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Cancer ‘cure’ ever more elusive

By Meagan Engle, Staff Writer Updated 1:41 PM Thursday, October 29, 2009

Editor’s note: This is part of a monthlong series on the battle against cancer in  Butler County.

Thirty-eight years ago, President Richard Nixon declared a war on cancer and asked for a national commitment to find a cure.

Today, researchers say it is unlikely that one cure will ever be found because “cancer” is not just one disease.

Each cancer, each patient, must be treated individually.

“Cancer is not just one disease, it’s many diseases,” said Jorge Moscat, chair of cancer and cell biology at the University of Cincinnati.

“The goal is not to eradicate cancer. The goal is to make it like a chronic disease you can live with,” Moscat said.

Moscat and a team of scientists at the University of Cincinnati are working with cells, tissue, tumors and mice to isolate tumor cells and investigate what makes them different in order to find a way to kill those cells without harming all cells.

Still, Moscat said the future of cancer research is unknown. Someone somewhere could make a discovery and change everything, he said

“Cancer is much more complicated than we thought originally,” said Moscat, who came to Cincinnati from Spain three years ago.

The earliest descriptions of tumors were recorded in 1600 B.C. – when Egyptians wrote there is no treatment. The Romans knew they could remove tumors in surgery, but that the disease would return, according to the American Cancer Society.

Treatments today are mostly trial and error. The future, Moscat said, will be tailoring medicines and determining ahead of time who will be sensitive to what.

“The only way to create new therapies is to understand how cells work,” Moscat said. “There are some therapies that are making a big change, but that change is not big enough.”

There have been a few shinning moments in cancer research.

Researchers found they can selectively target the fusion of two proteins that make a cancer cell unique and eliminate that. Additional targeting drugs have been developed as tumors became resistant to that treatment. Lung cancers have more proteins and more complex proteins and so they are more aggressive.

They also found a treatment to block the blood supply from which tumors draw.

But in many cases, developing a new drug costs upward of $800 million – and those that fail, usually fail in the later stages after most of the money has been invested. Even treatments that are approved sometimes only give patients a month more to live and cost tens of thousands, Moscat said.

“It’s very difficult to get a drug approved,” said Olivier Rixe, director of the University of Cincinnati’s new experimental therapeutics program.

Rixe, who came here from the National Cancer Institute, has led trials that change the standard of care for colon cancer and kidney cancer.

The French medical oncologist will be leading early stages of drug trials here.

“We would like for the patient to have those resources here in Ohio,” Rixe said.

For approval, research must prove a new drug or treatment is not only safer, but also more effective than what is being used now.

There are four phases of trials, starting first with studies on a small number of people to evaluate how to give a drug, how often and how much. The fourth phase looks at side effects, risks and benefits over a longer period of time and with more people, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Less than 5 percent of the eligible population participates in clinical trials overall – a number that presents a challenge in gathering enough statistics to develop better treatments, according to researchers.

University Hospital is now working to expand its research efforts to more studies that are written by their own physicians. Currently, it is managing 144 trials and has about 100 participants a year.

Children’s Hospital Medical Center is also leading the way on research. The hospital is the second largest pediatric research institute in the country, as measured by funding.

Another research consortium, the Dayton Clinical Oncology Program, offers National Cancer Institute studies locally with 15 member hospitals and universities in Ohio and Indiana, said president and CEO Sid Pinkus.

The consortium, started about five years ago, brings trials developed in Cleveland, Texas and other areas to about 200 to 300 patients here in Southwest Ohio each year.

Patients are often referred to trials by doctors. But many seek out trials themselves online because approved treatments aren’t working, because many trials offer drugs free of charge or because they just want to help advance science, said Alison Kastl, director of clinical trials at UC.

“Every patient has their own reason for participating,” Kastl said. “A lot of times clinical trials are more attractive because they’ve exhausted a lot of options. I think the most important thing for patients is they know that clinical trials are available and that they are informed enough to ask their doctor.”

“There’s a lot of advantages to being involved in a clinical trial, both for the future generations and perhaps for the patient,” Pinkus said. “We certainly don’t have all the answers, but progress can only be accomplished by getting people on trials.”

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Curedin04 10/28/09
Please tell me more about your melanoma cancer trial in '02.

Stephen
4:27 AM, 1/28/2010

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I was stage 4 melanoma in 2002 and was involved in a melanoma cancer trial for one year,2003-2004. I have been cancer free ever since. Through God and the medical trials it can work!

Curedin04
8:26 AM, 10/28/2009

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The cancer industry doesn't want to cure cancer. Cancer is too big of a money making industry. Anyone who really wants to know the truth about cancer should read The China Study by T. Colin Campbell.

Carol
7:58 AM, 10/28/2009

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If I were told I was terminal, and there was a medicine that may helpm but not approved,I should be allowed the chance to use it even if it is experimental. If terminal, even the slightest chance of help is better than none. Also, if I were terminal, I would be willing to try it., just on the chance it may help.
It seems much money is wasted if people donate to causes that say they are looking for a cure when none can be tried.
As long as it has been we still have no cure. Where does the $$ go

FAC-find a cure
6:40 AM, 10/28/2009

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Really, that's interesting in that the University of Alberta thinks differently, in fact several foreign nations Hospitals and research labs disagree in that the compound Dichloroacetate or DCA for short has made wonderful inroads into cancer treatment. In fact it is so effective that if a U.S. citizen even tries to order this compound which is nothing more than a natural mineral the will find themselves in serious trouble

http://www.thedcasite.com/index.htm...

Joe
2:16 AM, 10/28/2009

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