1. When a company pours $100 million into the discovery and testing of a drug with no guarantee, as is the case of C225 and gets the best minds in the field, e.g. John Mendelsohn, I think it's OK for development to be, if you will, "business-driven."

Business-driven can have a bad connotation. Readers may believe that businesses are driven to a methodology for developing solutions that directly satisfy business requirements and needs to the detriment of the cancer community.

But, spending that kind of money and getting the best researchers in the world demands impeccable research with a desire for real results that translate to a better patient outcome. If the patient benefits, the company benefits. And, they, more than anyone, knows the patient must benefit first before they see any financial gain.

So, business-driven is the best way to get patient results.

Posted at 10:19AM on Aug 14th 2006 by Michelle

2. There are a number of scientists from respected research facilities across the United States that say much of what is known to be true about cancer is false. Many of the basic assumptions and theories that are driving most of today's cancer research are false. There has been almost no improvement in the "cure" of most types of metastatic cancers over the last thirty years.

Despite the media hype about the breakthroughs, clinical trials of cancer drugs are failing with painfully predictable regularity. "Chronic control" has replaced "cure" as the goal of many in the research community. Some researchers say insufficient consideration has been given to the requirements for the "cure" of cancer without significant toxicity to the patient and without severe side effects. They say the problem is tumor cell evolution.

Most cancer research has focused on discovery of the differences between cancer cells and normal cells. The hope has been that these differences can provide a basis for understanding and targeting cancer cells. Drugs have been made to target and kill cancer cells. But the truth is that despite these drugs, patients continue to suffer and die of cancer at virtually the same rate. The conventional approach does not work.

Posted at 12:51PM on Aug 14th 2006 by Gregory D. Pawelski

3. Cancer is not appendicitis. It is a major nut to crack. In the past, they would open you up, close you up, send you home, and you'd be lucky to survive months. Now, one can hope to remain alive with traditional treatments as new ones (e.g. Gleevec) come on board.

Stay upbeat. Death rates for the first time are declining. Write letters. Urge funding of research.

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060813/OPINION/60811004/1049

Posted at 5:17PM on Aug 14th 2006 by Michelle

4. Good article in today's NY TIMES: current research metastasis

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/15/health/15meta.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

Posted at 9:42AM on Aug 15th 2006 by Michelle

5. Cancer patients are now living longer than they did in the past, which is almost certainly owing to better and more aggressive surgery. But, not choosing the right chemotherapy the first time, a chemo-induced gene mutation can happen when the original chemo received does not work. The cancer comes back. When it does this, the cancer comes back more aggressively. The mutagenic effects of chemotherapy on a genetically-unstable tumor, drives the tumor into a state of more aggressive behavior. You might kill off a whole lot of cancer, only to cause a mutation in the remaining cancer, such that the remaining cancer behaves in a more aggressive fashion.

Cancers that are a product of these genetic mutations release cells from the usual controls of proliferation and survival, making them so much harder to fight it. Following this mutation, the cancer cells acquire the ability to proliferate without the normal restraints. As the cancer grows, it may infiltrate and destroy the surrounding tissue, and metastasize by penetrating into blood vessels, lymph nodes, and body cavities. Distant metastasis via the bloodstream may affect virtually any organ (the lungs, bones, liver, adrenals, brain, and even leptomeningeal metastasis).

The results of a new study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have seen that whether a tumor was a breast tumor, lung tumor, or ovarian tumor, it didn't correlate to how the cancers interacted with standard anticancer drugs. This could eventually have oncologists removing their specialties from their shingles by making therapy based on a tumor's anatomical location obsolete.

Their findings suggest that traditional cancer treatments which have established different drug regimens for breast, lung, or ovarian cancer, should eventually be replaced with therapies that use drugs deemed to be of highest benefit based on the tumor's pharmacologic profile. Treatment choice would be determined by how each patient's tumor reacts to anticancer drugs, regardless of the tumor's anatomical origin.

http://mednews.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/7026.html

Posted at 10:53AM on Aug 15th 2006 by Gregory D. Pawelski