A lot of people that have been through the cancer triathlon believe that chemotherapy will be considered as barbaric to our grandchildren as blood-letting is to us.
Chemotherapy targets all cells and maybe we should only be targeting a few cells instead. The Cancer Stem Cell Hypothesis has been around since the 1950s but it has been considered a fringe idea.
Healthy stem cells can give rise to any tissue found in the body and thus provide nearly limitless potential for regenerative medical applications.
Now there is proof that blood cancers, brain and breast tumors are made up of two types of cancer cells. A small percentage of the tumor are cancerous stem cells that generate the multiple cells that actually make up the larger mass. So the real problem in breast cancer is cancer stem cells
Stem cell research is definitely controversial and a potential ethical dilemma. However, if research can help us to single out and destroy the stem cells that cause cancer; I vote for stem cell research.
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