Progress in cancer

Article Abstract:

Progress has been made in the fight against cancer since 1971, when the National Cancer Act was passed. The greatest scientific advances have been in cancer genetics, cellular communication, biological response modifiers and molecular immunology. Oncogene research has shown how specific chromosomal abnormalities play a role in causing certain cancers. Under certain conditions oncogenes, virally introduced variants of normal cell genes, have the ability to change normal cells into cancer cells. Physicians are paying more attention to cancer prevention. Improved imaging technologies have improved the ability to determine the stage of the cancer and choose the appropriate treatment. There is a new understanding of the process of tumor metastasis (spread); not all tumor cells spread and the metastatic potential varies among various cells of a tumor. Great improvements have been made in chemotherapy. In cancers that can be cured by combination chemotherapy, tumor relapse is seen to be due to the large fraction of drug-resistant cells that exist in clinically disseminated cancer. DNA ploidy (the number of chromosome sets in a cell) can be important in determining prognosis; flow cytometric analysis determines DNA content. Advances have been made in early diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer, with screening mammography and breast-preserving surgery. Rectal cancer treatment now includes adjuvant radiotherapy as standard treatment. For colon cancer adjuvant therapy has not been successful. Recently, however, treatment with levamisole and fluorouracil reduced the risk of recurrence, and overall death rate was reduced by 33 percent. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Research, Cancer research, Colorectal cancer, Breast cancer

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Reflections of a cancer observer

Article Abstract:

Reflections based on observing and treating patients with cancer over the past 38 years are presented in the Hayes Martin Memorial Lecture. Cancer has been observed and described for over 5,000 years; during most of this time there has been little in the way of effective treatment available. Treatment ranged from ointments, purges, blood letting, incantations and surgery. The trend in treatment today is to tailor the treatment to the patient; there are more conservative surgical procedures being performed. This should not mean that cancerous tissue is left behind. All too often the margins of surgically removed cancers are very close to the tumor in the hope that radiation therapy will cure what is left behind by surgery. Today various combinations of surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy and immunotherapy are used to increase cure rates. We do not know why some people survive and others do not. We are all exposed to cancer-causing agents, yet not all of us develop cancer. Often questions are asked many years or centuries before they are able to be answered. Conscientious physicians not only educate themselves but their patients. It has been estimated that 75 percent of all human cancers could be avoided by a modification of diet and reduction of exposure to cancer-causing agents. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

History, Surgery, Medical research, transcript

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Gastric cancer

Article Abstract:

The overall cure rate for stomach cancer has changed relatively little in the United States over the last 30 years, largely because patients only bring themselves to medical attention when the cancer is relatively advanced. The few symptoms of stomach cancer, its low incidence in the general population and the lack of low-cost screening methods suggest that improvements in the rate of early detection are unlikely. The key to improved survival of the later stages of this cancer lies in a better understanding of the patterns and biology of the spread of the cancer, improved techniques for categorizing different stages of the cancer around the time of surgery to treat it and improved multi-method treatments for the disease in the stomach itself and throughout the body. A new system for categorizing the stages of the disease is proposed, as are studies of multiple treatments of patients who are unlikely to be cured by surgery alone.

Stomach cancer

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