Word: patiently
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...cells: too many copies of a gene known as HER-2/neu. This gene makes a protein that helps relay the signal telling cells to divide. Having too much of it is associated with an especially rampaging, hard-to-treat cancer. Once this form of breast cancer metastasizes, a patient typically has just six to 12 months to live...
...York City, Dr. Mark Malkin is working with a substance that targets a receptor for another growth factor called PDGF (platelet-derived growth factor). This receptor studs the surfaces of cells in certain ovarian, prostate, lung and brain tumors. Malkin has been testing the drug, SU101, on patients with an extraordinarily deadly brain tumor called glioblastoma. Median survival for a patient found to have this cancer is 14 months...
...drug, manufactured by Sugen, appears to slow or arrest tumor growth in about a third of glioblastoma patients, but it's too soon to say how long the benefits will last. Side effects appear to be mild. "We have one patient who's been on it for two years and three months," says Malkin. "His tumor is still there, but it's stable. He's alive; he's at work. For someone with recurrent glioblastoma, that's remarkable...
...Though patients long desperately for a "cure," extending life is the more realistic goal in treating cancer. The newer drugs, unlike chemotherapy agents, are "cancer stoppers," not "cancer killers," says Malkin. Chances are that they will have to be taken for many years, or even for the rest of a patient's life. But if such drugs can slow or stop the growth and spread of malignant cells, then cancer can be transformed from an acute and deadly disease into a chronic and manageable one. That doesn't make as sexy a headline as a cancer cure...
Last week's cascade of stories about drugs that can knock out cancer in mice sent patient hopes (and stock prices) soaring. But it also presented the type of challenge that is particularly important in covering potential medical breakthroughs, especially ones in which "cure" and "cancer" appear in the same sentence. "We were seeing a disturbing disconnect between the headlines and the actual science," says science editor Philip Elmer-DeWitt, whose staff was already reporting a cover on cancer. "We thought we could separate the hope from the hype with some expert explaining...