QUALITY OF LIFE BETTER FOR PATIENTS

Cancer may be the most dreaded diagnosis a patient can receive.

But great strides are being made in treating cancer and improving quality of life during treatment, said Dr. Stanley D. Sides, a hematology/oncology specialist with Physician Associates.

Sides moderated a weekend at a cancer symposium at Southeast Missouri Hospital for area doctors about the latest advances in cancer treatment.

Sides said the biggest breakthrough in cancer treatment in the last 10 years is high dose therapy with bone marrow support. In this treatment, the patient is given extremely high doses of chemotherapy. This kills the cancer, but can also destroy the body's own defenses. So healthy bone marrow or stem cells, either taken from the patient prior to the treatment or from a donor, are injected into the patient."This is effective on many different cancers," Sides said.

There are also new chemotherapy drugs constantly being developed, he said. One of the latest is Xeloda, a drug that has been used to treat breast cancer that doesn't respond to other treatments.

The newest type of treatment for cancer, and the one Sides thinks is the wave of the future, is the use of biological modifiers. These are hormones or gene inhibitors that stimulate the body's immune system to destroy cancer cells, he said."I think we've stripped enough trees and searched enough jungles looking for chemical agents to fight cancer," Sides said. "I think the future is developing ways to stimulate the body to overcome tumor cells."One of these is Herceptin, an antibody that inhibits the growth of a certain type of breast cancer cell. Another is Rituxan, an antibody used to treat lymphoma.

These, along with the more well-known interferons and interleukins, are not used as much as chemotherapy at this time because they are very toxic, Sides said. But he thinks continued research in this area will yield more tolerable biological modifiers.

Another wave of the future, Sides said, is better ways of targeting radiation therapy.

Dr. Joseph P. Miller, a board certified radiation oncologist at Southeast Missouri Hospital's Cancer Center, said continued efforts are being made to deliver radiation therapy with fewer side effects and in a more precise fashion.

Computers have allowed more precise targeting of radiation, he said."This means less radiation effects on the surrounding normal tissue and higher radiation doses aimed at the cancer," Miller said. "This leads to a greater chance of killing the cancer."Another area of cancer treatment in which strides are being made, Sides said, is improving the quality of life of patients."More and more we're looking at quality of life," Sides said. "If a patient is puking up his guts for three weeks after treatment, what have we accomplished?"So researchers have been developing drugs that can be given before chemotherapy treatment that will cut down on the nausea and vomiting that treatment can cause.

Miller said drugs are also being used to minimize the effects of radiation on normal tissue."People don't get sick from chemo like they used to," Sides said. "After all we're trying to help people, not hurt them."