Can Cancer Be Prevented?

How Do People Know They Have Cancer?
Many symptoms of cancer such as weight loss, fever, fatigue, and various kinds of lumps could also be caused by other diseases. Some cancers may cause no symptoms until they have spread. Based on the most commonly occurring cancers, the American Cancer Society publishes a list of seven warning signs of cancer. These symptoms do not mean that a person has cancer, but if they occur, a person should see the doctor:

Change in bowel or bladder habits (for instance diarrhea that does not go away or pain on urination)
A sore anywhere on the skin that does not heal
Unusual bleeding or discharge from the nose, mouth, skin, nipple, or vagina
A thickening or lump in the breast or elsewhere
Indigestion or difficulty in swallowing
Obvious changes in a wart or mole
Nagging cough, particularly if these symptoms occur in a cigarette smoker.
Eating for Health
The American Cancer Society recommends the following general nutritional guidelines to help people stay healthy:

Choosing most foods from plant sources such as vegetables, fruits, and grains
Limiting intake of high-fat foods, especially from animal sources
Staying physically active
Maintaining a healthy weight
Limiting consumption of alcoholic beverages
How Is Cancer Diagnosed and Treated?
Diagnosis
Diagnosing cancer involves removing some tissue for evaluation. This procedure is called a biopsy (BY-op-see). Once the diagnosis is made, a treatment plan is put together. To do that, it is necessary to determine how widespread the disease is, and how serious. "Staging" the disease means assigning letters and numbers to it as a way of indicating whether it has spread and how far. There are several systems for staging, depending on the type of cancer. Generally speaking, the smaller the tumor, the more curable it is, although some cancer can be unpredictable. The outlook for some cancers, for example, leukemia and lymphoma, is judged according to other criteria. Cancer is classified by the part of the body in which it began and by how it looks under a microscope.

Chemotherapy uses anticancer drugs to treat cancer. Chemotherapy drugs are given through a vein or by mouth as pills. These drugs enter the bloodstream and reach places in the body that surgery and radiation cannot reach. Chemotherapy often is given for cancer that has spread.

Treatment
Treatment for cancer includes surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy (kee-mo-THER-a-pee), alone or together. Because different types of cancer vary in how fast they grow, where they spread, and how they respond to treatment, treatment is specifically tailored to the kind of cancer a person has.

Surgery is the oldest form of treatment for cancer, and it still offers the greatest chance of cure for many kinds of cancer. About 60 percent of patients with cancer will have some type of surgery.
Radiation therapy uses high-energy particles or waves to damage cancer cells that surgery cannot catch because they are too small.
Chemotherapy uses anticancer drugs to treat cancer. Chemotherapy drugs are given through a vein (also called an intravenous or IV line) or by mouth as pills. These drugs enter the bloodstream and reach places in the body that surgery and radiation cannot reach. Chemotherapy is often given for cancer that has spread.
Another kind of therapy interferes with the production of substances in the blood called hormones (HOR-mones) that stimulate certain kinds of cells (for example, cells in the breast) to grow.

Will There Ever Be a Cure for All Cancers?
Every day researchers learn a little more about how the cell works, and many of these discoveries are being applied to cancer research. Many current therapies have side effects because they kill healthy cells as well as cancer cells or affect the function of other parts of the body. So one area of research scientists are working on is therapies that will kill only cancer cells and that will leave healthy cells alone. Another area of research is investigating ways of helping the body's own defense system to fight cancer. Scientists are also exploring substances in food or drugs that will prevent cancer from developing in the first place.

Can Cancer Be Prevented?
There is no way to prevent cancers children get. But many cancers that occur in adults could be prevented by changes in a person's lifestyle. For example, cancers caused by cigarette smoking and drinking a lot of alcohol could be prevented completely. Limiting certain kinds of foods, such as red meats and animal fats, and eating lots of fruits and legumes (such as peas and lentils) may help reduce the risk of getting many cancers. Physical activity helps to avoid obesity and may have other protective effects against cancer. Most of the one million skin cancers that are diagnosed each year could be avoided by staying out of the sun.

Regular cancer checks, called screenings, for cancer of the breast, colon, rectum, cervix, prostate, testes, mouth, and skin are an effective way of detecting cancer early enough to be treated successfully. In addition, self-examination for breast and skin cancers also helps to detect tumors at earlier stages. The American Cancer Society estimates that if all Americans participated in regular cancer screenings, survival would be dramatically improved