Cancer: concrete advances and a scientific community ready for action

[4 June 2007 - 08h55]
[mis à jour le 11 June 2007 à 16h21]

Since Friday, more than 25,000 specialists have been gathering in Chicago for the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). Over the course of 5 days, more than 4,000 plenary session communications, oral presentations and poster sessions will be on the agenda for a host of participants from every corner of the globe. This week, Chicago wants to be the place where cancer experts translate research into daily practice. Their aim: to meet the expectations and hopes of millions of cancer sufferers. With more than 7 million deaths each year, cancer is in fact the second or third cause of mortality, depending on the level of development of the countries concerned.

“Just under 1.5 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed this year in the United States and 560,000 people will die from it”, ASCO leaders underlined on the inaugural day of the conference. On a positive note, “for the first time in 70 years the number of deaths from cancer in the United States fell in 2003. Modestly, it’s true (369 fewer deaths), but the trend was more marked the following year with 3,041 fewer deaths.” These figures, which are reassuring for the Americans, need to be put into perspective alongside those of Europe (including France) – which at the present time are nothing less than worrying…

On a global scale it’s clear that cancer often goes hand in hand with developing countries. “During their lifetime one person in three has had or will have cancer and projections suggest that there will be 15 million cases per year by 2020”, explained David Loew of the Swiss pharmaceutical group Roche. “However, with our present state of knowledge, 33% of cancers could be cured if they were detected and treated in time.”

Cured, not simply “controlled”, which is a very important distinction! During the last ten years there have been some remarkable changes – not far short of revolutions – in the field of cancer study. “The addition of Herceptin in adjuvant chemotherapy for the treatment of breast cancer expressing the antigen HER2 – which leads to uncontrolled cell multiplication unleashing cancer [editor’s note] – has increased the cure rate for this cancer by 50%, explained Professor Xavier Pivot of Besançon University Hospital, one of the many French participants at the ASCO conference.

Whether it’s a question of monoclonal antibodies, as in the case of Herceptin, angiogenesis inhibitors or apoptosis inducers … modern treatments are now increasingly better targeted. Therapeutic associations are being regularly improved and doctors are able to prescribe them with greater confidence thanks to genomic and proteomic advances. Less of an ordeal for the patient, these treatments offer much improved chances of survival – and most importantly of a cure.

But not everything rests on these cutting edge techniques. Other medicines very often have their own part to play… even though this may often be disputed. Phytotherapy and certain other “soft” or parallel medicines in fact appear on this year’s ASCO conference programme! Watch this space for more on this and on many of the other issues addressed in Chicago.

Source : from our special correspondents in Chicago, Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, 1-5 June 2007

>> Cet article est aussi disponible en français

© 1996-2012 Destination Santé SAS - All Rights Reserved. No information contained on this server can be reproduced or retransmitted without prior written consent of Destination Santé. Offenders will be prosecuted in consideration of articles L 122-4 and L 335-3 of the Code of Intellectual Property, allowing up to two years' imprisonment and a 150,000 euros fine.