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new gene therapies that attack tumors in multiple fronts can prolong life - but also showing more complex cancer cells that scientists had thought

Wing Commander Brian Liversidge was 60 in 2004 when she was diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer. The president of an educational partnership Cumbria received 18 months.

Liversidge - who is married with two children and three grandchildren - mistook this gloomy prediction by a series of remarkable medical advances that have kept alive and raise the hope that will soon be possible to treat many cancers such as chronic and manageable.

However, history also reveals the considerable challenges ahead for scientists in their efforts to achieve this goal.

five different forms of treatment have been used - so far - to keep Liversidge life. He now lives in Colchester in Essex with his wife Susan, who remembers the battle he fought to prevent a cancer that has spread to his bones.

"There are side effects with all medications you take and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the symptoms of cancer. Sometimes I felt so bad that I asked to be removed from treatment. But as. parent of the children, I am interested in advancing the treatment of prostate cancer as much as possible I like to hear the doctors say they have broken, "Liversidge said I really wanted to record their appreciation for the oncology teams - in Preston, Colchester and Marsden - who took care of him

The key development that has transformed the scientific strategy for the fight against cancer was the recent discovery that tumors are much more genetically complex than previously thought. "By analyzing tissue samples from cancer patients found that there is a huge genetic differences between cells in a tumor," said Professor Martin Gore of the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. "It was a surprise . "

Chris Jones, Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in London, agreed. "Until recently, it was assumed cancerous cell clones were more or less identical. 'Ve found that this is not true. Cells derived from a single tumor of a person may have different genetic alterations within them. This presents a huge challenge in trying to develop treatments, but in the long term of our new consciousness should also provide the opportunity to create powerful anticancer drug plans. "

For most of the past 40 years, cancer has been treated with surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy. The latter technique involves the use of cytotoxic drugs that can kill cells that are. By carefully adjusting the doses of these drugs, doctors were able to kill cancer cells while sparing normal cells affected - in many cases. However, the high toxicity of chemotherapy drugs means that you can only manage a few weeks, which limits its ability to destroy tumors.

And this is not an isolated case history. "We have seen that the resistance to appear with almost every one of the new generation of targeted cancer drugs have created," said Workman. "The drugs that work well in the beginning. Then the cancer from coming back in a way that does not respond to the drug. "

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