, 3, or 4. People often mistakenly think that if they are a stage 1 or stage 2 than the cancer is not ‘as serious’ . .however what the Stage of the cancer really means is in reference to TREATMENT . . it is easier to treat a smaller stage 1 cancer than it is to treat a metastatic stage IV.
As for your other questions . . it is likely that a stage one cancer . . because it is early in the progression of disease will have less mutations than a late stage cancer . . but again, it has nothing to do with stage . . it is the grade of the tumor type.
Stage 4 cancers are not resistant to chemotherapy or radiation. Many patients with stage IV cancers have been treated successfully. In general a stage IV cancer is more difficult to treat because there is more cancer to treat . . it has spread in the body . . so it is like trying to put out little fires all over the body . . you take care of one area only to have cancer pop up somewhere else. But the answer is . . no . . stage IV cancer is not resistant to treatments. My son was diagnosed with stage IV disease and was treated successfully with chemotherapy and surgery for two years (he was no evidence of disease, his type of cancer responded to chemo and shrunk significantly.
As for cancer becoming resistant to chemo . . there is a possibility that this is happening . . cancer evolves . . it is our own DNA and what seeems to happen is that tumors that are not killed 100 percent have left over cancer cells that do not respond to the type of chemo first used. That is why they use different chemos .. searching for the magic bullet. But every body is unique . . every DNA is unique . . and every cancer is unique, making it extremely difficult to come up with a treatment that will fit everyone.
It isn’t the genes necessarily . . it is that cancer is our own DNA cells . .it isn’t something foreign in the body . . and the cells have mutated and as they grow they mutate even more . . so it is a progression of disease . . an evolution of disease. There is no ‘natural resistance’ . . its just that each individual needs to have a treatment tailored specifically for them because their cancer is unique. If a ‘natural resistance’ existed than you would see this results across all patients . .but you don’t . . some patients cancers respond to the treatment, while others do not because of their own unique body chemistry.