Professor Lv Youyong, a well-known biological oncologist of the Cancer Hospital, Beijing University sent me an email on 20th March 2010 on the demise of a common friend of us. The email reads as follow:
“Today, I was informed that our friend xxx who fought against cancer had left us. My heart is heavy and at the same time, it sets me thinking on cancer research by man; what theories do we use to explain cancer and how it should be dealt with? All the experience we have and various real happenings tell us that we are erroneous in our understanding of cancer, our attitude toward it and the ways we deal with it. …..
Do we adopt a holistic and comprehensive approach or do we follow what the conventional approach propagandizes to treat it partially and to co-exist with it? How do we put into practice the “systemised, personalized and target-oriented approach” as emphasized by modern medicines? Mankind is facing their greatest challenge…..”
Professor Lv’s view actually represents the voice of many experts in the same field.
Professor Ni Jia Zan, a leading life scientist, a chemist and a fellow member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has spent many years joining his sick wife in the battle on cancer. He said, “Unless one has personally experienced it, it is very difficult for one to fully understand the pains and sufferings cancer patients go through. It is of outmost importance to come up with innovative strategies and methods on cancer treatment.”
Professor Wang Zhenyi, a well-known haematologist and a fellow member of Chinese Academy of Engineering, said: When it comes to cancer treatment, we must think out of the box. Most cancer cannot be cured by the treatment available now.” The hallmark of a cancer cell is its genomic instability. The cell's DNA is not fixed the way a normal cell is. A normal cell passes on pristine copies of its three-billion-letter code to every next-generation cell. But when a cancer cell divides, it may pass along to its daughters an altered copy of its DNA instructions--and even the slightest change can have giant effects on cell behavior. The consequence is that while cancer is thought to begin with a single cell that has mutated, the tumors eventually formed are made up of countless cellular cousins, with a variety of quirky traits, living side by side. That heterogeneity of tumors is the major obstacle to easy therapy. Drugs that aim specifically at a sub-type of cancer cells or targeted cancer cells will definitely be unable to eliminate all cancer cells. “We need innovative research!” Professor Wang emphasized.
Thirty years ago, acute promyelocytic leukemia was a horrific disease. The survivability of a acute promyelocytic leukemia patient would not exceed one year. Though there were many theses that came up with various combinations of chemotherapy, the median survival time could only be extended merely by a few months. For a patient with only one more year to live, this extension serves no purpose. “As leukemia is caused by the mutations of normal white blood cells, why not we try to convert these mutated white blood cells into normal cells (redifferentiation)?” Professor Wang pondered. He noted that all-trans retinoic acid possesses such property. Together with his student, Fellow Zhen Zhu, the current Health Minister of China, they researched further into this and discovered that arsenic, a traditional Chinese medicine could cause death of leukemia cells. The current cure rate of 95% is as a result of the studies by Professor Wang and Fellow Zhen Zhu. This innovative therapy which changes the highly fatal malignant cancer of the blood into a highly curable one astonishes the whole world.
Can there be a breakthrough in the treatment of solid tumours similar to the breakthrough by Professor Wang in the treatment of leukaemia?
I visited the laboratory of Professor Lv Youyong. He and his team are trying to explain the inter-relationship between gene mutation, tumour occurrence and treatment strategies and the realization, consolidation and integration of genomics and cancer biology based on the genome level.
I was invited to Tsinghua University to meet Professor Luo Yongzhang. He and his team have, through their research and development, developed successfully new antiangiogenic drugs and cancer markers for monitoring occurrence and development of tumours. Their works are of world leading level and may provide an important basis for the realization of individualized cancer treatment.
Many specialists do not put the search for knowledge as the ultimate goal of their studies. Instead they take a systematic approach trying to have an overall grasp on cancer or attempting an entire new approach in cancer studies. As mentioned earlier, Professor Zeng Yi-Xin’s research finding that ordinary cancer cells can transform into stem cell-like cancer cells indicates that a breakthrough in cancer treatment will eventually be born.
The traditional concept on cancer treatment is: the only condition needed to prolong the survival of a cancer patient is to achieve a cancer-free state through the use of a variety of treatments. In other words, in cancer treatment we must eliminate or destroy all cancer cells. Only then cancer can be considered cured. As a result, people widen their search for treatment to cure cancer by surgery, reinforced or impactful chemotherapy, and radical radiotherapy. However, things do not go the way they have wished. Up till now, the best efficacy ever achieved by the above therapies is merely clinical cure. Cancer recurrence and metastases are problems unresolved. Furthermore, after those therapies, patients’ quality of life declines, and they cannot tolerate further treatment leading to accelerated death. It becomes a vicious cycle: surgical tumour removal, chemotherapy and radiotherapy → body weakened and poor immune defence function → recurrence and metastases→ further surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, tumour shrinkage → body further weakened, immune defence function declines further → further recurrence and metastases→ body further weakened, and immune defence function destroyed → death.