The Science of Cancer Treatment

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

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2. Current Approaches to Cancer Treatment: Empiricism or Applied Biology

   1. Surgery

      • M. Baum

      Pages 1-13

   2. Radiotherapy and its relationship to radiobiology

      • A. Horwich

      Pages 15-35

   3. The evolution of current chemotherapy regimens

      • M. H. N. Tattersall

      Pages 37-42

   4. New endocrine therapies for cancer

      • J. Waxman, N. James

      Pages 43-54

3. New Approaches

   1. Drug resistance and the problem of treatment failure

      • R. Brown, S. B. Kaye

      Pages 55-82

   2. The detection of minimal disease and implications for cure

      • B. L. Samuels, J. E. Ultmann

      Pages 83-101

   3. High-dose chemotherapy

      • R. L. Souhami, H. Earl

      Pages 103-125

   4. Cytokine therapy

      • S. A. Kelly, S. Malik, F. R. Balkwill

      Pages 127-159

   5. Targeted therapy: cell surface targets

      • R. H. J. Begent

      Pages 161-184

   6. Dietary intervention trials in subjects at high risk for breast cancer

      • N. F. Boyd, M. Cousins, V. McGuire

      Pages 185-204

4. Back Matter

   Pages 205-211

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Many of the most effective treatments for disease have been discovered empir­ ically. Nowadays, however, we think that understanding the biology of a disease will lead us to design better treatments, and to improve the application of treatments we already have. To accomplish this, vast sums are expended on cancer research. Even so, to the casual observer of clinical oncology the proliferation of studies and trials of ever-different combinations of therapies looks like empiricism, at the best. In the first part of this book, we have asked practising clinicians in different specialities to assess the contributions of biology and of empiricism to current approaches to treatment. In the second part, we have asked researchers in different areas of biology applied to cancer to assess the present and likely future impact of their type of biology on cancer treatment and control. IX 1 Surgery M.BAUM OBJECTIVES OF CANCER TREATMENT The objectives of cancer treatment can be defined according to population requirements or according to the needs of the individual. As far as the population is concerned, Government authorities are entitled to expect that cancer treatment will lead to mortality reductions and cost containment.

• cancer
• cancer treatment
• cell
• chemotherapy
• cytokine
• drug
• drug resistance
• radiotherapy
• research
• resistance
• surgery
• targeted therapy

• CRC Human Cancer Genetics Research Group, Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge, UK

  B. A. J. Ponder

• University of Cambridge, UK

  M. J. Waring

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