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| E. Nigma... |
 Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2009 9:06 am |
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By Elizabeth Landau
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/03/03/cure.cancer.obama/index.html?eref
=rss_us
(CNN) -- President Obama's pledge to conquer cancer "in our time" is
a great goal, but one of America's top cancer experts isn't sure he'd
use the word "cure."
"The idea of [calling for] a cure does scare me a little bit because,
I don't think that's realistic in some cancers," says Dr. Otis
Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society. "But
I like the general overall idea, and I'm thrilled about the focus on
health."
Obama's first proposed budget includes $6 billion for cancer research
by the National Institutes of Health. That's on top of the additional
$10 billion provided by the stimulus package for 2009 and 2010.
But some cancer specialists say that rather than finding a cure, a
more realistic scenario is that certain cancers that are fatal today
will move into the realm of chronic illnesses.
By chronic disease, doctors mean "the way we think of diabetes or
heart disease as chronic diseases, where people could live in
peaceful coexistence with cancer, as opposed to the cancer continuing
to advance," said Brawley, who also is CNNhealth.com's conditions
expert.
Dr. Tony Reid, an oncologist and director of clinical trials at the
Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego,
shares this view. He sees the long-term management of certain cancers
as chronic illness as a "primary intermediate step" as researchers
work towards cures.
Prevention efforts, including discouraging smoking, obesity, and
environmental hazards, are also important components of the cure, Dr.
Andreas Ullrich, medical officer in cancer control at the World
Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.
How long it will actually take to cure cancer is anyone's guess, but
Obama's initiative is encouraging, he said.
"We need this hope," Ullrich said. "We need to invest in our efforts
in research, in basic research, and also in social science to
understand why people behave in a risky way, and how to prevent
people from exposing themselves to cancer risk," he said.
Given that "cancer" encompasses more than 200 diseases, it makes
sense that different varieties would require different approaches for
saving the lives of their victims.
- From Brawley's perspective, a cure happens when the disease has gone
away and it's not likely to come back, and the person is likely to
grow old and die from something totally unrelated.
Reid put it in terms of years of survival -- with pancreatic cancer,
which normally takes lives within six months of diagnosis, you're
probably cured if you're still alive five years after surgery, he
said. But breast cancer can come back even after 10 years, he said.
About 11 million people living in the United States had a history of
some form of cancer as of 2005, according to the latest statistics
from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance Epidemiology and
End Results database.
There has been progress, however. For American men, the risk of death
for cancer is 20 percent lower than it was 20 years ago, Brawley
said.
Rates of new cancer diagnoses and deaths for U.S. men and women
simultaneously fell for the first time since reporting began in 1998,
according to a report published in November in the Journal of the
National Cancer Institute. See a map of lung cancer in the U.S. from
this report »
Already there are cancers that respond well to drugs for several
years. Patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumors tend to tolerate
the drugs well, for example, Reid said.
"I have many patients who will come back and say, 'Except for the
fact that you tell me I have cancer, I don't know it,' " he said.
But after a while, these patients' cancer cells mutate and evolve to
become resistant to the drugs, finding ways around almost any drug,
Reid said.
Some breast cancer patients take medications for 10 years to prevent
recurrence, said Dr. Stephanie Hines, physician at the breast center
at the Mayo Clinic's Breast Cancer Center in Jacksonville, Florida.
But great strides have been made in such drugs, she said.
"There is real promise at eventually eradicating breast cancer," she
said. "I would say maybe not in the next five or 10 years. But it may
happen -- I don't know if in our lifetime."
Still, only a few kinds of cancer are currently cured, and that's
often dependent on early detection -- testicular and early stage
breast cancer are two of the few examples, Reid said. About 80
percent of lymphomas are cured, Brawley said.
Metastatic lung cancer and metastatic breast cancer, on the other
hand, are more likely to one day become "chronic diseases," which
would be treated throughout a person's life rather than eliminated,
Brawley said.
"Once it's metastasized or spread, you can't really do surgery unless
you want to do almost cherry-picking throughout the body, which
doesn't really work," he said.
Currently, some breast cancers regress even with chemotherapy. Cancer
specialists compare these breast cancers to "a smoldering fire which
flares up every once in a while" and requires more water, Brawley
said. Extending the amount of time that a person could live like that
is a "reasonable goal," he said.
Cancer doctors emphasize that Obama's initiative is a tremendous
asset to cancer research.
"I think that all the tools are there -- it's just, we have to do the
hard work of testing them, evaluating them, and making them available
to patients, Reid said.
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| mediumTITS... |
| Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 8:14 am |
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Guest
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SAVE YOUR CANCER FUND DONATIONS, FOLKS!
For-profit organizations like the American Cancer Society have had
more than 50 years to "find" a "cure" for cancer. Yet all they can
show today for their efforts are some new, gut-wrenching chemicals
and
radical radiation procedures that in reality disable and destroy
human
immune systems and thus allow the metastatic spread of cancer cells
to
other vital organs. Of course, any lay person suggesting such
outcomes
are dismissed as nuts or out-of-touch know-nothings.
THE FACT IS, THE CANCER TREATMENT BUSINESS IS SO BIG A MONEY-MAKER
GLOBALLY THAT THE LAST THING THE CANCER "INDUSTRY" WANTS IS A "CURE"
OR CURES FOR ITS CAREFULLY GUARDED DISEASE!
Think about it.
Cancer TREATMENT, including doctors, scientists, researchers,
technicians, nurses, clinics -- and especially the drug- and
delivery-
equipment manufacturers -- comprise at least a multibillion-dollar
empire. If a cancer cure-all or cure-some or prevent-all concoction
is
developed, what happens to all those high-paid medicos, big
businesses, and the "cancer company" CEOs, many of whom "earn" up to
$10 million a year? Thanks to your contributory dollars.
Don't think for a moment that your monetary contributions are
targeted
at "discovering" some miraculous cure that will save your dying
family
member's life.
Fifty-plus years is plenty long enough to realize that cancer is one
thing, a cancer "cure" is just public relations. |
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