New Drugs Chip Away at Cancer
Sun Jun 6, 2004 04:55 PM ET
By Bill Borden and Ransdell Pierson
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Little by little, new targeted therapies are helping cancer patients live longer, even if they do not offer miraculous cures, researchers said on Sunday.
They are learning how to combine the best new targeted therapies with older drugs to eke out a few extra months or even years for cancer patients -- which can mean a lot to a patient hoping to live long enough to see a child graduate or marry.
And each small step builds on earlier progress, so that the overall five-year survival rate for all cancers combined is now 63 percent, according to the American Cancer Society, up from 51 percent in 1975.
"It is sort of like a glacier -- you have this slow but extremely powerful movement. But it's not a fast movement," Dr. Michael Friedman, chief executive officer of the City of Hope Cancer Center in California, said in an interview.
Article: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=5354434