Visiting a hospital and hearing about chemotherapy is always daunting. This is because in most cases, chemotherapy is a treatment for malignant tumors, i.e. cancer. Many patients with lupus erythematosus visit hospitals, read the drug instructions and find that they are also using anti-cancer drugs and chemotherapy, and are often astonished, is lupus erythematosus also a kind of cancer? As a result, they are under great mental stress and even develop depression. For this reason, we are here to discuss why lupus erythematosus is not cancer, and why it also uses anti-cancer drugs. 1. Immune cells “turn their guns to fight themselves” Lupus erythematosus is indeed not cancer, but an autoimmune rheumatic disease. From the perspective of Western medicine, rheumatism is not a disease caused by wind and humidity, but an inflammatory disease caused by various non-infectious and non-neoplastic factors, such as lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, dermatomyositis, vasculitis, osteoarthritis, gout and so on, all belong to the category of rheumatism. Most of these rheumatic diseases are caused by “autoimmune” diseases. The so-called “autoimmune”, a simple understanding, is that the immune cells “turn the gun to hit themselves”. The immune system of the human body is like the military system of a country. Under normal circumstances, its main function is to eliminate foreign invaders, such as various bacteria and viruses; organ transplant rejection is also a reaction of the immune system in the rejection of foreign bodies; when there is a cell mutation in the body, such as the emergence of cancer cells, the immune system will also work on it to remove the mutated cells. When the immune system is disrupted and “autoimmunity” occurs, it is like an army revolting and “turning its guns around to fight itself”. In this case, the more active the immune cells are, the greater the “killing power” is, and the more serious the disease becomes. Therefore, anti-cancer drugs are needed to kill these “rebellious” immune cells. Before the 1950s, lupus was almost waiting for death; in the early 1950s, hormone therapy for lupus was started, which controlled the acute symptoms of many patients and thus prolonged their lives. In the late 1980s, anti-cancer drugs began to be used in the treatment of lupus erythematosus, which has significantly improved the efficacy, and after more than ten years of clinical research and experience, the goal of lupus erythematosus treatment in recent years has changed from “prolonging life” in the past to “inducing remission The goal of lupus erythematosus treatment in recent years has changed from “prolonging life” to “inducing remission”, so that lupus erythematosus can achieve complete remission, live as long as normal people, live as normal people and enjoy life as normal people. If the human body is compared to a city, autoimmune cells are the terrorists, the body’s own regulatory function is the security personnel, hormones are the firefighting force, and anti-cancer drugs are the armed police force. A very mild case of lupus erythematosus is like a few lunatics causing trouble in a city, and the security personnel are enough to deal with it; if the lunatics set fire to the houses, the firefighting force is needed to put out the fire; if many terrorists set fire everywhere, only the firefighting force is needed to put out the fire, and the problem cannot be solved fundamentally; if the armed police force is not mobilized to suppress the terrorists, the firefighting force can only delay and mitigate the damage to the city, and the city will eventually The city will eventually turn into ruins; critical lupus erythematosus, like a whole city full of terrorists, cannot work only by hormones (firefighting forces). Therefore, patients with severe lupus erythematosus need to be treated with anti-cancer drugs, while those with very mild lupus erythematosus do not need to be treated with anti-cancer drugs, but they must be checked regularly and their treatment needs to be adjusted if there are changes in their condition. Mild lupus erythematosus can be aggravated suddenly by cold, allergy, or no reason, just like “9/11” in New York. 3. Why anti-cancer drugs can kill “rebellious” immune cells Under normal circumstances, the number of cells in each part of the body remains relatively constant, and the balance of cell metabolism, proliferation and aging death is maintained. The so-called cancer is a tumor formed when a certain part or a certain cell in the body mutates and proliferates abnormally. The therapeutic mechanism of anti-cancer drugs is to kill those abnormally active cells. Due to the recognition of the pathological mechanism of autoimmunity in lupus erythematosus, the immune cells against oneself in the body of lupus erythematosus are very active and proliferate rapidly, thus producing a large number of autoantibodies while damaging various organs of the body. Since anti-cancer drugs have a strong killing effect on actively proliferating cells, they can kill immune cells against themselves and are effective for lupus erythematosus. Since cells with more active proliferation are more sensitive to anti-cancer drugs, while cells with inactive proliferation are not sensitive to anti-cancer drugs. Therefore, most of the cells in normal tissues in human body will not be harmed by anti-cancer drugs. The damage of anti-cancer drugs to normal cells in human body mainly causes leukopenia and gonadal damage. Leukopenia usually recovers in about 2 weeks, while gonadal damage will lead to infertility and early menopause.