Are We Winning the War on Cancer?

Abstract

This year, we mark the 40-year anniversary of the National Cancer Act. The law expanded the scope and funding of the National Cancer Institute, among other initiatives, in what has become known as the "war on cancer." Looking back over the years, it is indisputable that we have made dramatic inroads in fighting cancer. A just-released report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the number of survivors of cancer in the United States has increased from 3 million in 1971 to 11.7 million in 2007. 1 Yet cancer still claims the lives of more than .5 million Americans each year and ranks close behind cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of death. 2 In this article, we offer our perspectives on how the war on cancer is going from the clinical and policy frontlines and postulate on what the future holds. Battles Have Been Won With Some Impressive ResultsThere is little debate that cancer care delivery in the United States has evolved dramatically in the past 40 years and has produced impressive results. Aided by therapeutic and delivery advances, fellowship-trained oncologists have set up private practices across the country that have moved cancer care from the inpatient, academic center complex to the outpatient, community setting. Today, four of five Americans battling cancer are treated close to home in independent practices or those affiliated with hospitals. 3 The community model of cancer care has provided high-quality, affordable, and accessible treatment to patients with cancer.Oncologists have been aided by significant advances in how they diagnose, treat, and manage cancer. For instance, the death rate from breast cancer decreased by approximately 2% per year between 1990 and 2006. 4 The multifactorial reasons for this decrease include widespread use of screening tests-such as mammography, which has increased early detection-as well as improvement in treatment in the adjuvant and metastatic setting. We can now realistically talk about certain metastatic cancers as chronic diseases given that patients often live many years with good quality of life.These encouraging results extend to the entire population. The increase in cancer mortality rates has been reversed, and 5-year survival rates for the United States demonstrate the strength of our cancer care delivery model. For example, American women have a 63% chance of living for at least 5 years after a cancer diagnosis compared with 56% for European women; American men have a 5-year survival rate of 66% compared with a rate of only 47% for European men. 5

Synergistic Effects of 5-Fluorouracil and Gambogenic Acid on A549 Cells: Activation of Cell Death Caused by Apoptotic and Necroptotic Mechanisms <i>via</i> the ROS-Mitochondria Pathway

“…Combination or multi-component therapy, in which two or more kinds of drugs are used at the same time, is a proven treatment for cancer diseases as previously reported by Fitzgerald et al 1) Therefore, combined treatments with several chemotherapy drugs are often used not only to enhance the effects, but also to reduce the toxicity of these drugs. [1][2][3][4][5] Most anticancer agent mediated death of cancer cells through the induction of apoptosis. 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU), belongs to anti-metabolic chemotherapeutics, is a fluorinated pyrimidine which is widely used in the treatment of a variety of solid tumors.…”