What as close is the science of finding a cure for cancer??
The cases of people who removed the HIV virus from their bodies, They rekindled the yearning by also defeating this disease. According to specialists, both disorders are different and the focus of research is today set to transform it into a bad chronic.
A few days ago the world's attention was on Seattle (United States). There, a group of British researchers reported on a patient with HIV who had managed to eliminate the virus after a marrow transplant he underwent as a treatment for a cancer that also suffered from: the "Berlin patient", as the first case was called (2010), was not the only one.
Now, added the "patient of London" as another example of the success of the science on this disease.
The alarms lit up between the medical community and patients. The new defeat against HIV, Although punctual and not applicable to all patients with HIV, It rekindled the desire and eagerness to find a cure for cancer, another disease that scientists around the world invest life and a significant amount of resources, looking for a solution that ends with that today is the second leading cause of death in the world and threatening to become the first, in a few years.
What so close is science today to develop the cure for cancer?? According to Flavio Salazar, Vice-Rector of research and development of the U. Chile and researcher of the Millennium Institute of Immunology and immunotherapy (IMII), What happens in HIV and cancer research, You can't compare. "They are different and with different origin diseases. A key element that makes them similar is their relationship with the immune system and the response it has against the disease. In both cases, the HIV virus-infected cells and cancer cells have the ability to evade and escape from the immune system", says.
"I don't know if we are further from achieving a cure against cancer, comparatively speaking, what may be those who investigated in HIV. The clear is that there is more clinical evidence in some responses against some types of cancer, as immunological therapy and in that sense, There are good results. More than three or four cases of HIV have been cured", says Salazar.
Alejandro Corvalan, academic of the U. Catholic and principal investigator for the Center for advanced chronic diseases (Accdis), He says that finding a cure, with cancer what is sought is to turn it into a chronic disease, such as hypertension or diabetes. "The development of Oncology and medicine seek to combat acute illnesses, infectious. The cure is to eradicate, and for that the vaccines have been created, antibiotics. In chronic diseases, such as hypertension, Alzheimer's, diabetes and cancer, they are incurable, but you can live with it if they are well controlled and treated", says specialist.
For Corvalan, He is also President of the Oncology cooperative Chilean research group (Gocchi), instead of talking about the cure of cancer, It should focus on prevention so that there is no disease, and if it occurs, convert cancer into a chronic disease or detect it at an early stage that can eradicate.
Immune system
The key to the two diseases, insists Salazar, It is the immune system and in the case of cancer, It works to generate an immune response to destroy the cancer cell.
Unlike what happened in these cases of HIV cure in which the cells transplanted into the patient had a genetic modification that prevented the entry of the virus, Salazar says that in cancer there is no identified receptor that can be manipulated so that the disease does not develop. "Yes, there are molecules in the immune system that can be blocked.. Control or check point and today include immunotherapies which are being tested in recent years. There are also other therapies, cell therapies mainly (tap cell) they are those that we are working in our research group in the Imii that manipulate the immune system to destroy tumor cells".
Another difficulty to achieve a unique cure against cancer, says Salazar, is that unlike HIV/AIDS being a disease, with different strains, the case of cancer, they are many diseases which have the common characteristics of form tumors. Risk factors are also different: cancer is associated with food, Obesity, genetic problems, radiation, But HIV the cause is unique, the virus.
Source: www.latercera.com
Image: The third - Patricio Fuentes