New Approach Gives Cancer Patients Hope

Treatment Targets Only Cancer Cells, Leaving Rest Of Body Alone

(CBS)  For 30 years, Dr. Bert Vogelstein of Johns Hopkins University has been trying to unlock the secrets of cancer.

"It was a total mystery, a black box. It was like some plague from outer space," Vogelstein says.

But revolutionary research is discovering how cancer cells work, what they're made of, how they behave and the genetic mutations that cause them, CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook reports. That's giving scientists new targets so that rather than blast the whole body with chemotherapy and radiation, smart drugs are being developed that strike just the cancer without poisoning the patient.

"We know that simple changes in the building blocks of DNA are what is responsible for cancer," Vogelstein says.

Simple changes, or mutations, cause cancer cells to grow uncontrollably. But new drugs can stop the process in some cancers.

Herceptin is a drug that targets proteins on the surface of the cell. Gleevec works inside the cell to block cancer's growth. Avastin shuts down the blood vessels that feed the tumor, literally starving it to death. These are all called targeted therapies.

"I looked at it like, 'let's attack it,'" says Stephanie Grimes, who was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer.

Doctors at the Johnson Cancer Center at UCLA recommended she try an experimental combination of Herceptin and Avastin, without chemotherapy. This approach is highly experimental and not for everyone, but Grimes' response was dramatic.

"Literally, it kept going away," she says.

"She had dramatic shrinkage of her tumor," says Dr. Denny Slamon. "There is still some disease that we see, but it continues to get less and less. More than 70 percent of her tumor has shrank way."

"It's a miracle how the drug works," Grimes says.

Gleevec is also a superstar in the world of targeted therapies. George Darr started taking Gleevec six years ago when he was diagnosed with a form of Leukemia called CML. In just two weeks, his blood count became normal.

"Suddenly there was an enormous amount of energy," Darr says.

But recently, Darr's leukemia began to outsmart Gleevec. Luckily, there was a new medication for him called Sprysel.

"Fortunately these new drugs have come along that have been able work on these mutations," Darr says.

In the lab, Vogelstein and his team have been hard at work to find more mutations to target. Just recently, he discovered a surprising number in colon and breast cancers.

"We expected to find 10 alterations in each cancer," he says. "We found about 100."

Those discoveries could pave the way for the development of other cancer drugs that destroy the dangerous runaway cells without destroying the patient's quality of life.

[nannette44]

Very good story. There is a Doctor Burzynski in Houston,Texas. That is offering this same type of treatment. He was treating my wife, after a major cancer center in Houston offered us no hope. I found out about him a little to late. On my own through the Grace of God. The hospital did not refer us. And I often wonder why.

[donette4-2009]

Great story, alot of information. How do you get in contact with someone about this study about cancer.My mother has breast cancer, that has returned for second time seven years between first time to now. Tried one chemo worked at first but stopped working. Would be thankful for any infomaton on this. Thank you. Very pleased with Katie Couric on this story, she asked questions so that htey would put it in words that everyone could understand.

[alphaa10-2009]

Another promising approach, adopted by Jay Rowen, MD, a Johns Hopkins grad, is called insulin potentiation therapy.

Since tumor cells have a voracious appetite for glucose, Rowen sends a tiny jolt of insulin through the patient's body to accentuate tumor cells' sensitivity-- not enough to harm healthy cells, but enough to make the tumor cells uniquely receptive to what comes next.

Instead of a dollop of glucose, Rowen now sends a drug targeted against the tumor cells, and the tumor absorbs all it can of the tumor-killing compound. Surrounding, normal cells are unaffected by the therapy.

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