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Welcome to edition #1 of the SWOG Update.
For all members and friends of the Southwest Oncology Group, the SWOG Update will keep you informed of what's happening with the Group. News to report? Send it to communications@swog.org.
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Why we do what we do
Our mission is straightforward: to make progress in the prevention and cure of cancer through clinical research. Our research objectives define how we work to accomplish our mission.
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You, your colleagues, and your cooperative group in the media ...
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SWOG Spotlight: Fall Meeting Plenary
The War on Cancer: Raise the bar, or move the goal line?
Are we settling for the costly, incremental victories of trench warfare in battling cancer? Or are we obsessed with curing the disease when we should be focused on helping patients live with it?
Both positions have been staked out in eloquent fashion in recent essays in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and Nature.
Hear the authors of these essays address these questions at the plenary session of SWOG’s Fall Group Meeting in Chicago in October.
The speakers
David J. Stewart, M.D., is coauthor (with Razelle Kurzrock, M.D.) of the essay "Cancer: The Road to Amiens" in the January 20, 2009, issue of JCO.
Stewart and Kurzrock argue that progress against cancer has been slowed by setting the efficacy bar too low and the safety bar too high.
A low standard of success, they say, encourages researchers to go for the relatively easy money, impeding more meaningful progress. And because most victories bring only incremental improvement, they warrant only low levels of risk to patients.
To raise the efficacy bar (and indirectly lower the safety bar), the authors recommend a number of actions, including moving from large, randomized trials to many smaller, more targeted trials with more ambitious goals; using molecular and genetic profiling routinely when patients are first diagnosed to speed the matching of patients with studies that fit their profile; allowing greater flexibility in following trial protocols; and reducing the labyrinth of regulations to a few key guideposts.
Robert A. Gatenby, M.D., is author of the essay "A change of strategy in the war on cancer" in the May 28, 2009, issue of Nature.
Gatenby applies lessons from evolutionary ecology and integrated pest management to the treatment of cancer.
Though we are unable to completely eradicate most invasive species, he points out, we have developed multi-faceted strategies to keep their spread in check and limit their damage to acceptable levels. The same model may prove effective against cancer.
He discusses the evolutionary dynamics of tumors, citing evidence that suggests that a full frontal assault on a tumor with high doses of chemotherapy, by killing most susceptible cells, allows resistant cells to grow unchecked, hastening the day when the chemotherapy weapons become dull and ineffective against a patient’s cancer.
Better to treat with regular, smaller doses of chemotherapy, he says, with the goal of an extended stalemate, keeping the tumor mass stable – and the patient alive – for as long as possible.
I. Craig Henderson, M.D., is a breast cancer clinician and researcher on faculty at the University of California – San Francisco Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, and has headed several biopharmaceutical startups, most recently serving as president of New York based Keryx Biopharmaceuticals. He founded the Breast Evaluation Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Royal College of Physicians (Edinburgh).
Henderson will strive to reconcile and make sense of Stewart’s and Gatenby’s views, and will add his own navigational clues on the direction forward in cancer research.
Ask your questions; have your say
A question and answer session will follow. The discussion promises to be lively. Don’t miss it!
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