New Methods for Targeting Cancer

In 1971, just two years after the United States had fulfilled President Kennedy's vision of putting a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth, Richard M. Nixon declared war on cancer. The "can-do" spirit that had propelled astronauts into the heavens and enabled one small step for a man would be put into the service of all humankind on mother Earth.

As other conflicts have flared and died across the globe over the last three decades, the war on cancer has been a constant struggle. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the U.S. and accounts for the deaths of 1 of every 4 Americans. The American Cancer Society estimates that 556,000 Americans died from cancer in 2003.

Cancer is a tough opponent, fighting on many fronts and in many guises, and because it is not a single disease, we may never be able to claim that we have found a "cure." But today our knowledge of the enemy and its tactics has never been greater, and although the end of cancer is not in sight, specialists say, we may be starting to hold our ground.

Veteran's Day

Robert Romine -- "Bud" to his friends and family -- is a veteran of the war on cancer. In 1994, the retired railroad conductor went to his doctor for routine colon cancer screening because of a family history of the disease. A blood test came back with an elevated white blood cell count (often an indicator of illness), and further tests revealed not colon cancer, but chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), a cancer of the white blood cells that starts in the bone marrow and can rapidly spread to the bloodstream, lymph nodes, organs, and nerves. "He was given three years," recalls his wife, Yvonne, in an interview.

Romine was started on a course of chemotherapy with hydroxurea, which stops cancers cells from reproducing, and interferon, which boosts the body's defenses against cancer. Neither drug is a cure, but they can help buy time for patients with CML -- at the cost of severe fatigue, flu-like symptoms, nausea, vomiting, and other serious side effects. "On a good day, I could make it from the bed to the davenport, and then I'd be through for the day," Romine tells WebMD.

But then the Romines read about the work of Brian Druker, MD, at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, not too far from their hometown of Tillamook. In their laboratory, Druker and co-workers had discovered that a compound developed by Novartis Pharmaceuticals had potential activity against CML. Romine became the first CML patient ever to be treated with the new compound, now called Gleevec.

Traditional chemotherapy works by blasting away at all fast-growing cells, which includes cancer cells but also healthy cells such as those that make up hair, skin, and mucous membranes. Gleevec, however, uses an entirely different strategy to fight cancer, by intercepting enzymes that are supposed to send messages telling cancer cells to divide and grow. Without the signals, the cells die.