Small advances in war on cancer

Though much progress has been made in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, the disease remains a formidable killer. It remains an intractable adversary to the army of physicians and scientists working to find cures for its myriad forms or to reduce the ravages of the disease. For all their work, cancer is still the second leading cause of death each year in the United States. Only heart disease claims more lives annually. Even so, promising if incremental gains against cancer continue to be made.

Several advances were reported at the just concluded annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the largest conference of the year on cancer care and treatment. All such news is gratifying, but studies that cited advances in the treatment of lung cancer and melanoma are especially welcome. Both are difficult to treat and are particularly deadly.

About 219,000 Americans are expected to get lung cancer this year, and about 159,000 will die, according to the American Cancer Society. About 68,000 individuals will get melanoma in the same period, and about 8,700 will die. Melanoma accounts for only about 5 percent of skin cancers, but causes the majority of skin cancer deaths.

A new drug that treats melanoma by using patients' immune system to fight the cancer is quite promising. Those who got the experimental drug lived a median of about 10 months, compared to 6.4 months for patients in a control group. About a fourth of those who received the experimental treatment were alive after two years, compared to 14 percent in the control group. The gains might seem small, but researchers say it is the first time that they have been able to improve survival rates in those with melanoma.

The new lung cancer drug seems to work in the five percent of patients whose tumors have a specific protein mutation. In a drug trial of those with the aberration, tumors shrank in 57 percent of the group and remained stable in 30 percent more. The percentage of lung cancer patients with the aberration is small, but the new drug still could help and prolong the lives of 10,000 patients a year in the United States.

Researchers are careful to balance news of progress against these cancers with a dose of caution. The new drugs, they remind the general public, are not cures. They are small steps on the still-long road to finding a cure or better controlling a disease. It is a timely reminder that should help raising false hope.

One expert put the newly announced advances in perspective -- with a baseball analogy. The results of the melanoma trial are "a single, not a home run," he said, adding that a single in cancer research is better than an out. That's the proper outlook. Any drug or treatment that improves life expectancy, reduces suffering or holds the promise of long-terms gains in the war against cancer is a boon at a time when a diagnosis of the disease remains one of life's most feared pronouncements.

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