Word: folkman
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...themselves room to expand. And, most famously, the class of compounds known as angiogenesis inhibitors keep tumors from building new blood vessels to supply themselves with food and oxygen. Three years ago, Nobel laureate James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, was quoted as saying Dr. Judah Folkman, the Harvard researcher, would use these inhibitors to "cure cancer within two years...
...most celebrated of the new cancer fighters are the antiangiogenesis drugs. Like monoclonal antibodies before them, these compounds, which keep tumors from growing their own blood supplies, were briefly touted as magic one-shot cancer cures?although Folkman, who pioneered the field in the 1970s, was always circumspect about making premature claims. "I think the antiangiogenesis field got some unfair negative publicity," says Saltz. "Our expectations were too high, but there is a lot of brilliant science behind...
...Folkman's insight was to look for substances that prevent tumors from building those pipelines. This approach worked beautifully in mice. Now more than 50 angiogenesis inhibitors are being studied in humans with a wide range of cancers; a dozen are in the final stages of testing. Thus far, only a tiny number of human patients treated with these compounds have seen their tumors shrink or disappear. Clinicians are nonetheless encouraged; while angiogenesis inhibitors don't make cancer go away, they do appear to slow tumor growth. And that means they may work best in conjunction with some...
...seen results in very few patients yet," says Folkman. "But we have seem some patients with stable disease. We have seen some patients whose tumors have stopped growing. And we have seen some patients whose tumors slowly regressed. I think the approach is promising, but we are still learning...
Ultimately, if cancer treatment shifts to include the new drugs, the definition of cancer may have to evolve. "Someday," says Folkman, "we may treat cancer as a chronic, manageable disease, very much like we treat heart disease now." Until then, the trials continue...