CANCER

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I have seen the thread regarding Stephen Sutton and agree with the views expressed so far, truly brave lad.
I should imagine that a lot of us on this forum have known someone affected by cancer in one form or another. I myself have lost my Mother, Wife, two Brothers and my Sister to cancer, had it myself and it is at present under control.

My rant/question is how many more deaths from cancer are necessary before the powers that be actually do something about this disease. It seems that the government are just willing to leave it charities to try to find a cure, cancer research for instance.
Did a bit of searching but could not find any figures as to how much the government is putting up to "specifically" cancer research. End of my first ever rant into the ether. p.s. it is heartwarming that out PM is "deeply saddened"!!!

Brian
 
What precisely do you want done? What do you think isn't being done? What do you think cancer research departments in the UK are doing? What do you think cancer research departments across the world are doing? What are you doing to help with the research from cancer? If the Govt puts money in to cancer research, where else should it take it from?

I understand your frustrations but cancer isn't a simple thing. It's a lot more complex. There are different types of cancer for starters, all behaving in different ways with different pathways and hence will likely need different "cures" (if such a thing ever develops).
 
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The Government pumps a fair bit of money into cancer research through the Medical Research Council and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

We can't just throw money at a problem and expect a solution quickly, research just doesn't work like that.
 
Caner research are spending £100million for the new Frick research centre in London, which will be the biggest biometric research center in Europe with world class research facilities.
They worked with the Govt into introducing the smoking ban.

Personally I feel it's a lot to do with the enviroment and peoples diet. I'm convinced theres a link between ready meals and the rise in cancer rates.
 
I lost my Grandparents, and my mother to cancer, and had it myself at 19.
As I understand it, the problem with cancer is it's abilty to mutate and spread on a cellular level.
Remove a tumour, but is so much as a single cell remains it has the potential to reform a tumour, or metastasise and form a new, more agressive cancer.
One treatment does not fit all; therefore one "cure" will never be sufficient.
 
With nothing but respect I don't think the OP has understood how big a thing being asked. When you think of other disease groups you don't refer to 'VIRUS' for all illness caused by a virus. Same with 'BACTERIA'. But referring to a disease group as big or bigger then these, and with possibly more variety shows just how the problem is thought of in very simple terms. Cancer research says 'cancer' is made up of more then 200 different diseases. Many of them very complex. Start to think of it in those terms and you start to realise how big a mountain there is. Of course many are already capable of being controlled or beaten. There is much more to be done of course. But it is happening. I do think our government should reform NICE to take a longer term view rather then just one patient. But I question if government can do more then create the right environment for research (An aside, I wonder if the PM can really feel sorrow)
 
I lost my Grandparents, and my mother to cancer, and had it myself at 19.
As I understand it, the problem with cancer is it's abilty to mutate and spread on a cellular level.
Remove a tumour, but is so much as a single cell remains it has the potential to reform a tumour, or metastasise and form a new, more agressive cancer.
One treatment does not fit all; therefore one "cure" will never be sufficient.
This is exactly correct.
There's also the problem that cancer is not a single disease. It's a huge family of diseases. Even, for example, "breast cancer" is a subfamily with lots of manifestations that are different at a very complex level.
There's also the problem of targeting. Cancer cells are your body's own cells, so finding a way to selectively destroy them and leave the healthy tissues alone is a problem (although targeted therapies are becoming better and better).

I work in academic research, funded by cancer charities, and what I am doing could be called cancer research. Really, like most non-clinical researchers, I'm focused on understanding one tiny part of a tiny part of a complex problem within the context of one particular subfamily of cancers. It's my opinion that a universal cure is science-fiction. Although progress is being made. I think the best we can hope for is a future where some cancers are curable even at late stages and others are treatable (like other chronic but manageable diseases - diabetes, say).

There are a few cancers that we have more or less conquered. Testicular cancer now has a great prognosis even in late stages, as do some lymphomas.
 
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ok.. at the risk of getting flamed, there is far too much profit (from drug companies of which two big boys are in the news currently) in creating cancer treating drugs, so little or no vested interest on those parts. Lots of pension funds etc are based on shares and investments (often short to med term) of which drugs companies are usually offering good returns / dividends.

I cannot help but think if all these cancer research charities, seeking the elusive cure were to pool their millions and scientific minds togther they might get somewhere a lot quicker.

Also, the headline statements of "more people are dying of cancer than ever before."

Is this because population increases and whilst % stays the same, naturally with a higher base population, there will be more deaths. Maybe the evolution of medical research and diagnosis over the last x years has led to more specific diagnosis whereas in the past deaths were maybe attributed to old age or say pneumonia for arguments sake, without knowing of any underlying cause....
 
ok.. at the risk of getting flamed, there is far too much profit (from drug companies of which two big boys are in the news currently) in creating cancer treating drugs, so little or no vested interest on those parts. Lots of pension funds etc are based on shares and investments (often short to med term) of which drugs companies are usually offering good returns / dividends.

I cannot help but think if all these cancer research charities, seeking the elusive cure were to pool their millions and scientific minds togther they might get somewhere a lot quicker.

I don't think you'll be flamed. But don't forget that big pharma exists to make profit (any humanitarian benefits are secondary) and that as a whole drug companies don't offer good returns anymore. Thats beside the point though. At the end of the day they only wish to target diseases which will make them a profit, of which rare disease (of any sort) won't, unless the can charge and recoup their R & D spend. And getting a new drug to market is expensive
 
No flaming here Lynton, I think you're right about big Pharma, sadly.

But our own system also requires a slap. NICE routinely ban drugs from being prescribed by the NHS....drugs proven to either fight cancer or prolong the lives of those deemed terminal...because of the cost. Big pharma will charge the Nhs pounds per pill for something that takes pennies to make.

However, part of my job is the export of these drugs to struggling or emerging nations, and they are supplied FOR FREE as a humanitarian aid tax write-off, which makes them look like benevolent marvels. The whole thing is incredibly dirty.
 
As someone who works in research, I can tell you that it is NOT EASY to develop new medicines, or even gain more understanding about the mechanisms of the disease. The former takes 10-15 years min from discovery to market, and almost all potential medicines fail efficiency or safety (in simple language) tests. Computational biology and genetics may accelerate our understanding, and indeed many great new drugs may come from biological research but that is still away for a "little while" (amenable genome sequencing is just a first step - now time to interpret it all!)
Conventional chemical drugs take ages to develop to successful medicines, and discovery is usually almost "random" or based on intuition. I bet this will eventually evolve, just don't hold your breath for it...

There is another problem big pharma is there to make money. Sadly they may prefer to treat asthma or heart disease because there are more long term patients... and the conditions are well understood. Cancer drugs better be universal, or it is a small market for them. There needs to be a change of legislation and more appropriate incentive for universities.

I totally see your frustration but sadly it may be the case that science is simply not yet ready to eradicate cancer today. We are slowly getting there though
 
No flaming here Lynton, I think you're right about big Pharma, sadly.

But our own system also requires a slap. NICE routinely ban drugs from being prescribed by the NHS....drugs proven to either fight cancer or prolong the lives of those deemed terminal...because of the cost. Big pharma will charge the Nhs pounds per pill for something that takes pennies to make.

However, part of my job is the export of these drugs to struggling or emerging nations, and they are supplied FOR FREE as a humanitarian aid tax write-off, which makes them look like benevolent marvels. The whole thing is incredibly dirty.

NICE is not doing such a bad job even if it appears to be at first sight. There is a finite amount of £ and they could either cure a few people with expensive drug, or spend that money preventing more disease and treating more people with other conditions. It all soon becomes very philosophical and no decision is 100% right, many people benefit from this.
Another less obvious benefit is the control of price. The drug companies know that they need to price sensibly or they will be out of NHS list. Sadly the out-of-control US market undoes all this effort. Why would they charge less for the UK market? Or there is private health insurance...
 
As someone who works in research, I can tell you that it is NOT EASY to develop new medicines, or even gain more understanding about the mechanisms of the disease. The former takes 10-15 years min from discovery to market, and almost all potential medicines fail efficiency or safety (in simple language) tests. Computational biology and genetics may accelerate our understanding, and indeed many great new drugs may come from biological research but that is still away for a "little while" (amenable genome sequencing is just a first step - now time to interpret it all!)
Conventional chemical drugs take ages to develop to successful medicines, and discovery is usually almost "random" or based on intuition. I bet this will eventually evolve, just don't hold your breath for it...

There is another problem big pharma is there to make money. Sadly they may prefer to treat asthma or heart disease because there are more long term patients... and the conditions are well understood. Cancer drugs better be universal, or it is a small market for them. There needs to be a change of legislation and more appropriate incentive for universities.

I totally see your frustration but sadly it may be the case that science is simply not yet ready to eradicate cancer today. We are slowly getting there though

As somebody who has a pharmacology degree, thats easily one of the best posts I've seen here as it gives the cold, hard truth of research.

Like you say, most drugs are discovered purely by chance and it takes years and about £1.2 BILLION in development costs (can you perhaps see now why cancer drugs are so expensive @viv1969? They have to make it back somehow within the 20 years that the company has an exclusive patent on it!) in order to develop a drug and bring it to market. The point is that there are so many stages that a potential drug can fail at for showing excessive toxicity, dangerous adverse effects etc and only about 1 potential in 50 will make it to market. By the time you've simply got to basic human trials hundreds of millions will have been spend, and the final "stage 3" human trials can end up running for years and costing upward of several hundred million alone. Failure at any one of the stages of development will likely mean that all the previous money will have been wasted as most changes will result in going back to square one. Assuming that the drug makes it through all the trials and goes to be registered, the MHRA, FDA etc can then deny registration if they deem that the drug is too risky etc for use. Its a high risk industry, and many companies have folded in the past because of having a string of expensive failures.

Funding to be honest is one of the things which sometimes makes little sense: there are ~100x more suffering from dementia yet dementia research gets about 10 times less funding compared to cancer and to be honest dementia sufferers are probably in a much worst state as there are very few effective drugs - at least most cancers have some defined treatments. The sad truth of the matter is that there is no universal cure all for cancer and we still need to actually understand the pathogenesis of it before we can effectively treat it.
 
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Funding to be honest is one of the things which sometimes makes little sense: there are ~100x more suffering from dementia yet dementia research gets about 10 times less funding compared to cancer.

We really do not understand our brain, hence development of drugs is pretty much random and very expensive. Some pharma companies closed down their neuroscience units for that reason. It is another cold and hard fact.

But perhaps antibiotic development is even harsher example. There were no new ones in the last decade our coming out any time soon. Yet the antibiotic resistance is rising to critical levels.
 
We really do not understand our brain, hence development of drugs is pretty much random and very expensive. Some pharma companies closed down their neuroscience units for that reason. It is another cold and hard fact.

But perhaps antibiotic development is even harsher example. There were no new ones in the last decade our coming out any time soon. Yet the antibiotic resistance is rising to critical levels.

I recently went for a job interview at a small company that did contract drug research, and it was comprised of a group of scientists who had all worked for GSK's UK neuroscience division for years, and suddenly found themselves being practically out of a job when GSK decided to curtail all of its European neuroscience operations. They'd all been offered to work in other areas of the company, but decided that they would rather stay doing something they knew about so they formed their own company to essentially do what they used to do for GSK. As one of them pretty much put it, GSK couldn't wait to get rid of their division as it had been losing money for years, and they even donated most of the divisions equipment to the new company!

Antibiotic resistance is to be honest our own fault, resistance to penicillin was becoming apparent by the late 1950's in some bacterial strains, but nobody bothered to listen until it was too late. What are really needed are newer broad spectrum type antibiotics which exploit newer targets, but pretty much all of the newer antibiotics in recent years such as Linzolid have been narrow spectrum and theres been comparatively little research into newer targets. Perhaps whats needed most of all though is actually reducing the amount of antibiotics prescribed unnecessarily to help limit the spread of resistance, and more effective policing of antibiotic use in developing nations such as India where you can buy antibiotics over the counter for pretty much anything.
 
I kind of understand what the OP is saying and I agree a little.
For me its more priorities getting all messed up in government.

I would rephrase and say why can't we divert more money to cancer research than other less noble things like war.
 
Antibiotic resistance is to be honest our own fault, resistance to penicillin was becoming apparent by the late 1950's in some bacterial strains, but nobody bothered to listen until it was too late. What are really needed are newer broad spectrum type antibiotics which exploit newer targets, but pretty much all of the newer antibiotics in recent years such as Linzolid have been narrow spectrum and theres been comparatively little research into newer targets. Perhaps whats needed most of all though is actually reducing the amount of antibiotics prescribed unnecessarily to help limit the spread of resistance, and more effective policing of antibiotic use in developing nations such as India where you can buy antibiotics over the counter for pretty much anything.
Antibiotic resistance terrifies me.
I don't think most people realise what we're sleepwalking into. There's no interest from the public or from the powers in doing something about it.
I think the comprehensive success of antibiotics has paradoxically led to a situation where people really don't understand what it is we owe to them. And we owe them a lot.
 
As somebody who has a pharmacology degree, thats easily one of the best posts I've seen here as it gives the cold, hard truth of research.

Like you say, most drugs are discovered purely by chance and it takes years and about £1.2 BILLION in development costs (can you perhaps see now why cancer drugs are so expensive @viv1969? They have to make it back somehow within the 20 years that the company has an exclusive patent on it!) in order to develop a drug and bring it to market. The point is that there are so many stages that a potential drug can fail at for showing excessive toxicity, dangerous adverse effects etc and only about 1 potential in 50 will make it to market. By the time you've simply got to basic human trials hundreds of millions will have been spend, and the final "stage 3" human trials can end up running for years and costing upward of several hundred million alone. Failure at any one of the stages of development will likely mean that all the previous money will have been wasted as most changes will result in going back to square one. Assuming that the drug makes it through all the trials and goes to be registered, the MHRA, FDA etc can then deny registration if they deem that the drug is too risky etc for use. Its a high risk industry, and many companies have folded in the past because of having a string of expensive failures.

Funding to be honest is one of the things which sometimes makes little sense: there are ~100x more suffering from dementia yet dementia research gets about 10 times less funding compared to cancer and to be honest dementia sufferers are probably in a much worst state as there are very few effective drugs - at least most cancers have some defined treatments. The sad truth of the matter is that there is no universal cure all for cancer and we still need to actually understand the pathogenesis of it before we can effectively treat it.

Yes of course I see why they're expensive. It's the giving them away to other nations that sticks in my throat.
 
I've said this before. We actually know how to prevent 20% of all cancer and 25% of cancer deaths.

Stop smoking. It really is that simple.

Then we can focus on the hard stuff.

I would rephrase and say why can't we divert more money to cancer research than other less noble things like war.

Prevent 20% of cancer and save the money we spend on the treatment of it and you would suddenly have a lot more money to spend on looking into the ones we don't know how to prevent. Though of course we'd probably spend it on invading Spain or something.
 
NICE is not doing such a bad job even if it appears to be at first sight.
Largely agree with this. They do make recommendations that are at times head-scratching but the majority of decisions are made in a particular way for a reason.

Another less obvious benefit is the control of price. The drug companies know that they need to price sensibly or they will be out of NHS list. Sadly the out-of-control US market undoes all this effort. Why would they charge less for the UK market? Or there is private health insurance...
There have been instances where a drug is no longer manufactured because of a lack of profit (despite the fact that it works well), or the drugs are "no longer available" to the UK market but are then sold overseas where they get more money.

whats needed most of all though is actually reducing the amount of antibiotics prescribed unnecessarily
IIRC more antibiotics are used in agriculture than in prescriptions. Tackle this first and it may make an impact. Couple it with worldwide restriction on availability (stuff like antibiotics are available otc even in countries like Spain let alone third world countries) and it will make a difference. There's suggestion that point-of-care testing for CRP may be a way to help determine whether a person has a bacterial or viral illness. Most people have the latter, think they have the former and demand antibiotics whether or not it's clinically indicated. I think a lot of this comes from the modern culture of "me, me, me" and "i'm the most important person in the world, i don't care about anyone else" as well as a lack of common sense and responsibility ("I've had a sore throat for 4 hours and I want some antibiotics to make it go away").
 
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given that the govt has a tendency to cock up and over bureucratise everything it touches - progress may be faster in the hands of charities !
 
Yes of course I see why they're expensive. It's the giving them away to other nations that sticks in my throat.

Why do I have a feeling that there are good tax incentives for doing this?
 
However, part of my job is the export of these drugs to struggling or emerging nations, and they are supplied FOR FREE as a humanitarian aid tax write-off, which makes them look like benevolent marvels. The whole thing is incredibly dirty.

especially when they then wound up being stolen and sold by corrupt officials in the benefactor regimes
 
But our own system also requires a slap. NICE routinely ban drugs from being prescribed by the NHS....drugs proven to either fight cancer or prolong the lives of those deemed terminal...because of the cost.


It must be heartbreaking to work for NICE. They are basically accountants - "we have 'x' pounds - how do we spend that effectively to get the largest number of years of quality life?". Except that the decisions they have to make kill people. Not absolutely, but sooner. They are effectively tasked to decide who lives and who dies.
 
It's the giving them away to other nations that sticks in my throat.


When I worked for Pfizer they gave away several million pounds worth of stop smoking drugs to Sub Saharan African countries. I think any any facade of them being benevolent marvels doesn't stand even the most basic of scrutiny.
 
When I worked for Pfizer they gave away several million pounds worth of stop smoking drugs to Sub Saharan African countries. I think any any facade of them being benevolent marvels doesn't stand even the most basic of scrutiny.

That's my point.
 
Part of the reason why cancer rates are on the increase are due to us abusing bodies (sun, fags, booze etc...) and also the fact that we live longer and as many other things are treatable, something has to get us in the end... cancer is it! One thing the government can't be blamed for!
 
Part of the reason why cancer rates are on the increase are due to us abusing bodies (sun, fags, booze etc...) and also the fact that we live longer and as many other things are treatable, something has to get us in the end... cancer is it! One thing the government can't be blamed for!

Don't forget processed food full of questionable "additives" and the air quality, but probably it is still mostly down to genetics. When people live well beyond the "natural" life expectancy as in the cave days, the natural evolution didn't weed out all these problem genes and they get you. We could have gene therapy and all sorts of things in a decade or two, but where do you draw a line what is acceptable and what is not? Can we create superhuman, can we create immortal people, etc? And what do politicians think about retirement age and the global issues? Probably I don't want to go that deep in this conversation..
 
Personally I feel it's a lot to do with the enviroment and peoples diet. I'm convinced theres a link between ready meals and the rise in cancer rates.


I've said this before. We actually know how to prevent 20% of all cancer and 25% of cancer deaths.

Stop smoking. It really is that simple.




Part of the reason why cancer rates are on the increase are due to us abusing bodies (sun, fags, booze etc...) and also the fact that we live longer and as many other things are treatable, something has to get us in the end... cancer is it! One thing the government can't be blamed for!



To all the above "Experts", as someone who has never eaten a ready meal, I hide from the Sun, don't smoke, don't drink.....

Why have I just been diagnosed with Lung Cancer.

I await your answers......
 
First of all, very sorry to hear about your diagnosis. I hope it all works out for you and you make as speedy a recovery as possible.

To answer your question: the thing is, we never know what causes any individual cancer. We know some things increase risk but that doesn't mean they are the only things that can cause cancers and it doesn't mean those things will always cause cancer. Cancer is, fundamentally, caused by certain genetic mutations. Things like tobacco smoke, UV rays (sun), etc can cause genetic mutations and therefore increase risk of cancer; but sometimes genetic mutations just happen (in fact they happen all the time - DNA replication errors when cells divide are the norm rather than the exception - but most are harmless or your body deals with them without you knowing). Sometimes your genetic machinery just goes wrong in a way that leads to cancer for no discernible external reason.

Not all individual cancers can be linked back to specific external causes. We can only really talk broadly about certain external factors increasing risk at the population level. Avoiding risk factors and living the recommended healthy lifestyles may statistically reduce your risk of cancer but it doesn't eliminate the possibility. Sometimes it's just beyond our control.
 
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It still makes me cringe though when I see people smoking nowadays.
Everything we know about how basically this kills you off and people puffing away.
 
It still makes me cringe though when I see people smoking nowadays.
Everything we know about how basically this kills you off and people puffing away.
There's no disputing that smoking is a huge risk factor; particularly for cancers of the respiratory system. But it's important not to confuse that fact with the idea that if you don't smoke you won't get lung cancer. Because you can still develop lung cancer, you're just less likely to.

Some people do nurture an idea that if they live a wholesome, healthy lifestyle it makes them immune to cancer or other nasties. It doesn't.
 
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To all the above "Experts", as someone who has never eaten a ready meal, I hide from the Sun, don't smoke, don't drink.....

Why have I just been diagnosed with Lung Cancer.

I await your answers......

Of course that's terrible news and I'm sorry to hear it. I hope you're getting the support and treatment you need.

As some people have already commented, it's not a symmetric equation. If you smoke then it's actually fairly likely you'll get lung cancer (or die of a smoking related disease before you do). But of course there are many other causes - IIRC radon is the second highest cause of lung cancer.

Some people do nurture an idea that if they live a wholesome, healthy lifestyle it makes them immune to cancer or other nasties. It doesn't.

That's true - but it changes the odds.
 
Of course that's terrible news and I'm sorry to hear it. I hope you're getting the support and treatment you need.

As some people have already commented, it's not a symmetric equation. If you smoke then it's actually fairly likely you'll get lung cancer (or die of a smoking related disease before you do). But of course there are many other causes - IIRC radon is the second highest cause of lung cancer.



That's true - but it changes the odds.
Yes, it changes the odds. That was my wider point. Is all about relative risks, not certainties.
 
Not sure who Jonathan quoted but like him, I wish the OP whose just been diagnosed all the best with his/her treatment.

One other modern factor is possibly/probably the Benzene used in unleaded fuel. Nasty stuff - but so was the lead.

Like others, I've had a brush with a tumour although it was never diagnosed as a cancerous one. I'll have to have annual MRI scans to check it hasn't recurred but that's a very small price to pay for peace of mind. After the op the surgeon said he was 99.999% sure they'd got it all but said that the only way they could 100% guarantee it would have been to remove the whole head and (oddly?) I wouldn't have signed the consent form for that procedure!

Life is a terminal condition. Not only that but it's also a sexually transmitted one. AND a 4 letter word... Enjoy it while you have it.
 
My rant/question is how many more deaths from cancer are necessary before the powers that be actually do something about this disease. It seems that the government are just willing to leave it charities to try to find a cure, cancer research for instance.
Did a bit of searching but could not find any figures as to how much the government is putting up to "specifically" cancer research. End of my first ever rant into the ether. p.s. it is heartwarming that out PM is "deeply saddened"!!!

Brian


millions are spent on cancer research every year. not everything is going to be curable, the cell cycle is an extremely complicated pathway with various areas that get f***ed up depending on the cancer. research is not as simple as you think, it can take months just to do the simplest things. once something is discovered it can take a further 5-10 years to get any sort of drug to the patients.

it's quite a common rant from a layman.
 
There's no disputing that smoking is a huge risk factor; particularly for cancers of the respiratory system. But it's important not to confuse that fact with the idea that if you don't smoke you won't get lung cancer. Because you can still develop lung cancer, you're just less likely to.

Some people do nurture an idea that if they live a wholesome, healthy lifestyle it makes them immune to cancer or other nasties. It doesn't.

As already mentioned the genetic make up is certainly the determining factor, and some cancers are also known to be caused by viruses. There is yet even more that is completely unknown to man. However other factors like smoking certainly increase the likelihood of developing cancer. It is not just smoking, but pretty much everything burning or burnt (like blackened food - e.g. your BBQs!) that is extremely harmful. So feel free to use e-fag things if you are that addicted; at least you are not putting anyone else at increased risk.
 
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