Feature Story
| The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center (UT M. D. Anderson) has channeled the distribution proceeds from the Permanent Health Fund into several research and outreach initiatives that represent a comprehensive and aggressive attack on tobacco-related cancers. Despite major efforts, the cure rates for tobacco-related cancers of the oral cavity and lungs have not changed significantly in the last twenty years. The cure rate is less than 50% for oral cancer and only 14% for lung cancer. |  |  |
One research initiative is a program designed to develop new "targeted" therapies through a better understanding of the biology of carcinogenesis. Currently, cancer patients who receive chemotherapy suffer many side effects because the treatment affects normal tissue and cancer cells alike. New basic research findings are beginning to allow the detection of subtle molecular differences between cancer cells and healthy cells. By focusing on these differences, UT M. D. Anderson hopes to create targeted therapies that will affect cancer cells but not normal tissue, thus affording the ability to tailor cancer treatment, delivering more effective therapy with fewer side effects.
Another initiative that UT M. D. Anderson has undertaken is to develop research on the genetic, psychobiological and psychosocial factors mediating nicotine dependence. The Division of Cancer Prevention established the Tobacco Research and Treatment Program (TRTP) to conduct clinical research on the treatment, prevention and psychobiological mechanisms governing nicotine dependence, and to provide quality treatment for tobacco use cessation.
One objective of TRTP is to support research aimed at the prevention of youth tobacco use and dependence. Research in this area includes studies of factors that influence youth's responses to advertising, promotional, mass media, and warning messages aimed at discouraging tobacco use, including ethnicity, gender, and social class differences. Other research studies include investigating the role of depression in smoking initiation, response to treatment, and relapse.
The endowment, valued at $85.1 million as of August 31, 2002, distributed $4.7 million in support for the fiscal year 2002. Tobacco-related cancers continue to be a major health problem in Texas and throughout the United States. There is hope for change, though, based on many exciting new laboratory findings by UT M. D. Anderson. Basic research has led to exciting new discoveries that, hopefully, lead to a better understanding of why one smoker develops cancer and another does not, and helps predict which individuals are at highest risk.
