Sunday, June 15, 2014

Openings on cancer cure I

The challenge of cancer cure remains closely linked to the mechanism underlying the cause of the neoplastic process that caused any particular cancer.  And the practice of Oncology  of today is clearly with limited vision not adapted to the challenge posed by most cancers.  This challenge is compounded by the inadequacy of insurance reimbursement which does not cover most gene testing, and the lack of knowledge of genes and their pathways.  This lack of knowledge of genes is actually in part due to political pressures that lead to mal-distribution of research funds to mostly ineffective institutions, institutions that compete for funds but with no clear vision...leading to disparate research!

Cancer cure has shown us that unless you know what mechanism is underlying one particular cancer, the treatment will be short lived or clearly ineffective.  Indeed the treatment may be harmful since it may induce new gene alterations that may worsen the clinical setting of the patient.  We also know that even when a cause is known, and the target defined, attacking cancer cell always induce a survival reflex, the cancer cell quickly develop or amplify new pathways to remain alive.  That secondary survival born new mechanism have yet to be significantly approached by modern Oncology.  Indeed, we are still focused on first
treatments.   Is it true that MTOR inhibitors should follow anti-VEGF?  These principle have been mentioned in the literature but not written in stone....In colon cancer, Emphasis have been made on secondary anti-VGEF since these have been known to amplify after use of primary anti-VGEF...


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