This article is from the WebMD Medical News Archive

Cancer Advancements in 2003

Two new drugs greatly improve the treatment of cancer and extend patient survival.

By  Charlene Laino WebMD Medical News

Reviewed By Brunilda  Nazario, MD on Friday, December 19, 2003

2003 brought scientists a little bit closer to winning the war on cancer as researchers continued to make strides against the dreaded disease. Two developments top the list: Cancer researchers have discovered the crucial role that blood vessels play in cancer progression, and a major advance was made in preventing the recurrence of breast cancer with a new drug called Femara.

Neither development means that we've cured the disease, doctors stress. But both are significant steps toward winning the war.

Paul A. Bunn Jr., MD, the 2002-2003 president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and director of the University of Colorado Comprehensive Cancer Center in Denver, points out that in 1975, only half of people with cancer could expect to be alive five years after their diagnosis. In 2003, 63% of people can.

How did we do it? Through advances like angiogenesis and Femara, "progressive, largely small but important steps that when added together get us that much closer to curing the disease," Bunn tells WebMD.

Targeting Tumors' Roots

Despite years of skepticism, for the first time, researchers showed that an anti-angiogenesis drug extends survival of patients with cancer, capping a decades-long research process.

It began back in the early 1970s when Harvard's Judah Folkman, MD, hypothesized that cancer cannot grow or spread without a steady blood supply to feed it. In a process scientists call angiogenesis, new blood vessels grow that allow cancer cells to flourish. The new vessels grow into the cancerous tumor, supplying them with nutrients.

Drugs that block the growth of new blood vessels, Folkman reasoned, would eliminate the flow of blood to tumors, much like chopping a plant off at its roots. And without oxygen and nutrients, tumors would be prevented from growing.

While leading scientists originally rejected the theory as heresy, the approach panned out in early test-tube studies and in animals, stopping cancer growth in its tracks.

But researchers soon ran into trouble, with one team successfully reproducing Folkman's work and then another team not being able to do so.

Survival Extended 5 Months

At the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in March 2003, researchers reported that adding the anti-angiogenesis drug Avastin to standard chemotherapy significantly improves survival for patients with metastatic colon cancer.

"Avastin did not cure patients," stresses chief investigator Herbert Hurwitz, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at Duke University in Durham, N.C. "But the study validates this approach and this target in this disease."

In the study of 800 patients with colorectal cancer, those who received Avastin in addition to standard chemotherapy lived nearly five months longer than those who got standard chemotherapy alone, Hurwitz says.

While five months might not sound like much, researchers not involved with the study note the extra months are quite significant given that patients with advanced colorectal cancer typically survive only about one year.

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