It's the diagnosis no one wants to hear - cancer.
According to the American Cancer Society, about 1.6 million new cases of cancer were diagnosed in the US, last year alone.
cancer is the second most common cause of death for Americans, exceeded only by heart disease.
In the US, cancer accounts for one of every four deaths.
But the news isn't all bad.
The survival rate for cancer victims is on the increase.
The five-year relative survival rate for all cancers diagnosed between 1987 and 2009 has increased 25% during that time.
-There have been increases in the survival of patients with cancer.
In fact in the last twenty years, we continue to see year upon year an improvement.
It's been stated that 60% of cancer patients today are cured,
and when you think about well why is that happening and why is it happening now,
and why is it happening it seemed like we've improved the pace.
That's because people that put the research money in have done the research,
and brought the most brilliant minds to the table and we've also got the new tools.
Engineering, chemistry have created the ways to look at biology in a way we've never had before.
So right now it's an exciting time to be in the field.
It is not exciting to have the disease but to know that the scientists working to improve the survival
and to bring this great new innovative tools and technologies to apply it to
patients cancer types have normally terrible outcomes and now for the first
time he seems pretty improvement is a very exciting time to be in the field
and hopefully it'll translate for the main reason we do this:
We want to cure people of their cancer, we want to bring them back to wellness.
-At the University of California, Irvine and UC Irvine Health in Orange County, California,
research is ongoing in the discovery of the biology of cancer and developing strategies for attacking cancer at the cellular level
Cancer is not one disease it's about a 150 different diseases, each with its own characteristics, causes, and treatments.
At the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, our scientists carry out fundamental research at the molecular and cellular levels
that's aimed at understanding the basic biology and genetics of these different cancer types.
Using that information, we can identify specific vulnerabilities in the cancer cells that
make them different from normal tissues and in turn we can use that knowledge to develop new treatments.
-As Orange County's only National Cancer Institute designated Comprehensive Cancer Center,
the UC Irvine Health Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center is developing novel treatments and approaches to fight cancer based on
its evolving understanding of how cancer cells live, die, and respond to treatment.
These discoveries contribute greatly to the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship of cancer.
There are many cancer centers in the community, but our designation is a comprehensive cancer center by the National Cancer Institute,
means that we are one of 43 institutions nationwide that carries out fundamental research on cancer.
This research spans a broad spectrum from basic laboratory studies of cancer cells and animal models
to translational and patient-oriented research on human tumors and very importantly to clinical
trials of the latest anticancer drugs and devices.
We also have a fundamental mission to alleviate the burden of cancer on the citizens of Orange County.
At NCI cancer centers like the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center,
we're developing the new knowledge that will lead to changes in the way the cancer is
prevented, diagnosed, and treated not just in the United States but around the world.
-In an interesting trial with a vaccine for very aggressive brain tumor
called glioblastoma multiforme and that vaccine is to activate the
patient's own immune system and that trials only being conducted at University of California, Irvine.
We have another trial where we're using a scanning technique called dossey that
was actually invented here the Beckman Laser Institute and the idea behind this
trial is women with breast cancer who are receiving chemo we may be able to
predict early they're responding or not and we can predict early we could
potentially change the treatment if they're not and that trials underway right now.
We are participating in the Match trial, that's a trial where
patient's tumor is sequenced looking for mutations and then they can go on to any
clinical trial where there's a treatment that might benefit that mutation and
that's a very exciting trial that's underway.
Another trial that we have is
with the by specific antibody to treat leukemia that means that the antibody
binds to the tumor and then binds to the T cells in the immune system to redirect
them against tumor we're very excited about this because the first bispecific antibody
was recently just approved by the FDA and this is a new one.
-As Orange County's only academic medical center, UC Irvine Health is a
public institution responsible for the betterment of the communities it serves
which numbers more than three million residents and its service area.
-We take care of the entire community.
-We believe that we have a melting pot of modern America here in Orange County.
We believe that we have to Hispanic, Asian, and Caucasian families, we want to bring
the best research to them, we believe that we cannot cure cancer without doing research
and we want to make sure that they come in and see us doing that research.
-I was a 47-year-old non-smoker with a young family when I learned I had metastatic non-small cell lung cancer in
the summer of 2010, 5 years ago, I was on palliative care I wasn't expected to
survive even with the best conventional chemotherapy, but that all changed when I
learned that I had a mutation called ROS -1 that might be treatable by the
new targeted therapies and that UC Irvine health was actually doing a clinical trial with patients like me.
I'm here because I enrolled in that trial and it was because of the availability of incredible cancer centers like that
and the providers there and the hard work that you know I'm here, I'm able to spend time with my family and I really thank them.
-UC Irvine Health is committed to basic clinical and epidemiological cancer research.
Transferring knowledge from research done in the lab to develop new ways to
treat patients and training the next generation of cancer care providers.
To learn more about UC Irvine Health and how you can join the fight against cancer, visit UCIrvineHealth.org/theanticancer