Alternative cancer treatments
Since the 1940s, medical science has developed chemotherapy, radiation therapy, adjuvant therapy and the newer targeted therapies, as well as refined surgical techniques for removing cancer. Before the development of these modern, evidence-based treatments, 90% of cancer patients died within five years. With modern mainstream treatments, only 34% of cancer patients die within five years. However, while mainstream forms of cancer treatment generally prolong life or permanently cure cancer, most treatments also have side effects ranging from unpleasant to fatal, such as pain, blood clots, fatigue, and infection. These side effects and the lack of a guarantee that treatment will be successful create appeal for alternative treatments for cancer, which purport to cause fewer side effects or to increase survival rates despite evidence to suggest a 2–5 fold increase in death with alternative medicines.
Experimental cancer treatment
Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene activity that are not caused by changes in the DNA sequence, often a result of environmental or dietary damage to the histone receptors within the cell. Current research has shown that epigenetic pharmaceuticals could be a putative replacement or adjuvant therapy for currently accepted treatment methods such as radiation and chemotherapy, or could enhance the effects of these current treatments. It has been shown that the epigenetic control of the proto-onco regions and the tumor suppressor sequences by conformational changes in histones directly affects the formation and progression of cancer. Epigenetics also has the factor of reversibility, a characteristic that other cancer treatments do not offer.