The year 2000 marks a watershed in cancer research, a leading US oncologist told a news briefing today (Thursday 28 September) at the 2nd European Breast Cancer Conference in Brussels.
An explosion in genetic knowledge and increasing co-operation between investigators were combining to provide unprecedented opportunities to advance prevention and treatment, according to Dr Larry Norton from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
"For great advances to happen, normally we need to see a confluence of three things the understanding of a phenomenon, the ability to disturb that phenomenon, and the will to see those advances translated into research and practice. We are now at that point in cancer research."
Dr Norton said that we now had:
- A revolution in genetic knowledge and the understanding that we could manipulate genes
- A growing availability of the tools to undertake the manipulation
- A huge growth in international co-operation
"International co-operation is vital. Cancer is a human problem, not a national problem. By working together we can get things done better and faster. We need really big trials and we need to do them fast. The new co-operation means that we can recruit large numbers quickly. Could you imagine how much faster we would make progress if what would have taken five years could be done in eight months?"
He said that the emphasis in cancer research also needed to be switched from treatment towards prevention. Recruiting healthy people into trials was not as difficult as people perceived - the success of the SERMs trials in the USA had shown it could be done.
"We have an obligation to recruit large numbers into prevention trials and see the effects of different lifestyles on cancer incidence. Europe is moving towards the collaborative system that the USA so far employed successfully - working together across the continent. This has not been an easy process in the States, everyone has to sacrifice something to achieve a true collaborative spirit. But the results have been very gratifying, and we intend to continue in this fashion. We look forward to joining with our international colleagues so that we can make progress even faster."
Further information: Kay Roche/Mary Rice
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