An Answer For Cancer?
Dr. Moses Judah Folkman, an unassuming researcher at Children's Hospital in Boston, is the focus of a media deluge these days. He is the author of two new cancer drugs, called angiostatin and endostatin, which have had dramatic success in shrinking tumors in mice. The New York Times gave front-page play to his team's breakthrough results, and his phone has been ringing ever since.
While most media reports counsel caution and discourage inflated expectations, the public response demonstrated the longing for a cure. Cancer is expected to overtake heart disease as the number one killer of Americans, and the quest for new treatment has been slow and filled with disappointment.
The compounds isolated by Dr. Folkman's team deprive tumors of their blood supply by suppressing new growth of blood vessels, a process called angiogenesis. Other angiogenesis inhibitors have been previously identified, and some are already in clinical trials in humans, a crucial step toward FDA approval and general availability.
There are a host of other promising cancer drugs being tested that fight cancer in very different ways.
The National Cancer Institute maintains a Cancer Trials Information Resource and a complete database of clinical trials, called the PDQ, which details more than 9,500 patient studies, including those accepting new patients. A total of 11 anti-angiogenic drugs are currently undergoing clinical trials. The majority of cancer drugs in the pipeline depend on other types of actions to combat the disease.
CBS This Morning reports on another new cancer drug, Herceptin, which showed dramatic results in a least one patient who was told nothing else could be done for her. The full report from This Morning Health Correspondent Dr. Emily Senay is available below under Related Stories. See "New Weapon In Cancer Arsenal."
"This is an exciting and major advance in cancer treatment," said Dr. Dennis Slamon, director of the Revlon/UCLA Women's Cancer Research Program. "We have for the first time a drug that successfully treats the most aggressive forms of breast cancer."
Herceptin offers hope for women with one of the most virulent forms of breast cancer, caused by a genetic anomaly that accelerates the disease. Developed by Genentech and the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA, Herceptin is an antibody that neutralizes a protein called "growth factor receptors" which signal cells to multiply out of control.
The antibody is derived from human cells, meaning patients can tolerate it longer with fewer side effects. Herceptin may also have the added benefit of making conventional chemotherapy more effective when taken in conjunction with the anibody.
Detailed results of the experimental treatment will be formally announced at a May 17 meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Los Angeles.
If the past is any indicator, Genentech share prices could be affected by the media attention that conference will draw. But biotechnology stocks are notoriously volatile. When it went public in 1980, Genentech stock shot up more than 250 percent in one day.
While Dr. Folkman endures his current exposure to the media glare, he also warns against looking to any one therapy for a cancer cure. In a prepared statement on the Children's Hospital site, he states: "We feel that if and when angiogenesis inhibitors are eventually approved for use in medical practice, that they may be used together with chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy, vaccine therapy, gene therapy, or other types of novel anti-cancer approaches. We do not foresee that angiogenesis inhibitors will displace other therapies, but will hopefully improve them."
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Written by Curtis Grisham