Talk:Cancer research

Initial comments

Right so like I typed in "buttsechs" (just for the hell of it) and it redirected me here. So is this seriously the truth guys? Will buttsechs cure cancer ;0?! --Kingkitty 13:31, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

well i've started this page by adding brum's continueing contribution so you may all expand this page as you wish! :) Nick Boulevard 23:25, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Nick, you are right that this page was sorely lacking, but I've had to change the style radically. Many of the things you said were (overly) dramatic.

A different point: what fuelled your statement that "Birmingham" (do you mean the university?) is at the forefront of cancer research? By what measures? By citations in Pubmed? By impact factor? By breakthrough medical discoveries? By Nobel Prizes? JFW | T@lk 02:48, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi JFW,
I do over-dramatise sometimes (maybe it's a good way to get quick response on area's i know little about, abit naughty sorry) anyway no problem with your edit of course, i included Birmingham in the sense that the university has had several breakthrough medical discoveries, and it's continuation in research is at a cutting edge level. I included the links to hopefully provoke someone to further expand the article, of course other cities across the world are doing the same job but Birmingham is definately at the forefront. Could the links somehow be re-attached please, thanks. Nick Boulevard 19:05, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, you've certainly managed to get a response! :-)

I've reinserted a link to CancerResearchUK, not deeplinking to Birmingham but just showing what kind of cancer research is being performed. I'm still not convinced Birmingham should be awarded prominence over, e.g. Howard Hughes in Oregon, Sloan-Kettering in New York and Dana Farber in Boston. JFW | T@lk 21:09, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ok that's fine, i am being lazy really, i will try and work out just what Birmingham has done and is doing to continue research against cancer and include it if relevant but i am sure the city is very advanced in this field, can you do the same for the people you have suggested? then we might have the beginnings of an article, Cheers. Nick Boulevard 22:31, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Uhhh, Nick, those are not people but research institutes. When it comes to praising the achievements of Birmingham, we have to be watchful for NPOV. At the moment I am not aware of an annual contest on which cancer research institutes have forged the most breakthroughs... JFW | T@lk 00:05, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Howard Hughes in Oregon, Sloan-Kettering in New York and Dana Farber in Boston." - sorry, i imagined bearded men (and women?) boffins sat around tables stroking their beards and debating the ethics of animal testing in research! My ignorance i'm afraid, and do you know what! I've not yet looked at NPOV once, i don't know what it is? (i have a guess) well i will take a look..erm.. NOW! thanks. :) Nick Boulevard 23:33, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I am the communications assistant(kfowler@cancerresearch.org) at the Cancer Research Institute, a non-profit dedicated to research in cancer immunology. We believe we should have an article as there are many other Wikipedia article that mention us, yet we have no article of our own. We were founded on the premises of William B. Coley's work, have a close relationship with the Ludwig, and relationships with many acclaimed scientists and institution. Please help us create this article, as we would like to remain neutral. You may contact me with help in finding references, photos, etc. --CancerResearchInstitute (talk) 22:18, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Not Just Treatment

The article seems to be concentrating on the research into treatment but a lot of research also is about the external causes of cancer like cigarette smoking or sun exposure. i.e. research is not just about treatment, but also prevention. Can we add something about that? Barrylb 10:20, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

In view of my above comments, I would like to change the opening paragraph to this: "Cancer research is research into cancer in order to identify causes and develop strategies for prevention, diagnosis, treatments and cure." This is based on the statement at the Institute of Cancer Research at http://www.icr.ac.uk/aboutus.html Does anyone have an opinion? Barrylb 10:13, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Go ahead, be bold! InvictaHOG 10:28, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Concerns about Cancer Research

This sub section is not really relating to the artical as a whole. This area is merely placed to discuss a discovery of a particular molecule. Perhaps this is entry is better placed in its own entry dealing with volumes or potentail cures and unsubstantiated claims. Pkelley83 07:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC) Patrick Kelley

I created an outline to organize what we have and promote the addition of more information. I believe the categories (Areas (Cause, Treatment, Prevention), Issues, Orgs.) are all on topic, define the scope, and will address both the listed issues of 'too treatment focused' and 'POV issues regarding institutions.' Now we just need people who know more of the specifics to fill it in. gallen01 14:43, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Could we add a section about some of the controversies related to cancer research? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.175.158.191 (talk) 19:53, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I just added an Innovation subsection to the "Issues" section. I included refs, and at the very bottom of the page, a summary external link, to NY Times articles on many controversies, centering on insufficient innovation.C4dn (talk) 08:47, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Disambiguation

Perhaps a disambiguation should be created and add Cancer Research as one of the publications from the AACR Andy Rosenthal 07:32, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Suppression of Cancer Cure

Cancer has been cured completely at least 15 times by various scientists since the 1930's, to present. However, CEO's and executives for pharmaceutical corporations whom value their own wealth, posessions, and luxurious lifestyles more than they do the lives of hundreds of millions of people, order contracts to be placed on, and carried out on all of the scientists lives, including their family members, and even young children. So their multi-million dollar per year personal salary can continue. This can be commonly associated with greed, evil, and atrocity. It is misconceived that history's most prolific mass murderers and monsters are people like Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Caligula, whoms cold-blooded murders numbered in the tens of millions. But the truth is that the leaders of the medical establishment are really the world's greediest awful, and most horrific human beings ever to live. Every one of the scientists who have cured cancer has died mysteriously. Usually in "car accidents", 'drug overdoses", "heart attacks/strokes/anyeurisms", and "suicides".

^ This is the kind of thing that discredits Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.104.40 (talk) 09:33, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

New Research

I'm not an oncologist and feel unqualified to edit this article, however, there has been new research published that I don't see here. Timothy Ley of Wastington University interviewed on NPR's Science Talk of the Nation 11/7/2008 about having sequenced a cancer genome using new, cheap technology called Next Generation Sequencing. They sequenced a case of acute myeloid lukemia. The research revealed new genes that had never been suspected of participating in the genesis of cancer. It will help to customize treatment of patients and improve prognosis, as well as advancing treatment research. 52 types of cancer have been targeted for future sequencing. Rdanneskjold (talk) 06:52, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't care about qualifications it only cares about WP:reliable sources. That said, you are ready to improve this article since you have a source to back up your claims.

Overall, I feel that this article has a long way to go before it starts to cover this subject in a satisfactory manner. I still plan to add all the major points put forward by the Newsweek article. EconomistBR 20:21, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Right, I just don't feel confident enough in my use of medical language to write a contribution worthy of an encyclopedia. - Rdanneskjold (talk) 01:40, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Prevention Term

I'm not sure how to categorize the vitamin prevention method under the prevention category. For now I put it as other methods, but is there a more formal term? --CancerResearchInstitute (talk) 15:59, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Cancer Miracles Article

Here is a new article, published in Forbes, on cancer immunology that may be of interest to any of you editors who care to learn of new and promising research in the field Cancer Miracles - Forbes. A lot of the scientists mentioned, and their research, don't seem to be in wikipedia. --Kelstar (talk) 21:52, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Source

Might be useful:

• Hahn, William C.; Weinberg, Robert A. (2003). "Rules for making human tumor cells". New England Journal of Medicine. 348 (7): 1593–1603. PMID 12432047.

rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:16, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Treatment Section

I removed the Expand-section macro from the treatment section of the article and put in a pointer to the treatment section of the main Cancer article, which is pretty good. The area of cancer treatment is quite rich, it's a hot topic, and I think deserving of its own page. This would make page link construction easier and allow for growth without weighing down the massive cancer article (now at 122kb). What do folks think about cutting 'cancer treatment' free into its own page? (and apologies for the bad puns ;) SteveChervitzTrutane (talk) 18:11, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Possible Fraud Organization

Brain Cancer Research For A Cure Foundation I removed them from cancer organizations because they still list no 503(c). Seems to be a site for one Doctor. Strange? Added a redirect to Category:Cancer organizations which list over 200 articles maybe this section could be reduced to just that redirect?Bgordski (talk) 02:20, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Cancer is wrongly named, Cause -v- Effect, and how most cancer is self-inflicted.

What follows is my freely-stated opinion. It is however being shared by more and more people and there is no better place than here on Wikipedia to discuss it.

When will it be fully realized, that in going into the science and research of cancer cells themselves, of genetics and cancer-causing mutations, and of developing drugs and therapies to treat cancer, many researchers are concentrating, to ever-increasing levels of complexity and detail, on effects rather than causes? Cancer is not a disease. It is not a disorder. It is a SYMPTOM of a spectacular failure of the Immune System to spot these rogue, malformed cells and flush them out of the body. And so these cells remain, and multiply, until the patient develops a mass of them which we then call a tumor.

It wasn't until AIDS came along, and attacked the Immune System, that we all saw, to our abject horror, just how fast even the rarest cancers can appear when the Immune System goes down. Far from taking years to collect the neccessary rare mutations, in AIDS patients these cancers were appearing in weeks. The realization then dawned, that we ALL produce cancer cells, and regularly -- but our healthy Immune Systems quickly spot them and reject them out of the system. And this, and only this, is where healthy people differ from cancer patients.

We have to know this, in order to see that a cure for cancer will never work, so long as the Immune System remains unable to see new cancer cells developing from new mutations and remains unable to reject them. The cancer will just simply "come back again" as mutations, from DNA copying errors, from cosmic rays constantly raining down from space, and from radiation coming from the rocks beneath our feet shooting pieces out of our DNA, cause new rogue cells to appear in our bodies.

We also have to know this, in order to see that most the time and money that we spend on cancer research should be diverted AT ONCE into research on the Immune System, and into the problem of how to boost it so powerfully that no cancer cell will ever have a chance of remaining undetected in the body.

May I introduce a word -- IMMUNITIS -- which more appropriately describes the true beast we should be hunting here. Cancer, in all its forms, is "merely" one of its worst symptoms.

But is was never the business of the true professional to treat symptoms! Let alone pour trillions of dollars after such a folly!! Fancy any true pro, spending fortunes of the taxpayer's money running around after the mess that the rough-and-tumble of the universe makes of our bodies, after our Immune Systems have stopped protecting us.

Thankfully, our Immune Systems are generally robust and it takes a lot to make them stop working properly. Almost all cancer is self-inflicted. Just look, at the way we live, in contrast to how we lived only 100 years ago-- when cancer was almost unknown--- and yet the man himself has not changed. We stuff ourselves with purgatives, chemicals, food additives, we drink like fish and smoke like chimneys; in our lifetimes we will eat THREE TIMES our own weight in food additive chemicals. The wonder of it is, that cancer is not even more widespread. The body is taking what defences it has evolved against this abuse, and it is fighting to the Death. Put another way, Cancer (Immunitis) is a consequence of the abnormal way we have chosen to live, for a body which misses the happiness of the Stone Age and does not want to live this way.

But if we want the best of both worlds, to live in the modern age yet have no cancer, then we must regroup our forces, and this time identify the true target, the true cause, IMMUNITIS, -- and finally stop chasing around after its many and diverse effects. (Valhalan (talk) 02:09, 20 February 2011 (UTC))

Do animal feces or any other animal substance cause cancer?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.135.71.225 (talk) 03:38, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Non-US cancer research

Believe it or not there is cancer research carried out in places other than the USA. Very little mention of Europe, where much of the research has been carried out Danensis (talk) 15:51, 19 February 2013 (UTC) nothing mentioned about scientists who did great work and need to mention important countries who contributed all over the world for this type of research. sources would be useful and may be found significant for new researchers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ranjitkaur2014 (talk • contribs) 01:22, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Where Does the Money Go

With all the TV adverts and other mechanisms for collecting money, it would be reasonable for the public, particularly thos with cancer, to have a clear understanding how the monies collected and spent result in unaffordable drugs. We hear about the 'post code' lottery that is applied by health authorities to certain patient cancer drugs. You never hear of a major drug company going out of business; you also hear of different research organisations chasing a cure for the same condition. Therefore, as a member of the general public and a person that has lost relatives to cancer, is the money collected being spent effectively, is it supporting drug company profits or is it developed into a monolithic health programme that companies and charities cash in on and patients take second place.

John.S — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.157.14.188 (talk) 09:57, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Poverty stops progress

Does anyone think that world poverty stops progress? What if every human was taught to be a scientist and doctor, then we'd find cures to every disease faster, because billions of brains researching will be better than 1 or just a few? Hillmon7500 (talk) 17:47, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

New NEWS today, for future editing

"... these results so far are remarkable," said Professor Diana Anderson.

Headline-1: Revolutionary new blood test 'could detect ALL types of cancer'

• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2709708/Revolutionary-new-blood-test-detect-ALL-types-cancer.html

QUOTE: "A revolutionary blood test that could detect any type of cancer has been developed by British scientists. It is hoped the breakthrough will enable doctors to rule out cancer in patients presenting with certain symptoms - saving time and preventing costly and unnecessary invasive procedures and biopsies. Early results have shown the simple test can diagnose cancer and pre-cancerous conditions from the blood of patients with melanoma, colon cancer and lung cancer with a high degree of accuracy." -- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 21:18, 29 July 2014 (UTC) -- PS: FYI for future editing.

Out of date information

Some of the information in this article is significantly out-of-date, the "Oncogenomics/Genes involved in cancer" section being a prime example, where the references are 8-10 years old. For example, the COSMIC database now has >10 times as many mutations catalogued as mentioned here, and a list of "genes linked to cancer" with the low threshold used (2 papers) would be much, much longer. Sgtbilko99 (talk) 18:01, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes the whole article is out of date and rather unbalanced. Do you want to help improve it? Wiki CRUK John (talk) 11:41, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

list

this list is based on a very old source. Not sure how something like this could be handled encyclopedically at this point.

Genes and proteins

Genes and protein products that have been identified by at least two independent publications as being involved in cancer are:>

• ABI1,
• ABL2,
• ACSL6,
• AF1Q,
• AF5Q31 (also known as MCEF),
• AKT1,
• ARNT,
• ASPSCR1,
• ATF1,
• ATIC,
• BCL10,
• BFHD,
• BIRC3,
• BMPR1A,
• BTG1,
• CBFA2T1,
• CBFA2T3,
• CBFB,
• CCND1,
• CDC2,
• CDK4,
• CHIC2,
• CHN1,
• COPEB,
• COX6C,
• CTNNB1,
• CYLD,
• DDB2,
• DDIT3,
• DEK,
• Eif4a,
• EIF4A2,
• EPS15,
• ERCC2,
• ERCC3,
• ERCC5,
• ERG,
• ETV4,
• ETV6,
• EWSR1,
• EXT1,
• EXT2,
• FANCC,
• FANCG,
• FGFR1OP,
• FGFR3,
• FH,
• FIP1L1,
• FUS,
• GAS7,
• GATA1,
• GMPS,
• GOLGA5,
• GPC (gene),
• GPHN,
• HIST1H4I,
• HRAS,
• HSPCA,
• IL21R,
• IIRF4,
• KRAS2,
• LASP1,
• LCP1,
• LHFP,
• LMO2,
• LYL1,
• MADH4,
• MEIS1,
• MLF1,
• MLH1,
• MLLT3,
• MLLT6,
• MNAT1,
• MSF,
• MSH2,
• MSN,
• MUTYH,
• MYC,
• NCOA4,
• NF2,
• NPM1,
• NRAS,
• PAX8,
• PCBD,
• PDGFB,
• PHOX2B,
• PIM1,
• PLK2,
• PNUTL1,
• POU2F1,
• PPARG,
• PRCC,
• PRKACB,
• PRKAR1A,
• PTEN,
• PTPN11,
• RABEP1,
• RAD51L1,
• RAP1GDS1,
• RARA,
• RB1,
• RET,
• RHOH,
• RPL22,
• SBDS,
• SDHB,
• SEPTIN6,
• SET,
• SH3GL1,
• SS18L1,
• SSX1,
• SSX2,
• SSX4,
• STAT3,
• TAF15,
• TCF12,
• TCL1A,
• TFE3,
• TFEB,
• TFG,
• TFPT,
• TFRC,
• TNFRSF6,
• TP53,
• TPM3,
• TPM4,
• TRIP11,
• VHL,
• WAS,
• WT1,
• ZNF198,
• ZNF278,
• ZNF384,
• ZNFN1A1

References

-- Jytdog (talk) 04:55, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't think it's needed. The article's section on cancer genetics research is a good intro, and the link to Oncogenomics provides plenty of detail that need not be here in the more general article. I would collapse the list here, but I'm loath to edit your signed contribution. — soupvector (talk) 06:28, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Essential overhaul

Most of this article focuses on snippets of specific things, rather than being an overview of cancer research as a topic. I've began removing specific information and attempting to add general information that applies to cancer research as a whole (rather than the development of a specific treatment that one editor was once interested in long ago). If anyone have ideas about other areas of information that could be covered, that would be helpful, and I think that this is a topic that could use a lot of work. Natureium (talk) 19:44, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Please update cancer research articles

I think it may be good to add info about these three and maybe similar developments to relevant articles (possibly the ones wikilinked):

Progress in cancer pre-screening, screening and early detection is reported: metabolomic biomarkers in blood (4 J.), circulating proteins biomarkers (7 J.), and an optical biopsy system with a fine-needle probe (6 J.).

It's currently featured like above in 2022 in science (January).

I'm not sure if, where and how it would be most due. For instance, these three studies/results/developments may be too specific to add as is to their respective most relevant articles and would need some broader info (as in what Natureium said above).

This may also be relevant for a timeline, but as is it doesn't seem fit for Timeline of cancer treatment development, and Timeline of biomarkers (or something similar) doesn't (yet?) exist.

Moreover, section "Difficulties" should have info about/from Reproducibility Project#Results (featured in 2021 in science (December)) – at least as an additional ref but probably with some more info and maybe with some image from the studies (I could do that later though).

I think Wikipedia articles should be up-to-date with relevant adequately-integrated brief scientific information. Please comment if you have any feedback or idea about

• if, where and how info about these three studies and their broader topics (these could then be examples) should get added, or
• if, where and how info about such cancer research progress more generally should get added, or
• the proposed Timeline of biomarkers

Prototyperspective (talk) 18:25, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

=> A timeline article for biomarkers may not be the best approach, but I think enabling such, including on Wikipedia (e.g. it could also be enabled via Scholia and/or a dedicated collaborative biomarkers/screening database website), could still be useful and appropriate – for example a table with a column for the date could also be sorted by the date to show progress chronologically (rows with nonviable biomarkers and/or cancer screening progress could get trimmed).

=> A suitable place to start with this could be Biomarker (medicine)#List of Biomarkers which could/should be expanded.

=> It could also be added to a new article like Cancer screening research that is parallel and similar to Spinal cord injury research. Note that it should be maintained and use scientific reviews whenever possible. I won't create any such article and would at most add a few updates to it.

---

---

The February section of the 2022 in science article currently has this:

Progress in cancer screening is reported: DNA methylation biomarkers for breast cancer (WID-BC-index; 1 Feb.) and ovarian cancer (WID-OC-index; 1 Feb.) as well as lipidomics biomarkers for lung cancer (MS-based rapid targeted assay for levels of nine lipids in blood; 2 Feb.).

--Prototyperspective (talk) 10:02, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Update for March:

Progress in biomarkers-based cancer screening is reported: researchers estimate risks for prostate cancer based on age, PSA and hK2 (7 Mar). Researchers achieve high prediction accuracy for pancreatic cancer using faecal microbiota biomarkers (8 Mar). A cancer test that checks for more mutations than ever before in one tissue sample is launched by a biotech-company (15 Mar). The first clinical test of a technology to detect early-stage cancer via novel biomarkers of extracellular vesicles concludes with promising results, possibly reaching screening-relevant sensitivities at high specificity at least for pancreatic cancer (17 Mar).

--Prototyperspective (talk) 17:27, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Update for June:

A study concludes that the spread of breast cancer accelerates during sleep.

Progress in the treatment of cancer:
A very small trial shows complete remission of a type of colorectal cancer without surgery and radiation in all 12 patients. On the same day, results of a trial show that trastuzumab deruxtecan therapy for HER2-low metastatic breast cancer exceeded results from chemotherapy. The synthesis of ERX-41, a novel compound that has shown promise in eliminating cancer cells, is reported (2 June). Researchers describe a new light-activated 'photoimmunotherapy' for brain cancer in vitro. They believe it could join surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy as a fifth major form of cancer treatment (16 June).

Please also see Talk:Experimental cancer treatment#Please update with: new and missing experimental treatments

--Prototyperspective (talk) 10:31, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

References