Cancer Prevention Laboratory

INTRODUCTION

Most cancer patients die from recurrent cancer, often many years after the original diagnosis and treatment.  Recurrent cancers are due to proliferation of cells that are shed from the primary tumor and lodged in organs such as lymph nodes, bones, lungs, kidneys and uterus, where they may lie dormant for years.  These cells, called metastatic cells, are very resistant to treatment.  Indeed, despite the expenditure of an estimated 14.8 billion cancer research dollars per year in the U.S. alone, no improvement had occurred by 2004 in the recovery rate of patients having metastatic cells at the time of initial treatment (Fig. 1).  Many cancer treatments are effective only against rapidly dividing cells in the body.  Thus, they kill a number of cells other than the cancer cells, causing many adverse side effects, ranging from hair loss to cachexia. 

Our goal was to produce a drug that specifically targets cancer cells including metastatic cells, that is not antigenic and is not subject to multiple drug rejection, a phenomenon in which treated cells develop the capacity to expel the drug after it has been absorbed.


Fig. 1.  Five-Year Survival Rates in Patients with Localized Disease and Distant Metastases  (Clifton Leaf, Fortune Magazine, March 2004)

^ top of page