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Drug Discovery: Synthesizing an End to Cancer
2013: Several clinical trials document the power of immunotherapy in treating cancer, being effective even against metastatic and advanced forms of cancer.
2001: Imatinib, a targeted drug therapy, counteracts the "philadelphia chromosome" defect. This allows for people to live with chronic myelogenous leukemia.
2012: The National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society report that the number of cancer surivors in America reached a record 13.7 million.
2003: The Human Genome is mapped, allowing for the ability to find genetic defects in a person's DNA. This enables doctors to catch cancer early. and perhaps even prevent it.
1997: The first ever targeted cancer treating drug, Rituximab, is approved by the FDA. Targeted cancer drugs would become very prevalent after this, helping to boost cure and survival rates.
1993: The removal of tumors is revolutionized with the introduction of laparoscopic surgery.
1977: The drugs cisplatin, vinblastine, and bleomycin are shown to cure 70 percent of advanced testicular cancer cases.
1971: The National Cancer Act is signed by President Richard Nixon. Along with unprecedented levels of funding for research, this act would allow for a significant sum of the advancements made in cancer research for the next 40 years.
1965: Chemotherapy regimen called MOPP is proved to cure 50% of advanced Hodgkin Lymphoma
1960: Researches in Philadelphia determine that many leukemias are linked to chromosomal abnormalities, which would eventually lead to one of the first ever targeted cancer drugs, Gleevec.
1955: The U.S. Government establishes The Clinical Trials Cooperative Group Program to test new cancer treatments. These trials have led to breakthroughs in treatment of breast and colon cancer.
1947: Aminopterin, used by Dr. Sidney Farber, causes a remission in pediatric leukemia for the first time. After this, Dr. Farber soon reported 10 cases of remission.
1958: Combination Chemotherapy, in which many different drugs are used together and can cause remission in adult and children with acute leukemia, is introduced by NCI scientists
1943: The Pap Test, or Pap Smear, is created by George Papanicolaou to help doctors detect cervical cancer, or pre-cancer, before it becomes metastatic.
1937: The National Cancer Institute is established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and given a budget of $400,000, allowing for a multitude of more research to take place.
1913: American Cancer Society, going by the name American Society for the Control of Cancer (ASCC), is founded in 1913 in New York City by 15 businessmen and physicians. (Sidenote the American Cancer Society changed its name to the present name in 1945.
1903: Two russian skin cancer patients are successfully treated with radium, five years after Madame Curie’s discovery of the element, essentially jumpstarting the use of radiation to treat cancer.
19th Century: Rudolf Virchow provides the scientific basis for the pathologic study of cancer. The method he provided would eventually lead to a better understand of the damaging effects of cancer, and a step toward cancer surgery.
18th Century: Giovanni Margagni of Padua first conducted autopsies to figure out the reason a patient died. This would become routine in modern medicine. This laid the foundation for modern day oncology.
5th Century BC: Hippocrates first uses the term “carcinos” and “Carcinoma” to describe ulcer and non-ulcer forming tumors.
Timeline
Reference: Image 16-26
Website 8-11
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