When investigating a disease, one ought to consider three issues:
1. Disease manifestation.
2. What drives the disease?
3. Treatment objectives.

Medicine postulates that:
1. Cancer is manifested by a growing tumor and cachexia.  The growing tumor impinges on organ functions an seeds metastases. Patient dies either from organ failure or cachexia.
2. Cancer is driven by  errors in cell control and replication.
3. Treatment ought to remove the tumor as soon as possible.

While cancer manifestation are facts observed during  its evolution , the other two issues are interpretations  of the observed facts. They are hypotheses based on the facts.

The main confusion of modern medicine originates from its failure to distinguish between facts and interpretation.  In most patients medicine fails to meet its treatment objectives. Despite intensive treatment most cancer patients die, which  suggests that the recommended treatment might be  based on a wrong interpretation  of observed facts.

The following interpretation is based on  Galen's  principle:  Nothing is done by Nature in vain which contradicts medicine's view that  cancer is driven by errors in cell control and replication.  All along its evolution, cancer is controlled by WOB. At any instant WOB adjusts processes so as to minimize the harm of the disease. This process adjustment is called here  WOB solution.  The modern version of Galen's principle  states that at any instant WOB solution is optimal.

Issues 2, and 3 are rephrased as follows:

2. While medicine regards cancer and tumor as identical, they are not. Cachexia is an important independent factor of cancer. Cancer is driven by a an ongoing  infection which destroys stem cells  and initiates cachexia.  Tumor is regarded here as a WOB solution created to resist cachexia.

3. The physician has to work out a compromise between WOB demands to let the tumor grow and its damage to organs. Treatment objectives are to slow down  cancer progression.

The details are explained in the following articles:

1. Cancer begins as a systemic disease
2. How to slow down cancer progression?
3. Infection drives cancer
4. Inflammatory cancers.
5. Cancer is a metabolic deficiency.
6. Pernicious cachexia
7. Cancer-Yogi

Epilogue

You might compare this reasoning with  that of diabetes mellitus. Both are similar. They differ only in their disease specific details. Similar reasoning is applicable  to any disease. The framework consists of the three issues mentioned above. The details specifying a disease are  parameters of this framework. Together they may serve for a new and consistent classification of diseases.

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