As if a space mission, or the name of a military combat operation 40 years ago, the then U.S. President Richard Nixon, decided to declare 'war Cancer 'with the signature of a raised national objective of ending the disease.
That goal sounds utopian dream today, and all the predictions about the end of this disease that have been made since then have always remained a dead letter. However, in some respects, has nothing to do with the current situation that existed at that 1971. To mark the 40 anniversary, the journal Science published a special issue this week in which several articles discuss what has been done and, above all, what remains to be done to think about whether you want to start winning this 'war'.
"It is true that for some tumors (Pancreas, brain and liver, for example), the picture has not improved at this time, "laments one of the texts Eliot Marshall," but we must remember that cancer mortality began to decline in the U.S. in the nineties and care for many tumors has nothing to do today with what happened 40 years ago. Definitely, things are moving in the right direction. "
Survivors
Indeed, as noted by David Malakoff in other comments, improvements in many of the therapies and the aging of the population present a new problem: how to care and nurture this new "army survivors', whose medicine will continue to pay. "Ironically, the costs [of cancer care] are increasing because the population survives diagnostic decades ago had ended their lives." In 2020, for example, is estimated to be about eight million people with breast and prostate cancer, as health care continued to be about 18,000 million dollars (about 13,000 million euros) on that date. The most optimistic talk of a 27% increase in cancer bill that will face the U.S. in the next decade. Good blame for this lies with the new treatments, which Jocelyn Kaiser devotes its space in this commemorative issue. Finding the Achilles heel of the tumor and attack it right there with a targeted drug has become the new guiding philosophy of modern oncology. The problem is that many times, as if it were a virus, tumor cells can generate resistance and 'escape' to the action of the drug after a few months.
These resistors are the writer to compare the cancer in some ways with the HIV virus, with the difference that cancer patients have many more genetic characteristics with each other, making it difficult to hunt the enemy. But if there is something as oncology is copying the pattern of the fight against the AIDS virus is in the use of various combinations of drugs to attack the disease from several sides at once. Although to try these cocktails, say, pharmaceutical companies will have to agree between them when designing their trials, leaving behind their "trade competition" also will need to verify that these combinations do not have serious side effects for patients.
genetics, immunology, molecular biology, psychological ... The 'war on cancer' that is being waged more than 40 years is still far from won, but more and more open fronts by the science that can be winning small battles.
http://www.elmundo.es/elmundosalud/2011/03/25/oncologia/1301038789.html
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