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Tens of thousands of saved lives testify to progress in the “War on Cancer”
Forty years ago on Dec. 23, President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act, considered the start of what we commonly refer to as America’s War on Cancer. The National Cancer Act increased funding and broadened the scope and responsibilities of the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, to more effectively carry out the national research fight against cancer.
Discoveries made during these decades have saved lives. Cancer deaths dropped by 22 percent among men and 14 percent among women in the past 20 years alone, according to the American Association for Cancer Research, resulting in nearly 900,000 fewer cancer-related deaths during that time. Some of the significant cancer research breakthroughs occurred at City of Hope.
These advances include work that led to a new generation of drugs. In 1983, scientists at City of Hope and Genentech first demonstrated that antibodies can be made using recombinant DNA technology — technology later used in the “smart” cancer drugs Herceptin, Rituxan and Avastin.
City of Hope also was one of the first six centers in the country to perform bone marrow transplants, with the first procedure taking place in 1976. Early in 2011, the institution performed its 10,000th transplant, a milestone that only a few centers in the world have achieved. And these are just a few of the most visible achievements.
Read on to learn more about international advances against cancer and City of Hope’s role in the fight.
Scientists look to protect lymphoma survivors
Sometimes lymphoma treatment has an unexpected and tragic side effect: Patients can later develop an aggressive form of leukemia or a related blood disease. But City of Hope scientists recently pinpointed a few genetic changes that seem to identify the patients most at risk.
Human cells with acute myeloid leukemia (Courtesy National Cancer Institute/Dr. Lance Liotta Laboratory)
Tracking down these genetic changes will teach scientists important facts about how acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and therapy-related myelodysplasia (t-MDS) develop. It could lead to new ways to prevent the diseases or treat them more effectively.
The scientists published their work in the Nov. 15 issue of the journal Cancer Cell.
It’s just one of the pieces of research supported through the Tim Nesvig Lymphoma Fellowship and Research Fund, but it symbolizes the wide impact of studies funded through the effort. The fund backs studies into advanced strategies, like engineering T cells to attack lymphoma and testing new drugs to fight recurrent lymphoma, as well as ways to improve stem cell transplantation and other projects.
The research fund grew out of a family’s commitment to honor a young man — Tim Nesvig — whose life was taken by lymphoma when he was only 30.
Now, by illuminating how t-MDS and AML develop, the funded scientists have uncovered some surprising information about the diseases’ early stages. They found that even before patients in their study were treated for lymphoma, there was already evidence of leukemia deep inside the patients. Specifically, stem cells in their blood already had some genetic twists that put them on the road toward developing leukemia, according to Ravi Bhatia, M.D., director of the Division of Hematopoietic Stem Cell and Leukemia Research and co-principal investigator on the study. These changes might have made the cells particularly susceptible to damage during lymphoma treatment, but some of these patients might have developed leukemia even without cancer treatment, he said.
If scientists learn more about how these genetic changes make patients susceptible to leukemia, they may be able to detect the changes in advance — and design ways to prevent leukemia from developing.
Remembering 30 years of AIDS
Alexandra Levine
This December is AIDS Awareness Month, and 2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were detected. During the past three decades, more than 25 million people around the world have died of AIDS, though there are new signs of hope for stopping the epidemic.
Alexandra Levine, M.D., M.A.C.P., chief medical officer of City of Hope and deputy director for clinical programs of the cancer center, was on the front lines of the early fight against HIV/AIDS. As an expert in blood disorders, she was one of the first physicians to treat AIDS patients in the early 1980s.
The epidemic has had an enormous impact on her and the people she knew, she says. In a new video online, Levine speaks from the heart about the challenge of HIV/AIDS and the patients she lost — and helped — along the way. In this interview, she describes the remarkable medical and scientific progress that has been made in the past three decades.
“When I first saw my first cases of HIV 30 years ago, it was the biggest puzzle I had ever experienced in my life,” she says. “On the one hand, I was overwhelmed by the human tragedy of it — I was surrounded by it, surrounded by death. On the other hand, it was scientifically the puzzle of a lifetime …”
Interested in learning how City of Hope is trying to solve the HIV/AIDS puzzle through research? Read this Q&A with John J. Rossi, Ph.D., Lidow Family Research Chair in City of Hope’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology.
Cancer survivors need the right expert help to detect second cancers early
Arti Hurria (Photo by Markie Ramirez)
Think that surviving cancer puts you in the clear for getting diagnosed with other forms of the disease? Think again.
Cancer risk is significantly higher among cancer survivors. As many as 14 percent of all cancers diagnosed are second cancers — completely new cancers (not recurrences of the original cancer) that develop among cancer survivors. According to City of Hope’s Arti Hurria, M.D., and Ari M. VanderWalde, M.D., formerly of City of Hope and now at Amgen, these cancers happen most often among people diagnosed with their first cancer between ages 50 and 69, but they can happen among those in their 70s and beyond, too.
Continue reading “Cancer survivors need the right expert help to detect second cancers early” »
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