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Contents
Introduction
The term ‘cancer’ – Latin for crab –
was coined by Hippocrates in 400BC because of its similarity
to the swollen veins radiating from breast tumours. But he
knew nothing of its cause and only in the early 1800s, when
several medical theories converged, did the modern view of
cancer begin to emerge. Since then, our understanding of cancer
has increased dramatically, especially with the development
of technology to map genes and determine their role in human
disease.
Despite this surge in knowledge, finding effective treatments
has proved difficult and remains a major challenge. The first
real medicines for cancer were introduced in the mid 1940s
and millions of molecules have been tested since then. Of
these, only a small number have become available, and many
have side effects that limit their use. Despite that, steady
progress has been made and the cure rate and length of survival
for most common cancers has gone up steadily over the past
25 years. But there remains much to do, and the challenges
today are to refine these compounds further to eliminate their
side effects while also exploiting new discoveries in molecular
biology to produce new and more selective medicines.
But there are other key factors that affect the ultimate
success of treatment:
- identifying people at risk from their environment, both
now and in the past
- avoiding known risk factors, especially smoking
- family history
- the early recognition of cancer while it can still be
treated.
While the main drive of medicines research is to discover
and develop new medicines to treat the many forms of the disease,
it has also been very active in discovering treatments that
improve people’s quality of life. In particular, many
of these minimise the side effects experienced during chemo-
or radiotherapy, protect healthy tissues from damage, or deal
with other troublesome secondary symptoms of cancer. Government-sponsored
educational and screening initiatives, more and better information
about cancer, the vital work of medical charities and scientists
in research institutes, plus an army of nursing and support
staff, all contribute in important and different ways to the
remarkable progress made in the treatment of cancer.
A further important consideration is the cost of cancer to
the nation. For the year 1998/9, it has been estimated that
the total cost of treating cancer in the UK was nearly £2
billion, 88 per cent of which was in hospital treatment, with
the rest spread between GP consultations, dispensing charges
and medicines. Dispensing and medicines costs were only 10
per cent of the total. In addition to direct costs, there
were huge indirect costs due to absence from work and the
loss of productive years due to premature death. Hence, by
offering real and effective treatment alternatives, medicines
save money and allow the reallocation of scarce resources
within the NHS.
The purpose of this booklet is to describe some of the research
and clinical contributions currently made by British-based
pharmaceutical companies in the search for new medicines,
especially some of the exciting new developments of the past
decade. In addition, working together with patient groups
and charities, the pharmaceutical industry seeks to alert
people to the vital importance of detecting cancer early,
improving health prospects through better understanding of
their own bodies and leading a healthier life style.
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