Cancer Treatment Can Often Come Too Late, But What If You Could Get Ahead Of The Disease?
A new study, called Project Baseline, is trying to pinpoint the transition from normal health to disease. Researchers hope that the project could lead to the identification of new markers in the blood, stool or urine of healthy people that help predict cancer, cardiovascular disease and other leading killers of Americans. In other news, why don't all cancer-linked mutations in cells turn into tumors?
The New York Times:
Project Baseline Aims To Ward Off Illness Before We Get Sick
One of the sobering facts about cancer treatment is that it often begins when it is already too late: Studies show that an alarming number of treatable cancers are diagnosed in the advanced stages of disease. That has long bothered Dr. Sam Gambhir, a top cancer researcher at Stanford University who lost his teenage son to brain cancer in 2015. Dr. Gambhir wondered if there were some surefire way to detect cancer long before people got sick. (O'Connor, 10/18)
The New York Times:
Researchers Explore A Cancer Paradox
Cancer is a disease of mutations. Tumor cells are riddled with genetic mutations not found in healthy cells. Scientists estimate that it takes five to 10 key mutations for a healthy cell to become cancerous. Some of these mutations can be caused by assaults from the environment, such as ultraviolet rays and cigarette smoke. Others arise from harmful molecules produced by the cells themselves. In recent years, researchers have begun taking a closer look at these mutations, to try to understand how they arise in healthy cells, and what causes these cells to later erupt into full-blown cancer. (Zimmer, 10/18)
