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New Discoveries Bring Hope
by Sandra Z. Bruney
A little less than a year ago, I was asked to speak at the kick-off luncheon for Relay for Life. I accepted, and did a lot of research. My speech did not go over very well because they wanted someone to tell them that their efforts would bring a cure. I said they probably wouldn't.
I said that there are many different kinds of cancer, and a cure for one type wouldn't necessarily mean a cure for all.
I said that cancer mutatated, so that a cure eventually would not work on the mutation, and you were back at square one.
I said that, at best, cancer might become a manageable disease like diabetes.
I said -- after gauging the average age of my audience -- that I didn't think we would see a cure in our lifetime.
Last month, two articles in our local newspaper, The Charlotte Observer, made me wish I could take back all those statements. Oh, they were true at the time, but I could have made a prediction that we would were close to finding a cure for cancer within a decade and that would have been just as correct as my facts were when I made my speech.
The articles described new research that has come up with the best hope yet. It seems there is a tiny gene in our DNA that can detect damaged cells. It then triggers a process that keeps the damaged cell from reproducing and becoming a tumor. First, the gene tries to repair the damaged cell. If that doesn't work, it kills it.
But if the gene itself is damaged, cancer can be the result. Now researchers are looking for a way to restore the damaged gene to its function of keeping us from getting cancer.
Frankly, I think that is good news -- we are on the way to preventing cancer instead of trying to cure it.
In a related breakthrough, scientists have discovered that there are stem cells that produce cancerous tumors, much like normal stem cells regenerate healthy tissue. These stem cells have been found in breast tumors, a form of leukemia and two types of brain cancer. Tests to target these stem cells in patients began in November in Kentucky.
Harvard University has begun a stem cell program. The National Cancer Institute says that cancer stem cells is one of the most important new ideas in research, and plans to announce a stem-cell initiative this year.
Drugs that target stem cells can be used with chemotherapy or in combination with other drugs that keep tumors from attaching to new blood vessels in order to survive.
Other researchers are looking for drugs that keep the cancer from leaving the primary tumor and spreading to other organs in the body.
Drugs may be discovered that kill the cancer stem cells, even if they have not yet been idenitified.
"Cancer has proven an ingenious and frustrating opponent, but even with all the difficult work that lies ahead, one longtime researcher said the discovery of cancer stem cells is like pulling back a great veil.
"'Finally, we have come to see the true face of the enemy,' Robert Weinberg, an MIT scientist who is one of the world's leading cancer biologists, said."
I wish they would ask me to speak again this year. This year I could say, "We have identified the enemy, and now we are figuring out ways to destroy it. It could happen in our lifetime."
The opinions expressed above are my own. Write me at sandy@cancercant.com if you have a different view or something to add.
Previous Essays
Rules for Survival
Are We Making Progress?
I'm Just Fine, Thank You
Breast Cancer Awareness Month
What Cancer did for Me
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