DETROIT – Stand Up to Cancer has been raising money for cancer research for the past 15 years, with eight televised fundraising specials and a new one coming this weekend. They have funded research into earlier detection and treatment breakthroughs across all cancer types.
When we say cancer, we’re really not talking about only one disease, and the idea that it’s more than one disease also gives rise to the approach that anyone’s cancer can be considered unique to them.
It has led to a rapidly growing research direction that personalizes cancer care.
To understand where cancer care was heading, Local 4 sat down with Dr. David Kwon, the physician in charge of the Henry Ford Health Brigitte Harris Cancer Pavilion.
Dr. Frank McGeorge: “What is the future in your mind of detection and therapy for cancer?”
Kwon: “We’re learning so much more about tumors than we’ve ever had. We’re able to translate it back into the patient so that we have markers that we’re looking for in our blood that really will help detect these harder-to-find cancers traditionally like pancreas and brain cancer; we do believe with the evolving technology that we’re on the cusp of getting very close to having a yearly blood test that we could utilize.”
Kwon continued:
“We’re able to see individual people and realize that they have a very unique signature of their own cancer that we’re able to identify, and we’re becoming much more sophisticated as the technology evolves with our ability to identify more mutations that actually make breast cancer, lung cancer very unique.
And as we do so, we’re also able to develop new drugs to target these specific defects or mutations that actually allow us to have a much more targeted treatment plan specific to the patient versus what we did 25 to 50 years ago where we gave chemotherapy that we thought would be just generally useful.”
The bottom line is the future of cancer detection and care is full of hope for everyone, but this can really only happen with research and funding.
Certainly, if you have an oncology center you’re associated with, directed donations are always welcome.
But Stand Up to Cancer is a simulcasted fundraiser over all the major networks this Saturday (Aug. 19) at 8 p.m. It is a tremendous opportunity to help fund nationally recognized programs.
