A Relentless Approach to Fighting Cancer
What if you didn’t finish 95 percent of the races you entered? What would you do if you couldn’t complete your planned training one third of the time? Would you hang up your running shoes or put your bike on the rack? Climb out of the pool and park yourself in a deck chair?
In the world of cancer research and treatment – these kinds of odds are an everyday reality, but the physicians and scientists at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and UNC Cancer Care don’t quit, no matter what the odds.
As one of only 40 National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers, UNC Lineberger brings together some of the most exceptional physicians and scientists in the country to combat cancer. To be a comprehensive cancer center, institutions have to be the best of the best. Centers that meet this national designation combat cancer in the laboratory, with patients, and in global practice: meaning that we work to understand the causes of cancer at the genetic and population levels, conduct groundbreaking laboratory research, and pioneer innovative clinical trials that bring the latest discoveries to patient bedsides. UNC Lineberger faculty treat cancer patients, conduct research into the causes of cancer and search for new treatments, develop and direct statewide programs in cancer prevention, and train future physicians, nurses, scientists and public health professionals.
While our physicians and researchers know the odds – they’re constantly working to improve them. Because 95 percent of promising anti-cancer compounds never make it to patients, UNC Lineberger has developed new genetic and pre-clinical testing facilities that separate winners from losers more quickly. This means that we have a better idea that a drug will work before it goes through costly and time-consuming human clinical trials, increasing our chances of success.
Great strides have been made against many cancers in the last 40 years. Then, most children with cancer died. Today, five year survival rates for children with cancer approach 80 percent. Then, fewer than 50 percent of women with non-metastatic breast cancer survived five years or more, now more than 80 percent make it five years.
At the same time, one in three people diagnosed with cancer today will die from the disease. That’s the number that keeps UNC Lineberger’s dedicated doctors and scientists working hard – whatever their chosen venue – to find new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer.
For more information about our work, please visit unclineberger.org or like them on Facebook – just search for UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Photo Credit Brian Strickland
