TAMPA, Fla. — A cancer diagnosis can feel like a death sentence. But, doctors are hopeful about treatments and beating the disease.
February is National Cancer Prevention Month. ABC Action News reporter Michael Paluska sat down with doctors from Tampa General Hospital and Moffitt Cancer Center to talk about treatments and why they are excited about current and newer therapies on the horizon.
"I think for the first time now, the government has reported that overall deaths from cancer are going down. I mean, there are a lot of diseases that aren't death sentences anymore," Dr. Ivan Borrello said.
Dr. Borrello is the Director of the Myeloma and Bone Marrow Transplants, Cell Therapy Program at Tampa General Hospital.
"Myeloma is a non-curable disease, but it's becoming a highly treatable disease. There are about 25,000 patients diagnosed a year in the United States, and the median survival was around five years," Dr. Borrello said. "Cancer vaccines are really therapies; they're not prophylaxis or not prevention. So the concept of a cancer vaccine is that a person that has a certain cancer, whether it's breast cancer, colon, or whatever, we're using a vaccine to stimulate the immune system to further fight the disease."
In December, Moderna and Merck said an experimental mRNA vaccine combined with immunotherapy might reduce the risk of death from melanoma by 44%.
"The concept of a vaccine is to prime the patient's immune system to fight what they're being vaccinated against. So the term is not an unreasonable one. It's just that what you're doing for that in COVID, or hepatitis, or the flu is very different than what you're doing for somebody that has breast cancer," Borrello said.
Dr. Kedar Kirtane is a Moffitt Cancer Center head and neck medical oncologist.
"We're really trying to push the needle of science forward. And for patients with poor prognosis, turn them into patients with a good prognosis," Dr. Kirtane said.
Moffitt is one of the top cancer research centers in the country. We talked to Dr. Kirtane about mRNA vaccines.
"Is this one of the most groundbreaking parts of cancer research?" Paluska asked.
"Yeah, it's pretty interesting. And it's certainly groundbreaking because it's harnessing the power of your immune system," Dr. Kirtane said. "So, it's trying to get your immune system to recognize foreign invaders in your body, providing your cells instructions. And those instructions tell the cell what kinds of proteins or antigens they should recognize to try to destroy them."
Dr. Kirtane said the virus sped up mRNA research despite all the negatives of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"So cancer vaccines have been studied for several years, even prior to COVID. But what this pandemic and the whole process over the last couple of years has taught us is how to accelerate research and how we can as a community get together and provide care that's best for all patients," Dr. Kirtane said.
"What excites you the most as we look forward?" Paluska asked.
"I think cancer vaccines are a groundbreaking promise for cancer treatments. Cellular immunotherapy is also an innovative way to treat cancers. And what that involves is taking a patient's own cells, taking them out of the body, and reengineering them in the way that instructs your cells to attack the tumor. These are some things called CAR T cells which are approved for many types of cancers. But Moffitt is doing a lot of cell therapy trials for many different types of cancers."
Both doctors have told patients they are terminal. They said that's what keeps them motivated.
"I think the optimism is that we can always do better. You know, the pessimism, I think, lies in the fact that when you're confronted with a patient, and despite everything you have to tell them, look, we've run out of options, but that's also what gives us the strength, and the passion to want to move forward," Dr. Borrello said.
"Do you celebrate the small victories? You probably have patients whom you have to tell you're not going to make it. How do you balance those two where you're saving someone because this research and science is there, and then another person, it's just not as advanced to save them yet," Paluska said.
"It's probably one of the hardest parts of my job to tell someone that something isn't working. And I hate having that feeling. And that's why I love being a part of an academic research place because we're trying to minimize the number of patients we have to have those horrible conversations with," Dr. Kirtane said.
