Cancer Fighters Thrive is a quarterly print and online magazine bringing readers practical, innovative and inspirational information about cancer treatment and survivorship.
Issue link: http://cancerfightersthrive.epubxp.com/i/259111
spring 2014 | cancer fighters thrive 37 cf thrive. com RESEARCH TODAY ADVANCES IN THE TREATMENT OF METASTATIC CANCER By Mia James Current advances ofer hope to patients with metastatic diagnoses and more promise on the horizon. H istorically, metastatic cancers have been notoriously difficult to treat. Advances in treatment, however, are changing the outlook for patients with these diagnoses, as new therapies are able to control cancer spread and even, in some cases, kill cancer cells. When Cancer Is Metastatic In short a cancer is diagnosed as "meta- static" when it spreads from the place in the body where it started to other parts of the body. As Glen J. Weiss, MD, Direc- tor of Clinical Research and Medical Oncologist at Cancer Treatment Cen- ters of America® (CTCA) in Goodyear, Arizona, explains, to understand meta- static cancer it helps to first know how and where the original cancer forms: "The development of cancer involves a sequence of events where cells divide and take on abnormalities. When this divi- sion becomes out of control, a tumor results." Once a tumor has developed, Dr. Weiss says, it can become metastatic if more abnormalities develop; these include "the ability of cancerous cells to get into the blood and the lymphatic system and travel to and bind to a new location, where they take residence and grow." The Challenge of Treatment Understandably, metastatic cancers are challenging to treat because they often spread to more than one site, requir- ing a more complex treatment approach compared with cancer in a single loca- tion. The nature of the abnormalities of metastatic cells—their ability to divide and spread—makes therapy even more complicated, as it becomes hard to stay ahead of growth. "Once cancer cells have spread," says Dr. Weiss, "it becomes difficult to remove all cancer with surgery or radia- tion." He explains that the next step in treatment is to try to target and kill can- cer cells throughout the body with sys- temic chemotherapy—the use of drugs that travel through the blood to cells all over the body. Systemic chemotherapy is primarily given intravenously (through a needle or tube inserted into a vein) or by mouth in pill form. It can be especially difficult to treat metastatic cancer, explains Dr. Weiss, because cells that are able to spread to different organs can adapt quickly and become resistant to treatment. So it is often possible for a portion of cells within a tumor to survive anticancer therapy. "For example," says Dr. Weiss, "a one-inch tumor contains billions of cells, and each round of chemotherapy doesn't kill 100 percent of those cells." If about 90 percent of cells are killed, 10 percent remain alive and viable and can divide and multiply. "It's hard to keep up," he says. A goal of treatment is that the body's immune cells will begin to help out by developing the ability to identify cancer cells as foreign and then attack and eliminate them. Meeting the Treatment Challenge Despite the difficulties in treating meta- static cancer, there are currently signifi- cant advances available to patients and even more improvements on the horizon. Dr. Weiss explains that, in particular, there has been recent progress in the treatment of metastatic lung cancer— specifically, with drugs that target the epidermal growth factor receptor cftSp#23vky.indd 37 2/3/14 11:16 PM