Are all the different cancers really that different or is it all just cancer and we just specify where it formed?
In: Biology
Cancers really are that different, though they are similar in ways that are unrelated to the current naming system. The way we name them is leftover from a time when we truly had no understanding of what caused them, so we classified them by location and tissue type affected.
If we were to scrap the old system and start over, we would probably classify them differently. And I think we should because it would allow it to be taught at a lower educational level. If we could the push cancer biology down to, say, upper level undergraduate coursework, we could make a lot more progress.
I am not conversant enough in cancer biology to do it myself. But I think it would still identify the starting tissue, then maybe the cell cycle phase/biological pathway(s) involved, and whether it results in gain or loss of function, and then you’d still need to include the extent of spread.
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