Excerpt from Mind, Body and Soul by Nancy H. Dahm, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Global Cancer Incidence
Worldwide, there were 52 million deaths in 1996. Of those, 6 million people died of cancer. Lung cancer claimed 989,000 lives and there were an estimated 1.32 million new cases. Deaths from other cancers were: stomach, 776,000; colorectal, 495,000; liver, 386,000; and breast cancer, 376,000. There were almost three times as many deaths from lung cancer as there were from breast cancer. Smoking causes one in seven cancer deaths worldwide. At least 15 percent of all cancers are a consequence of chronic infectious disease, the most important being hepatitis B and C viruses (liver cancer), the human papilloma virus (cervical cancer), and the helicobacter pylori bacterium (stomach cancer). In 1996 there were an estimated 17.9 million persons worldwide with cancer who survived up to 5 years after diagnosis.

Cancer Incidence in America
The year 2000 estimates for new cancer cases were over 1.2 million. Approximately 11 million cases have been diagnosed since 1990. The good news is that some of the approximately 8 million Americans alive today who have a cancer history can be considered cured.

Progress Against Cancer
In 1996, the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that for the first time in history we had turned the corner in our fight against cancer. New data showed that in the early 1990s, overall death rates from cancer began to decline as a result of intensified efforts to prevent, detect, and treat cancer. Data published in the March 15, 1998 issue of the American Cancer Society's oncology journal, Cancer, show that cancer incidence rates are decreasing for all cancer sites and the death rates from cancer continue to decrease. A press release from the National Cancer Institute on September 30, 1998 stated:

• Five-year survival rate for children with cancer improved from 65 percent in the early 1980s to 74 percent in the early 1990s.
• The five-year survival rate for all cancers improved from 51 percent in the 1980s to almost 60 percent in the early 1990s.
• Two million women who had breast cancer are alive today.
• One million men are survivors of prostate cancer. Hope on the Horizon

Every day, we read about some new and innovative drug, treatment protocol, or clinical trial. Research is being conducted at maximum speed and new discoveries are being announced in quick succession.

However, it takes years, sometimes 10 years, before a promising drug modality arrives in prescription form. There are particular quandaries associated with testing animals to assess a drug's effect on people. What often works in the animal can prove ineffective in humans. Researchers have previously focused on killing cancer cells with cytotoxic drugs and radiation, which have their own inherent side effects and complications. Now scientists are discovering possible ways of disarming the cancer cells on their own DNA level through genetic warfare. Molecular diagnostics, molecular medicine, and gene therapy are leading the scientific community towards new approaches in research. The conventional approach of understanding the way in which a cancer cell grows, mutates, and destroys other cells (carcinogenesis) has shifted to a cancer cell's genetic process.

Normal cells become cancer cells by transformations that take place at the gene level. Genes make proteins that govern cell multiplication. One protein is called epidermal growth factor (EGF ). When a retrovirus gets into a cell, it takes control of the cell's own EGF gene. The EGF gene becomes an oncogene (a cancer causing gene) due to the production of large amounts of the EGF protein, which cause epidermal cells to grow in an uncontrolled fashion. Bladder cancer in humans, for example, is caused by a single mutation of a gene. Mutations that occur in a normal cell are often the result of exposure to natural and synthetic compounds that are carcinogenic. Between 70 to 80 percent of cancers in humans are related to chemical and environmental factors. Induction is the first stage in the multistage carcinogenesis. It occurs when exposure to chemicals, radiation, viruses, and smoking produces modifications in the normal cell which makes it pre-cancerous. It appears that the genetic composition of the host (a person) is important in cancer induction. Promotion and conversion are the last two stages and may take up to twenty years to develop. In other words, someone might be exposed to a carcinogen, like smoking, as a young adult but they may not develop symptoms of cancer until years later.

Copyright Nancy Hassett Dahm October 2000. All rights reserved.