Cancer Problems

Current Treatments

Over recent decades, the incidence of cancer has escalated to epidemic proportions, now striking nearly one in two men (44%) and more than one in three women (39%). This increase translates into approximately 56% more cancer in men and 22% more cancer in women over the course of a single generation. The National Cancer Institute estimates that the number of cancer cases will increase still further because of the growth and aging of the population, dramatically doubling by 2050. 

Despite decades of research and new treatment approaches, reversal in overall mortality rates has been minimal and due largely to a reduction in lung cancer deaths from reduced smoking in men, rather than to advances in treatment. Overall five-year survival rates for all cancers have remained virtually static since 1970, from 49 to 54 percent for all races combined.

The current therapies for cancer have such devastating emotional and physical side-effects that many patients view the treatments to be worse than the disease. The monetary costs for treating cancer are also staggering.  The annual direct costs of cancer treatment has more than quadrupled over the past 20 years from $18 billion in 1985 to $41 billion in 1995 to over $80 billion in 2005. Additionally, indirect costs from loss of wages, taxes, earnings and productivity were estimated at $100 billion in 1999. 

Despite dramatic advances in our understanding of cancer cell biology, conventional cancer therapy has remained fundamentally unchanged for decades.  The three major forms of cancer therapy remain to be surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.  Surgery and radiation therapies have reached their logical limits, and chemotherapy remains the current mainstay of cancer management.

Most chemotherapy drugs are broad-spectrum cytotoxic agents.  These drugs are designed to inflict greater damage on cancer cells than on normal cells. Nonetheless, all chemotherapy drugs affect normal cells and cause severe side effects.  Chemotherapy is an attempt to kill the tumor before the drug kills the patient.

The major limitation of all current cancer therapies is the inability to eliminate the last tumor cell.  This means that current cancer therapies, for the most part, can only extend survival but rarely can actually cure the disease.  While current therapies can often initially eradicate measurable evidence of disease, they generally fail to eliminate all the tumor cells.  Therefore, any remaining cells may proliferate and cause a relapse of cancer.  In this common scenario, the first set of remaining cells have resisted chemotherapy/radiation. The offspring of these tumor cells that were not destroyed by the chemotherapy/radiation have a selective advantage, leaving the person with a recurrence of cancer that is often widespread and resistant to chemotherapy/radiation and other techniques. 

Immunotherapy is a new modality for cancer treatment which holds great promise for becoming a curative therapy with minimal toxicity that works together with or replaces current treatment methods. The human immune system is capable of seeking out and destroying cancers cells wherever they reside in the body. Harnessing the power of the immune system holds the greatest potential for winning the battle against cancer.