What’s the News in the Front Line About Cancer?

2 Comments

1. Zion says:

   October 7, 2009 at 2:17 pm

   Regarding Breast Cancer, the incidence has fallen by 3.5 percent a year between 2001 and 2004. In addition, more women are surviving the disease. Since 1990, death rates have fallen by 2.2 percent a year.

   New predictive and prognostic tools have been developed, including gene expression technology, which helps doctors know whether a patient will respond to certain therepies. These have allowed for more tailored, and thus more successful, treatment.

   Many procedures are helping to improve a patient’s quality of life. Sentinel lymph node biopsies, for example, spare women the postsurgical side effects caused by the automatic
   removal of the axillary lymph nodes near the breast.

   Now, for Lung Cancer, the incidence in men has declined by 1.8 percent each year since 1991. But the incidence in women has remained unchanged from the peak it reached in 1998, while lung-cancer death rates for women have gone up by 0.2 percent per year since 1995. Why? Men started to quit smoking beofre women did, and women took up smoking later than men did. Still, about 15 percent of all cases occur in people who have never smoked.

   Fortunately, there are now drugs that choke off the blood supply in the tumors. Still early detection is the best choice, as it increases cure up to 92 percent. This can be done with CT scans that detect nodules, tiny spots on the lungs, years before they might be seen on regular X-rays.

   And for colorectal Cancer, although it is the second-most-deadly cancer in America, its incidence has been dropping steadily for both men and women since the late 1990s. More people are surviving too.

   Advances are linked directly to the increased use of screening tests, which in healthy adults should begin at age 50. Some tests done to detect colorectal cancer are able to prevent it by removing polyps before they actually develop into cancer. Then, we have already drugs that work by direcly targeting cancer cells without damaging healthy cells.

   Finally, for the Skin Cancer, of the various forms, melanoma is the most deadly. Researchers are on the verge of developing a vaccine, which will take care of that. But the incidence of less lethal forms like the basal and squamous cell carcinomas is increasing. The main cause is overexposure to the sun.

   New tools such as the dermatoscope allow doctors to see moles at a high degree of magnification, which lets them identify subtle changes and develop the proper treatment.
2. abacaxitoo says:

   October 7, 2009 at 2:17 pm

   http://www.users.on.net/~pmoran/cancer/cancercure.htm

   Cancer is not a single entity. 50% overall cure rate … up to 90-95% for some cancers, near zero for others.