Word: gleevec
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...thinking about those people as I sat in on sessions at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Atlanta, where cancer researchers and doctors from all over the world come to report on their latest studies. It has been five years since the drug Gleevec, introduced at this conference, electrified doctors, grabbed headlines and changed the way doctors think about treating cancer. Because Gleevec was exquisitely targeted to interrupt a specific step in the cancer cell's growth process, it heralded a new era of kinder, gentler treatments that would pack all the anti-cancer wallop...
...parts of the body are still managing to evade the best therapies thrown at them. For some leukemias, survival rates have not budged since the 1970s. To be sure, there are gentler and more sophisticated forms of chemotherapy and radiation, as well as clever new drugs like Gleevec and Herceptin that take better aim at cancerous cells. But those therapies treat all cancer cells as equals. The next generation of treatments, doctors say, needs to recognize and target the root cause of tumors. "It requires a reorientation in people's thinking," says Weinberg. "We need to focus on wiping...
...squad, to help produce enzymes that because of some faulty gene, the body can't make on its own. When we finally find cures for cancers, they will reflect the secrets of how our genes fight some cancers and yield to others. Drugs like Herceptin for breast cancer and Gleevec for leukemia work by blocking the chemical signal that tells the cancer to grow. They herald the day when we can look back on the traditional slashing and burning of cancer patients as having been as primitive as bloodletting...
...radio for people to pay attention." ? Bono, U2 frontman, on his tour of Africa with U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill "I've used the term breakthrough three times in my career. This is one of them." ? Larry Norton, doctor at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Center, on Novartis' Gleevec "What are they going to attack next, the mute button?" ? Ken Potashner, CEO of SONICblue, on efforts to stop digital video recorders from skipping commercials
...their treatments, as they should. Yet this belief needs to be scrutinized by unbiased scientists working in the patients' interest. Our trials can never be too safe. But we should not lose sight of the fact that our system has given rise to spectacular advances in cancer therapy, including Gleevec for leukemia; the control of aids; treatments for breast cancer; and others. As a new era of molecular genetic research dawns, we need to make certain that the strides we make in devising new therapies are matched by progress in ensuring patient safety. FRANK G. HALUSKA, M.D., PH.D. Director, Melanoma...