Cancer is a functional repair tissue

When a wound occurs, growth and repair genes (GR genes, such as oncogenes, proto-oncogenes, etc.) in surrounding cells are activated and secretion of growth and repair factors (GR factors, such as growth, stem cell, and stimulating factors, etc.) is induced to heat the wound. However, if the wound is persistent due to chronic physical (radiation, electromagnetic field, trauma, particles, etc.), chemical (carcinogens, toxic chemicals, heavy metals etc.) or biological (aging, free radicals, inflammation, nutrient deficiency, bacteria and virus infections, stress, etc.) damage, amplification of GR gene activation in surrounding cells may lead to a clinical cancer. Based on the commonalities between cancer and wound heating, a new hypothesis of cancer is presented: malignancies are not passive mutated useless masses; rather, they are functional tissues produced by GR gene activation to secrete GR factors in an effort to heat persistent wounds in the body. Based on the hypothesis, current cancer treatments aimed at killing cancer cells only may be misguided. The logical extension of the hypothesis is that cancer treatment focused on wound heating by limiting causes of persistent wounds, providing repair cells, GR factors, and substrates required by repair cells may yield more fruitful results than treatments focused on killing cancer cells atone. Spontaneous regressions of cancer, although rare, may be successful examples of serendipitous spontaneous wound heating. Standard therapies aimed at killing cancer cells, should be limited to adjuvant status for limiting symptoms or buying time for completion of the wound heating process. Attempts to destroy cancer cells without heating underlying persistent wounds will allow for eventual recurrence. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.