When will cancer be cured?
Derek Lowe has a very good article on cancer in his blog today. His succinct writing style conveys information more clearly in half the words I would use.
A fairly simple concept but one that seems very hard to get across to the lay public is that there is no disease called cancer. Or to be more clear--there's no single disease. What we call cancer is actually not a disease so much as a variety of causes, some understood and some not, which result in uncontrolled growth by cells. As one of the commentators on Derek's blog points out, most of these have a common element of angiogenesis (growth and expansion of blood vessels to 'feed' the tumor) but there's little else in common between cancer types.
Why is this important? Well, often people ask me when my job comes up (cancer research) in conversation if there'll be a cure for cancer soon. But since there's not just one cancer, there can't be one cure. Each type needs to be addressed separately and that means that there is a long, long road ahead of cancer researchers and medical investigators. It also means that anyone giving time estimates for cures is usually engaging in politics not medicine or science--unless they're talking about a cure or treatment for one specific type of cancer.
The reseach I'm engaged in relates to breast cancer and how tumors respond to angiogenesis inhibiting drugs like taxol. These drugs prevent tumors from forming new blood vessels which in turn prevents them from growing. This of course doesn't address metastatic processes--that's another area entirely. Another issue in breast cancer is that a women can have genetically identical tumors decades apart--even when she's been determined to be tumor free after the first incidence of cancer. This indicates that cancer producing tumors exist in a state that can't easily be found, and are metabolically inactive, and that they can stay in that state for long periods of time. Obviously at some point they can become active by inducing angiogenesis. Research is in an early stage at determining how this occurs, why the latency, what signal is made to change the tumor, et cetera.
When will cancer be cured? All I can say is not soon but that there has been a Hell of a lot of progress on many types of cancer and more progress is being made every day.
A fairly simple concept but one that seems very hard to get across to the lay public is that there is no disease called cancer. Or to be more clear--there's no single disease. What we call cancer is actually not a disease so much as a variety of causes, some understood and some not, which result in uncontrolled growth by cells. As one of the commentators on Derek's blog points out, most of these have a common element of angiogenesis (growth and expansion of blood vessels to 'feed' the tumor) but there's little else in common between cancer types.
Why is this important? Well, often people ask me when my job comes up (cancer research) in conversation if there'll be a cure for cancer soon. But since there's not just one cancer, there can't be one cure. Each type needs to be addressed separately and that means that there is a long, long road ahead of cancer researchers and medical investigators. It also means that anyone giving time estimates for cures is usually engaging in politics not medicine or science--unless they're talking about a cure or treatment for one specific type of cancer.
The reseach I'm engaged in relates to breast cancer and how tumors respond to angiogenesis inhibiting drugs like taxol. These drugs prevent tumors from forming new blood vessels which in turn prevents them from growing. This of course doesn't address metastatic processes--that's another area entirely. Another issue in breast cancer is that a women can have genetically identical tumors decades apart--even when she's been determined to be tumor free after the first incidence of cancer. This indicates that cancer producing tumors exist in a state that can't easily be found, and are metabolically inactive, and that they can stay in that state for long periods of time. Obviously at some point they can become active by inducing angiogenesis. Research is in an early stage at determining how this occurs, why the latency, what signal is made to change the tumor, et cetera.
When will cancer be cured? All I can say is not soon but that there has been a Hell of a lot of progress on many types of cancer and more progress is being made every day.
Comments
I'll be back.
Visiting from Michele's
Someone close to me was recently 'cleared' of breast cancer and we're all hoping for the best. You're post is now sending me on yet another search for information.
Why does it start and how come it sometimes stop? Still you keep searching finding answers bit by bit, long studies and long work for pinning down facts that can help treating one cancer or another.
We gather,from what you say,that it's not all for tomorrow.
Nice site/blog - this post! I had to take a second look just to be sure if the focus I was looking for - cancer, relates to the site I saw on http://www.mymangosteen.com/jvcnetwork. I'm just doing some research on sites like http://www.mymangosteen.com/jvcnetwork, with other keywords like cancer but yours still intrigued me.
When you get a chance check out that site! It sure got my attention!
I like your site/blog - this post. It caught my attention, but it may not be exactly what I am looking for. I've got to review your site again, so I'll bookmark it and be back. I am actually looking for sites like http://www.mymangosteen.com/jvcnetwork, with keywords focusing on fibromyalgia.
Check it out to see what I mean - http://www.mymangosteen.com/jvcnetwork, but I will be back to get another look at you site.
I was looking for sites/blogs with keywords like chronic inflammation or something like that. Your this post however caught my attention! Nice one, I'm impressed! However, it may not be exactly what I saw on http://www.mymangosteen.com/jvcnetwork, but I'm glad I stopped by!
If you're curious, like I was, check it out - http://www.mymangosteen.com/jvcnetwork, you may want to find out more! Well got to go. I may stop by again though!