Big fleas have little fleas
upon their backs to bite ’em.
And little fleas have littler fleas
… and so, ad infinitum-Ogden Nash
This is not to suggest that “cancer” does not exist – obviously it does, as I know very well from personal experience. However, it is a myth that “cancer” exists as a single syndrome. A few weeks ago, I read a newspaper opinion piece by Simon Jenkins, arguing precisely this point: we should stop talking about “cancer” as a generic, and instead speak of a particular cancer.
The more I learn about cancer, with particular reference to my own variant, a GIST (GastroIintestinal Stromal Tumour), the more I am reminded of the above verse by Ogden Nash. Just as “big fleas” have “little fleas”, so “cancer” is an umbrella term for a range of sub-types: carcinomas, lymphomas, and more. Then just as “little fleas” have “littler fleas”, so these divisions in turn have smaller sub-divisions: sarcomas for instance, which I know best, include GISTs, but also bone sarcomas and other soft-tissue sarcomas. As for “ad infinitum”, GISTs too have a range of variants, based on the specific mutations, such as the c-kit mutations Exon 11 (mine), Exon 9, Exon 13, Exon 17. In addition, there are a range of mutations to the PDGFRA gene, collectively known as “wild type”, because they are not so easily classified, But this term is itself misleading, because “wild type” is not a single GIST type, but an umbrella term of its own.
“…… and so, ad infinitum”.
Can we now stop thinking in terms of “cancer”, and be more specific with our language?