Progress and setbacks in 30 years' war on cancer

The nation has new weapons in its fight against the deadly disease, but some specific rates are still on the rise.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Dec. 10, 2001.

Washington -- In December 1971, President Richard M. Nixon signed the National Cancer Act committing vast sums of money to fighting the dread disease. It was thought then that cancer would be eradicated within a decade.

Thirty years later, the fight goes on.

Cancer is still a leading killer, acknowledged Mark S. Frankel, PhD, director of the Scientific Freedom, Responsibility and Law Program for the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science.

Over the course of a lifetime, one out of two Americans will be diagnosed with cancer. At current rates, cancer will soon surpass heart disease as the nation's leading killer.

But the nation is poised to turn the corner, said Dr. Frankel.

He and many other cancer experts examined how far the nation has come in the fight against cancer during a Nov. 7 program sponsored by AAAS and Americans for Medical Progress, a nonprofit group founded in 1991 to promote public understanding of biomedical research.

Recent breakthroughs in genomic sequencing and molecular biology have raised hopes about the next wave of cancer treatments. Some of those hopes are being realized in the form of a new drug, Gleevec, which has been amazingly effective at fighting at least two types of cancer.

Brian Druker, MD, director of the Oregon Health and Science University's Leukemia Center in Portland, described his great success at treating his patients who suffer from chronic myelogenous leukemia with Gleevec (imatinib mesylate).

The drug, manufactured by Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., is also seen as an effective treatment for gastrointestinal stromal tumor. [...]