China's Spring Festival has just passed, the Winter Olympics are coming again, and everyone is still talking about sugar oranges, red packets, skiing, Gu Ailing... The United States has mainly talked about another topic these days:
President Biden has revived an important national health program: the cancer-fighting moonshot. The goal is to reduce cancer mortality by 50% over the next 25 years. At the same time, it enhances the life experience of cancer patients.
Image source: Network
The moon landing plan of the last century was the highlight of the United States, and it was also the peak of modern technology to catch up with me, and many scientific and technological advances appeared or were born out of that time. The return to the "moon landing program" means that the United States intends to invest important money and energy in the fight against cancer and regain its glory time.
To improve the level of health, the fight against cancer is essential
The threat of cancer to human health is self-evident and is already the cause of the most deaths in most countries. It is also clear that the occurrence of cancer is closely related to the aging of human beings, and the older the age, the more difficult it is to get rid of the threat of cancer. Therefore, if we want to live longer, the biggest difficulty we have to face is cancer diagnosis and treatment.
Is it unrealistic fantasy for the United States today to propose a 50% reduction in cancer mortality after 25 years?
What has been done right in the last 25 years?
It's not a fantasy. Over the past 25 years, the United States, or the world, has achieved initial results in the fight against cancer. Cancer mortality in the United States has fallen by about 25 percent compared to the end of the last century.
The molecule of cancer mortality is the population that dies of cancer, and the denominator is not the cancer population, but the total population. In other words, the decline in cancer mortality is a visual embodiment of the decline in the number of deaths due to cancer. More people survive cancer, and more people survive long after cancer.
Most cancers kill fewer people.
Image source: Cancer Statistics Report 2021
Over the past 25 years, 5 things have been done right to reduce cancer mortality.
Lung cancer and other cancers have new treatments for special mutations;
New immunoassays and anti-cancer therapies have been introduced, and treatments such as skin cancer and leukemia have progressed;
Developed an HPV vaccine that can target the causes of cancer such as cervical cancer;
Improve screening methods and tools, and more lung cancer and colorectal cancer are detected ahead of schedule;
Significant progress has been made in promoting smoking cessation and opposing tobacco.
What weapons can we rely on in the next 25 years?
The proven effective measures will continue to be promoted and strengthened in the future, to achieve the 50% target, these alone may not be enough, we also look forward to seeing more effective anti-cancer measures landed. Individualized treatments and cancer vaccines could become even more important weapons.
Unlike the HPV vaccine and the hepatitis B vaccine, which prevent cancer indirectly from the cause by preventing infection, respectively. The new generation of cancer vaccines will be more direct, specifically targeting cancer cells.
Simply put, it is to find genes and proteins expressed by specific cancer cells. These specific proteins are used as antigens to make corresponding vaccines. In the future, once this cancer appears in the body, this specific protein will start immunity, killing the protein and thus getting the cancer cells.
The technology to produce this cancer vaccine is ripe because the push for the COVID-19 vaccine is already very mature. There has also been initial progress in finding specific proteins, and cancer vaccines such as breast cancer and colorectal cancer have entered the clinical trial stage. It is expected to be available in the near future.
Moderna's colorectal cancer vaccine
I hope that this anti-cancer moon landing plan will be as great a success as it was that year. Advances in medicine will ultimately benefit all mankind.
Image source: soogif
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