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Ed Yeates ReportingWhile President Hinckley continues his recovery, some of the country's foremost medical experts gather in Salt Lake City tomorrow to talk about that very cancer he was treated for.
President Hinckley symbolizes now what's becoming the norm for all of us. If we live long enough, we most likely will end up with a cancer. And as time goes on, the chances of surviving even that, when it happens, is getting better and better.
Clyde Ford, M.D., Chief, Oncology-Hematology, LDS Hospital: "Knowledge grows and knowledge has grown dramatically in only the last few years. And I think we have a reasonable expectation that will continue."
Researchers have learned a lot. Ignoring all the coded molecular recipes, let's single out just a few.
Dr. Ford: "I think we have only a tiny minority of understanding of what is actually going on inside that cancerous cell."
The push to unravel all this, to identify genetic markers that may make us susceptible to colon cancer, to develop more drugs that target specific tumors, and new and better surgical hardware, that's what the gathering tomorrow is all about.
To give you an idea how intense this work is getting, one university has been given 200-million dollars, all focused on one master computer to literally plot out all of the pathways of cell division and destruction.
What researchers learn in another 50 years could make therapies now look like medical antiques.
That colon cancer symposium tomorrow is at the LDS Hospital Huntsman Education Auditorium, beginning at 8:00 a.m.
