ABSTRACT
Cancer is caused by uncontrolled growth and spreading of abnormal cells. Cancer
seriously threatens human health and it is a leading cause of death. WHO
predicted that the global cancer rate will increase by 50% to 15 million by
2020. Despite of seriousness, there has been no significant progress in cancer
treatment in the past 50 years with US cancer death rate of 1.9390/00 of the total
population in 1950 and still 1.9400/00 in 2001. Also, the way we diagnose and
treat cancer has been very much like that we did 30 years ago: surgery followed
by radiotherapy and chemotherapy. If the treatment fails, the patient can have
only less than 10% chance to survive.We are in crises in thewar against cancer. It
is until recent years that the cancer death rate began to drop down for example to
1.7840/00 in 2007, 1.7550/00 in 2008 and 1.7360/00 in 2009. This is largely benefited
from the significant achievements in cellular and molecular biology, from which,
new cancer-diagnostic and therapeutic techniques began to be developed. The
new technologies including nanotechnology bring mew hope to the twenty-first
century medicine.
