Minnesota Timberwolves coach Flip
Saunders announced last week he has been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s
lymphoma. He is currently undergoing chemotherapy treatment for what his
doctors call a “very treatable and curable form of cancer,” and will
continue to coach as he goes through treatment.
So, why are some cancers more deadly than others?
In a recent interview with Heather Brown of WCCO-TV’s Good Question, Edward Greeno, M.D., medical director of the Masonic Cancer Clinic, explained why some cancers are more deadly than others.
“People often want to know when we’re going to cure cancer,” said Greeno. “We actually frequently cure cancer already, but we don’t cure all kinds of cancer.”
Simply put, some cancers pose bigger threats. Difference in survival rates can be attributed to a particular cancer’s ability to spread as well as how easy they are to detect. It is predicted for the year 2015, cancer will take the lives of 589,430 Americans, or roughly 1,620 people per day.
The deadliest cancers for men are lung, prostate, colon and pancreas, while for women, the deadliest are lung, breast, colon and pancreas. Lung cancer has more deaths due to the sheer volume of cases each year, but pancreatic cancer bodes one of the worst five-year survival rates at a mere 7.2 percent.
“[Pancreatic cancer] has a bad combination of being very aggressive, being hard to detect early and once we find it, it’s poorly responsive to most of our therapies,” said Greeno. “We don’t really understand always but it may have to do with the function of the pancreas that it’s inherently designed to be resistant to toxins, which is what a lot of our treatments are.”
In Saunders’ case, about 86 percent of Hodgkin’s patients survive 5 years, almost 12 times more than pancreatic cancer.
“The cells that turn into the cancer, that represent Hodgkin’s disease, turn out to be very sensitive to some of our chemotherapy drugs,” he said.
Greeno notes the importance of research to further understand how cancers spread and respond to treatment. In the past 25 years, breast cancer mortality rates have dropped 34 percent.
“That’s an example of the value of our research,” said Greeno. “It’s a really good example of that we’ve learned how the cancer works.”
Source: healthtalk.umn.edu
So, why are some cancers more deadly than others?
In a recent interview with Heather Brown of WCCO-TV’s Good Question, Edward Greeno, M.D., medical director of the Masonic Cancer Clinic, explained why some cancers are more deadly than others.
“People often want to know when we’re going to cure cancer,” said Greeno. “We actually frequently cure cancer already, but we don’t cure all kinds of cancer.”
Simply put, some cancers pose bigger threats. Difference in survival rates can be attributed to a particular cancer’s ability to spread as well as how easy they are to detect. It is predicted for the year 2015, cancer will take the lives of 589,430 Americans, or roughly 1,620 people per day.
The deadliest cancers for men are lung, prostate, colon and pancreas, while for women, the deadliest are lung, breast, colon and pancreas. Lung cancer has more deaths due to the sheer volume of cases each year, but pancreatic cancer bodes one of the worst five-year survival rates at a mere 7.2 percent.
“[Pancreatic cancer] has a bad combination of being very aggressive, being hard to detect early and once we find it, it’s poorly responsive to most of our therapies,” said Greeno. “We don’t really understand always but it may have to do with the function of the pancreas that it’s inherently designed to be resistant to toxins, which is what a lot of our treatments are.”
In Saunders’ case, about 86 percent of Hodgkin’s patients survive 5 years, almost 12 times more than pancreatic cancer.
“The cells that turn into the cancer, that represent Hodgkin’s disease, turn out to be very sensitive to some of our chemotherapy drugs,” he said.
Greeno notes the importance of research to further understand how cancers spread and respond to treatment. In the past 25 years, breast cancer mortality rates have dropped 34 percent.
“That’s an example of the value of our research,” said Greeno. “It’s a really good example of that we’ve learned how the cancer works.”
Source: healthtalk.umn.edu
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