Heres CRUKs Breast cancer - UK incidence statistics ,This page concentrates on female breast cancer incidence statistics by age, geographic variation, trends over time and prevalence.
Also its only since 1993 that it has been mandatory for NHS staff to report information on cancer diagnoses to cancer registries. Before this the information recorded may be less complete,and therefore not necessarily reflective of the true rate of cancer. I think i read something about this before somewhere else too,where it said that stats were only as good as the people who recorded them because untill 1993 unlike birth/death registries cancer DX recording wasnt mandatory .
oh i wonder if that is like the statistics on heart attacks? i cannot remember when they discovered the ECG but before that it was difficult to diagnose hear problems. so people were not diagnosed as having heart disease. After the widespread use of the ecg, obiously more people were diagnosed. similarly around this time there was not a box on the autopsy report for heart failure. Once they did put a box on the incidint of heart failure deaths rose dramatically.
Thanks Cornishgirl, the information is very interesting to look at.
Another point I would add is that these alternative diet/lifestyle guru’s often support their own approach by suggesting that Countries where the diet mainly consists of vegetables (e.g, Asia and Africa),or where they practice other types of medicine (e.g, China), have lower levels of cancer. The trouble is that many countries in Asia and Africa are also very poor, and do not have health care systems that are sufficiently developed to diagnose, treat or record this information - so in reality we just don’t know what the real state of play is in many Countries. Also while traditional chinese medicine may well be the mainstay of the average chinese peasant, it certainly isn’t for the rich educated Chinese. In fact Chinese orthodox/western medicine is incredibly advanced. What’s more, China’s involvement in scientific research, is now rapidly overtaking the west. In the west, funders are constantly looking for fast results, but China are prepared to chuck vast sums at research and keep going. An example of this is that they recently bought all the rights to the work of Dr Folkman (who was a Harvard Professor and Nobel Prize winning scientist), who was the first to prove angiogenesis (his work led to the creation of anti-angiogenesis drugs like Avastin). It appears they are already working on a drug that promises to be a fraction of the cost of Avastin, and avoid all the side effects.
My own feeling for what it’s worth, is that body weight and diet are important from the point of view of general health - and I also think it’s probably sensible to try and limit oestrogen rich products. However, I find the suggestion that diet/ lifestyle can “cure” cancer very dangerous when people decide to follow that and abandon conventional medicine.
Thanks girls … oh sorry OAL thats good although bit worrying at same time that they got the results wrong in the 1st place, bit un settling to think some may have the wrong treatment because of a wrong diag, that God they realised before hand. Not all grade 3’s need chemo.
Its good that the work continues for new drugs, it just seems to take so long before the next new thing comes out, be a good job when they have one for TN
Hi Lemongrove the point you made on the Dr David Servan Schreiber book I remember reading about that & was thinking about it the other day when you posted the topic post, yes there was 2 patients & correct me if im wrong I think when they realised the history of the donor ( cancer wasn’t cause of death and he had been clear 10 years so NO record on donor register ? !) with the 3rd patient the consultant incharge decided to recline the recipient of the immune supresant drugs as it was felt this patient would also develop the cancer somewhere in the body had the immune system been supressed.
I still think there is alot to be said for the immune system … I was also thinking prehaps even if the cancer was not recognised by the immune system initially … its had a ‘taster’ ? once its removed & treatment done… maybe thats why alot of us DO manage to remain cancer free for several years … the question still remains WHAT has gone right for those who DO stay cancer free ? perhaps there should be alot more research into the ‘survivours’ its sure all very interesting the two sides of this coin
Hi Lemongrove the point you made on the Dr David Servan Schreiber book I remember reading about that & was thinking about it the other day when you posted the topic post, yes there was 2 patients & correct me if im wrong I think when they realised the history of the donor ( cancer wasn’t cause of death and he had been clear 10 years so NO record on donor register ? !) with the 3rd patient the consultant incharge decided to recline the recipient of the immune supresant drugs as it was felt this patient would also develop the cancer somewhere in the body had the immune system been supressed.
I still think there is alot to be said for the immune system … I was also thinking prehaps even if the cancer was not recognised by the immune system initially … its had a ‘taster’ ? once its removed & treatment done… maybe thats why alot of us DO manage to remain cancer free for several years … the question still remains WHAT has gone right for those who DO stay cancer free ? perhaps there should be alot more research into the ‘survivours’ its sure all very interesting the two sides of this coin
I was researching for my dissertation today and came across an article in a 1973 American Time magazine which talked about a lady with secondary breast dancer who’d had her immune system stimulated by a tuberculosis vaccine which ‘cured’ her breast cancer secondaries. It was hailed as a miracle breakthrough at the time. I would have skipped over it had I not read this thread. I wonder what happened to make it go from miracle to nothing? Happy to look it up again if anyone interested. Lou x
Loupylou, yes it would be interesting to find out more about it. I know that when Folkmans team at Harvard started researching angiogenesis, they investigated a number of drugs that they thought might have anti-angiogenesis properties, but I don’t know if that was one of them. I do know that they looked at thalidomide (the controversial drug that was given to pregnant women for morning sickness in the 1960’s, and led to terrible deformities amongst their offspring), but I don’t know the outcome.
Ok the article is called Toward Cancer Control, Time magazine 1973. I couldn’t begin to fathom out how to attach it although I am usually IT literate. If you google the title it will come up. I should stress that I accidentally came across it whilst researching for my dissertation. I’m not sure what happened to this particular ground breaking research of the time. It was interesting given what was being discussed on this thread.
Hi Loupylou, thanks for the info. It’s hard to see how attenuating the immune system to fight TB bacteria, would stimulate it to attack cancer - and anecdotal evidence (such as it cured Mrs Brown), is not really good science is it?
Having said that immunotherapy (but in conjuntion with genetic engineering), does seem promising. There is a drug being developed called Reolysin (see link below), that shows great promise. It wraps a virus in genetically engineered material that attaches itself to particular cancers. Once attached the virus enters the tumour, and this then triggers the immune system to see the tumour as a foreign body. Additionally, the virus shreds the core of the tumour, so that radiotherapy can destroy the tumours stem cell. Apparently the drug is going through stage three trials - so it’s fairly well established. Seems that if scientists can actually get the immune system to recognise cancer as foreign, they will stop it being life threatening. timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article5346712.ece
Hi Lemongrove, it’s an interesting article if you manage to get through all 10 pages! The doctor responsible went on to become the Director of Sloane Kettering institute. If you think that the research was being done over 40 years ago it makes you wonder why things haven’t moved on more quickly unless immunotherapy was dismissed in favour of other therapies. Part of the article indicated that the BCG was injected into tumours which made the body’s defence system think the cancer was a foreign body. Perhaps this was a precursor to the virus wrapping drug you mention. All fascinating stuff! Lou. I’ve linked the article below in case others want to read but my iPad refuses to turn it into a hyperlink despite me trying!
Hi Loupylou,
I have found an article that describes the development of immunotherapy over the years, how it has to a large extent been overtaken by other things, and is now making a resurgence using genetic engineering (incidentally, the article mentions Sloan Kettering’s involvement). cancersupportivecare.com/immunotherapy.html
Wouldn’t that be ideal, but that highlights the question over our immune system not being able to recognise the changing cancer cells, IF it was that simple surely they would just inject us with a small dose of the cancer as they doi for all the vacination programmes & we’d have immunity & the fact this has not yet been achieved does make you think that the head post is correct. Then when you think about it all the 100’s different type cancers it would seem an impossible task, BUT I read an article in a mag about 2 years ago that this is being tried, once a patient has had a cancer they are taking certain cells from the original tumour & injecting the patient with a microscopic amount as they where suggesting there is a certain part of the whole ‘cancer’ that the immune system will attack & then the patient would then have anti bodies against that cancer … I didn’t take much notice of it back then but it came to me the other day, isn’t it amasing how ignorant we are until we actually get cancer !
Id love to know if anyone else had read a simular study being done
All there seems to be toward this is the immunotherapy which also seems promising
I know it was a few pages back on this thread, but I not read it for a little while, and was interested in the statistics around age of bc sufferers. I had understood that bc rates were much higher in older women, but then was confused by the fact that the screening program stops at age 70 so had to dig around abit for info and found this from the NHS screening website:
“Women over 70 years of age are more at risk of getting breast cancer than younger women. This is because the risk of getting breast cancer increases with age. About one-third of all breast cancers occur in women over the age of 70, so it is important to continue to be screened every three years.”
Seems you have to request the screening yourself though once you reach 70.
This is interesting, and I would also like to know more about how agressive bc is in older ladies, partly because my MIL who was then 85 and suffering from Dementia, was diagnosed as probably having bc, but she refused all tests, however we were told that it was likely that it would be slow growing in a person of her age and she would probably die of something else first (which she did).
I beleive the next largest group of course is Women between 50 and 70 who would be in the screening program, but it would be good to know a breakdown by age groups, which I havenot found yet.
Sorry, this is straying a bit from the immune system topic - on that point, my husband was telling me a discussion he heard on Radio 4 the other day, where a professor was insisting that the immune system had a big part to play in fighting cancer - we had a heated discussion about it but I haven’t heard the article. Might have to try to find it on the BBC website for listen again.
Hi All,
RE useing viruses to kill cancer i believe several clinical studies are already underway,and apparently there are several viruses currently under investigation ,Reolysin which Lemongrove has already mentioned above is already undergoing clinical trials.
