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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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10168900.004
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1990-09-19
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MEDICINE, Page 76Death-Defying Drug TherapyColon cancer held at bay
For decades the only true weapon against colon cancer has been
surgery. If the scalpel could take out the entire tumor, the
patient was cured; if not, the cancer recurred. But now, for the
first time, researchers have developed a drug therapy that may
reduce the high death rate from this form of cancer, which kills
53,500 Americans each year and is the third most common type of
malignancy.
In a series of studies coordinated by Dr. Charles Moertel of
the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., researchers tested a
combination of two drugs: 5-fluorouracil, a proven anticancer
agent, and levamisole, a medication commonly used by veterinarians
to clear worms from the intestines of animals. Included in the
studies were some 1,700 cancer patients, most of whom had been
operated on for Dukes' C colon cancer. In this stage of the cancer,
the tumor has penetrated the bowel wall but has not spread to the
rest of the body. The results of the first study, which appeared
in this month's Journal of Clinical Oncology, showed that 49% of
patients receiving the treatment were still alive after five years,
in contrast to 37% of another group that did not receive the drugs.
In a second and much larger study, which has yet to be published,
the benefit from the drug therapy "at least matched" the results
achieved in the first experiment, said Dr. Moertel.
The researchers caution, however, that the drugs are not
effective for patients with more severe colon cancer, in which the
malignancy has already spread throughout the body. Nor have studies
shown a benefit for those patients whose cancers were detected at
an early stage. Still, Dr. Michael Friedman of the National Cancer
Institute called this first success for drug therapy against colon
cancer a "terrific intellectual breakthrough." The institute has
alerted 35,000 cancer doctors across the country. And some experts
are hopeful that the findings will lead to similar therapies for
other cancers.