A pioneer oncologist ensures that we will win the war on cancer, and there is only one battle

With this ruling torn memories of Dr. Vi n cent T. DeVita Jr., a leading researcher and one of the oncologists who has held top positions in the scientific and medical framework surrounding the study and treatment of the disease. DeVita was for eight years director of the US National Cancer Institute, and then move to leading cancer research at Yale University, where, in his 80s, continues to give master classes.
His autobiography, which The New York Times has described as "absorbent, fierce and frank", takes an explicit title, more like a story than a memoir, 'The death of the cancer: after fifty years at the forefront of medicine, a pioneer oncologist reveals why the war on cancer can be won and how we can achieve. "

Vincent T. DeVita Jr. (Yale University)

Indeed, the book traces the history of decades of cancer research but also provides a very clear thesis about the present and the future of the disease, which will not leave anyone indifferent.
"People continue to die of cancer unnecessarily, and it's something that has nothing to do with" the failure of the war against disease ', a common refrain in the press, or the lack of scientific instruments, which have been begun to accumulate at an impressive rate, "DeVita explained in the introduction to his book. "Rather, the obstacles come not use the tools that we have to heal; the reluctance to abandon outdated beliefs; bureaucratic battles among physicians; and the regulation expires in the 'Food and Drug Administration' [FDA, US drug agency] whose policies impede the arrival of the innovations achieved in the development of cancer drugs in recent years. "
The doctor does not leave puppet head: "These problems are well known to practitioners and researchers, but many are reluctant to talk about it openly for fear of damaging their colleagues or decrease your chances of getting a grant application or approval a drug ".

There is a war, and we are winning

To understand how we got to the current situation, DeVita believes it is necessary to know the way it has evolved the discipline in which he pioneered. The doctor first knew it was cancer and almost everyone: because it ended the life of a loved one. It was in the 40s, when I was six, and the disease was her godmother Violet. She had a cervical cancer and the doctors could do nothing to save her. At that time it was normal: the disease used to be a death sentence.
When DeVita arrived as an intern at the National Cancer Insitute, in 1963, he had been twenty years since the death of his aunt, but things had not changed much. The only treatments available were the surgery which only worked if the tumor had not invaded vital organs and was located on a "estirpable" place - and radiotherapy broad brush, that often was so toxic that ended the life of patient rather than the disease itself. At that time only a third of those diagnosed with cancer survived.
The first investigation that led DeVita was a success: its combination chemotherapy achieved cure 80% of young people with Hodgkin lymphoma
"The study of cancer was a stagnant field, no man's land populated by only a handful of doctors and researchers regarded by most of his colleagues like crazy, or both losers," says DeVita. That's what I also thought he acknowledges, but then met his colleagues from the NCI, "a handful of rebels" and everything changed.
By then the chemotherapy, which is today the main tool that we have to fight cancer-was not only in its infancy: it was a very controversial treatment that many people considered reckless.
The first drugs to fight cancer were creepy, bright and toxic substances were also prone to spontaneous combustion The doctor has, in fact, that one of his colleagues had a serious accident when one of these drugs exploded in the inside your car. Not surprisingly, in its early stages, chemotherapy is administered in extreme cases and only one variety per patient were used, but in reality was something that did not seem to work at all.

Cancer death

But a group of visionary scientists (including the first two chiefs were DeVita) were gathering the necessary evidence to show that if these drugs are combined at sufficiently high doses were powerfully effective. The first investigation that led DeVita was a success: its combination chemotherapy achieved cure 80% of young people with Hodgkin lymphoma.
A decade later, in 1971, Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act and announced a merciless war against cancer. No wonder the US is the country that has most contributed to cancer research (and still the one with more advanced treatments to fight disease), since that time the country has invested 100,000 million in his studio.
Cancer is a widespread and often devastating disease we often forget how much progress has been made in their treatment. But, as explained DeVita, and childhood leukemia is almost 100% curable; Hodgkin's disease and other lymphomas also advanced; and colon cancer mortality has fallen by 40% in recent decades, and so have the breast (25%) and prostate (68%).
For the oncologist no doubt that we are winning the war against cancer, mainly due to the improvement of existing techniques: surgery more accurate, more refined radiotherapy and chemotherapy with fewer side effects for patients. But the best, he says, is to come, if we cross the final frontier. carnival 2016