Just read this piece of news in El Pais newspaper in Spain.
Seems that Cancer has displaced heart diseases as the first cause of death with one out of every four deaths. Although a bit over half of the cases can be treated successfully, they key continues to be early detection, not new therapies or advanced drugs. In Spain, the highest cancer deaths are produced by lung cancer in men and breast cancer in women.
Although the news is about Cancer in Spain I suspect the data is similar in most Western countries. In any case it is likely that diseases like malaria are still killing more people at any given moment in the world.
I agree! Cancer is said to have become the biggest killer in under 85s in the developed world. Death rate from cancer in European men, for example, is around 23, as far as I know. There will be a certain percentage of deaths that were not stated to be caused by cancer on the death certificate. So, as a rule of thumb, 50 of men will get cancer at some point in their lives and about half of them will survive the disease and die of another cause. This includes basal cell carcinomas of the skin which rarely metastasize and are therefore easy to cure by surgery. Sobering figures! It is true that with few exceptions, so far, drug therapy has done little to improve cancer survival (childhood leukemias and testicular cancer being examples where chemotherapy works well). In most types of cancer, early detection and surgery is key to achieving a cure. A suggestion for reading: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/03/22/365076/index.htm.
Hi,
I’ve seen that you work on drug discovery (BTW, link in your profile does not work). Any take on why is it so hard to come with drugs to treat cancer? My take (biased as it might be) is that evolution is too clever but I’d like to hear more…
Hi David, Hi Burkhard,
Very interesting blog! The cnn article is a great read too. I don’t know whether it’s possible to link blogs in a group. I think this blog will be a very relevant to the group: http://network.nature.com/group/cancer_research
I will look forward to further blog entries and comments on this very fascinating yet deadly issue.
Hi David!
A good starting point to answer your question why modern drug discovery is producing so little that is new and truly effective, especially in the field of cancer drug therapy, you can find here:
http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v5/n8/pdf/nrd2084.pdf.
Regards
Burkhard