Roadblocks In The Pursuit Of Sustainable Development Goals: Understanding The Complexities Of Cancer And mTOR Pathway

The United Nations have included good health and well-being for ensuring healthy lives for all at all ages as their third sustainable development goal. According to this goal, they want to decrease premature deaths due to non-communicable diseases by one third by the year 2030 through prevention and treatment. Four major Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) that includes cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, cancer and chronic respiratory disease are the leading cause of death globally. The risk of premature death or long term disability associated with NCDs has put the economic and health systems of nations at stress. It is also noteworthy to mention that the NCDs could be a major roadblock in the path to achieve sustainable development by 2030. The present article focuses on one of the four leading NCDs that is cancer. Among the large group of diseases, cancer affects almost any organ in our body. Here abnormal cells proliferate uncontrollably and may invade many other healthy tissues and turn them into malignant cells. On the global scale, it is the second leading cause of death with nearly 10 million deaths in the year 2020. Lung, prostate, colorectal, stomach and liver cancer are the most common class of cancer in men, while breast, colorectal, lung, cervical and thyroid cancer are the most common in women. Patient, their families, society in general and the health care system has been put under tremendous pressure and burden by cancer. There is lot of physical, emotional and financial pressure on patients and their families. The main issue of this disease is that it is diagnosed at late stage usually. The patients in low- and middle-income countries, do not get proper diagnosis and treatment facilities. This review article focuses on the mTOR pathway in relation to cancer and the inhibitors of the pathway.