The War On Cancer

August-September 2002 Column

By Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D.

ASCO's 2002 Meeting

Everything about the 38th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in May was huge. There were 26,000 attendees, many of whom came from Europe, Latin America and Asia. For nearly a week they converged on OrlandoÕs conventional center, to hear thousands of lectures, seminars and presentations. The Exhibition Hall was a multistoried bazaar of new therapies. Even the press room was gargantuan.

Yet, after four days, I came away with a hollow feeling. There were advances, to be sure. A study compared Gleevec (STI-571) to the standard therapy for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). Gleevec resulted in significantly greater reductions in thenumber of cancer cells in the bone marrow, which led to the complete disappearance of cancer cells in 40 percent of the patients. Only six patients treated with Gleevec where in the dangerous "blast crisis" six months after therapy compared to 26 percent of those receiving standard therapy. Six months after treatment, leukemia continued to worsen in 8 patients taking Gleevec compared to 57 taking the interferon-based therapy.

"[T]he long-term results of STI-571 remain unknown," said its discoverer, Brian Drucker, MD, of the Oregon Health and Science University, Portland. However, he believes "it should now be considered as standard therapy for newly diagnosed CML." Gleevec was approved last year for the treatment of patients who no longer respond to interferon-based therapy or who are in the "blast crisis." This report will add to the drugÕs luster. Overall, however, I was disappointed by the lack of breakthroughs in the treatment of cancer.