Trends in Cancer Treatments

I read articles in two popular (that is, easy-to-understand, not-written-for-oncologists) publications in the last few days. Both dealt with similar topics: trends in research on cancer treatments.


Neither of them dealt with lymphoma specifically, but they did discuss the ways that researchers are using new knowledge of the human genome to better understand the ways that cancers work. I've written a few times here about similar research in lymphoma.


One of the articles was in Parade magazine on Sunday, called "Dramatic Breakthroughs in Cancer Treatments." The title might be a little bit exaggerated in the "breakthroughs" part, but it does describe the direction that cancer research is moving in. It's not as dramatic as the title promises.


The other is called "Solving the Cancer Puzzle," from this month's Men's Health. It's a little more muted in its excitement; the cancer researchers who were interviewed keep mentioning "incremental changes" in getting closer to understanding how cancer works. But they do, when pushed, admit how excited they are about their research. Cautious excitement sounds great to me.


Both articles really focus on the the ways our understanding of the biology of cancer is affecting treatment. Neither of them use the word "personalization," but that's what they're getting at -- eventually being able to look at an individual patient's biopsy and say "X would be the most effective treatment." One researcher in the MH article predicted that one day we wouldn't refer to cancer by body part, but by gene: two lung cancers might look the same under a microscope, but two different gene mutations caused them, so we'll say one patient has a 134 chromosome cancer, and another a 68 cancer, or something like that. Very cool. And then they'll know that 134 responds better to Y chemotherapy, while 68 repsonds better to Z.


It's a ways away, of course, but I'll go with cautious excitement and keep following the developments.