Relevance: mains: G.S: paper III: Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology.
Why in News?
- A study has found that it is now possible to tell in advance if a person with oral cancer of the gum and cheek has lymph node metastasis even before surgery is undertaken.
What are biomarkers?
- Biomarkers are molecules that indicate normal or abnormal process taking place in your body and may be a sign of an underlying condition or disease.
- Various types of molecules, such as DNA (genes), proteins or hormones, can serve as biomarkers, since they all indicate something about your health.
- Biomarkers may be produced by the cancer tissue itself or by other cells in the body in response to cancer.
- They can be found in the blood, stool, urine, tumor tissue, or other tissues or bodily fluids.
- Notably, biomarkers are not limited to cancer.
- There are biomarkers for heart disease, multiple sclerosis, and many other diseases.
What are the uses of Biomarkers?
Medical use of Biomarkers
- Biomarkers can be used to find out:
What will happen to you when you use a particular treatment
- Or don’t use the treatment and
- The risk of you developing certain medical conditions. Diagnostic use of Biomarkers
- An example of a diagnostic use of biomarkers is the measurement of biomarkers in blood to tell if you’ve had a heart attack.
- Measuring the levels of enzymes, hormones and proteins in your blood enables a doctor to determine the severity of your heart attack and how much damage your heart has suffered.
What is Cancer?
- Cancer is the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells anywhere in a body.
- There are over 200 types of cancer.
- Anything that may cause a normal body cell to develop abnormally potentially can cause cancer.
- General categories of cancer-related or causative agents are as follows: chemical or toxic compound exposures, ionizing radiation, some pathogens, and human genetics.
- Although there are many tests to screen and presumptively diagnose cancer, the definite diagnosis is made by examination of a biopsy sample of suspected cancer tissue.
Cancer staging is usually determined by numbering it from 1 to 4.
- Most treatments include at least one of the following and may include all: surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy.
What is Metastasis?
- Metastasis means that cancer spreads to a different body part from where it started.
- It is also called “metastatic cancer,” “advanced cancer,” or “stage 4 cancer.”
- For example, a cancer that is large but has not spread to another body part can also be called advanced cancer or locally advanced cancer.