Unleashing a patient's own immune system to fight cancer cells. Reengineering cells to attack tumors. Targeting genetic mutations with medications that block unbridled tumor growth. If it sounds like scientists are waging an all-out war on cancer, that's because they are.
And for the first time in almost 15 years, they're winning. Cancer deaths are down 23 percent since their peak in 1991, according to the American Cancer Society. People are living long-term with bone marrow cancers that a decade ago might have killed them in 2or 3 years. The 5-year survival rate for breast cancer is 90 percent, up from 75 percent in 1975. And, miraculously, patients who would have died within a few months from metastatic melanoma are seemingly cured.
"It is the moment I've been dreaming of in my 30 years practicing medicine," says Louis M. Weiner, director of the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington. D.C. "To be able to sit down with a patient who has a disease that in the past couldn't be effectively treated and tell them, 'We have a therapy that could allow you to live your life, watch your grandchildren be born, and help raise them."
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And for the first time in almost 15 years, they're winning. Cancer deaths are down 23 percent since their peak in 1991, according to the American Cancer Society. People are living long-term with bone marrow cancers that a decade ago might have killed them in 2or 3 years. The 5-year survival rate for breast cancer is 90 percent, up from 75 percent in 1975. And, miraculously, patients who would have died within a few months from metastatic melanoma are seemingly cured.
"It is the moment I've been dreaming of in my 30 years practicing medicine," says Louis M. Weiner, director of the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington. D.C. "To be able to sit down with a patient who has a disease that in the past couldn't be effectively treated and tell them, 'We have a therapy that could allow you to live your life, watch your grandchildren be born, and help raise them."
Read more click here
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