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Good news is flowing from the world’s cancer labs. Researchers are reporting encouraging clinical trial results for a diversity of novel treatments, including individualised cancer vaccines, as well as new diagnostic techniques. Various forms of immunotherapy — adapting the patient’s immune system to destroy cancer cells — are proving remarkably successful at extending survival times of some people with refractory tumours.
全球癌症實驗室傳來了好訊息。研究人員報告了多種新型治療方法的鼓舞人心的臨牀試驗結果，包括個體化癌症疫苗和新的診斷技術。各種形式的免疫療法——透過調整患者的免疫系統來摧毀癌細胞——在延長一些患有難治性腫瘤的患者的生存時間方面取得了顯著的成功。
One reason for the rapid progress is that cancer research has been well funded by industry, governments and charities in comparison with other diseases. Almost 40 per cent of all pharmaceutical R&D investment is directed at clinical oncology — making it the leading field for precision medicine, with diagnostics and drugs tailored to the individual characteristics of patients.
癌症研究之所以取得迅速進展的一個原因是，與其他疾病相比，癌症研究得到了工業界、政府和慈善機構的大力資助。幾乎40%的製藥研發投資都用於臨牀腫瘤學，使其成爲精準醫學的領域，透過針對患者個體特徵進行診斷和藥物治療。
This encouraging lesson about the productivity of research funding has not been lost on scientists working on different diseases, such as dementia and infections, where there is much unmet medical need but relatively less investment. They are right to point to cancer as an example of what can be achieved with more R&D resources.
這種關於研究資金生產力的鼓舞人心的教訓並沒有被在癡呆症和感染等不同疾病上工作的科學家們忽視，這些領域存在著很大的醫療需求，但相對較少的投資。他們指出癌症是更多研發資源可以取得的成就的一個例子，他們是正確的。
Moving cancer research breakthroughs rapidly into regular clinical practice will require agile regulators and responsive healthcare providers. They must provide not only appropriate treatment facilities, but diagnostic services to detect tumours as early as possible when chances of a cure are highest.
將癌症研究的突破迅速轉化爲常規臨牀實踐，需要靈活的監管機構和響應迅速的醫療服務提供者。他們不僅必須提供適當的治療設施，還必須提供早期檢測腫瘤的診斷服務，以便在治癒機會最大的時候儘早發現。
The new wave of personalised treatments will be expensive when first introduced; immunotherapies often cost more than $100,000 per patient. Pharma companies will inevitably come under pressure to cut what their critics may portray as exorbitant pricing. While drug prices must be subject to some control, the industry’s return on investment should remain high enough to maintain its large, productive cancer research effort. Costs of new medical technologies do come down over time as they are applied more extensively.
新一波的個性化治療在剛開始推出時會很昂貴；免疫療法的費用通常超過每位患者10萬美元。製藥公司將不可避免地面臨壓力，要削減批評者可能認爲過高的定價。雖然藥物價格必須受到一定的控制，但該行業的投資回報率應保持足夠高，以維持其龐大而富有成效的癌症研究工作。隨著新的醫療技術得到更廣泛的應用，其成本會隨時間降低。
Faster diagnosis and better treatments are needed more than ever, as the incidence of cancer continues to rise globally. Disturbingly, cases are growing most rapidly among younger people, for reasons that scientists are only just beginning to understand — and which require urgent investigation. Cancer rates in 25- to 49-year-olds increased by 24 per cent since 1995, according to the charity Cancer Research UK. Although cancer remains largely an affliction of old age, and under-50s still account for no more than 10 per cent of all patients, they represent a much larger proportion of years of healthy life lost to the disease.
隨著全球癌症發病率持續上升，更迫切地需要更快的診斷和更好的治療。令人不安的是，癌症病例在年輕人中成長最快，原因科學家們纔剛剛開始理解，並需要緊急調查。根據英國癌症研究基金會(Cancer Research UK)的數據，25至49歲人羣的癌症發病率自1995年以來增加了24%。儘管癌症仍然主要是老年人的疾病，而50歲以下的患者仍然只佔所有患者的不到10%，但他們卻佔據了因該疾病而失去的健康年份的很大比例。
Experts believe the rapid increase in obesity in recent decades is one factor driving the growth of tumours such as breast and colorectal cancer among the young. Data presented at the recent American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago suggests that taking the popular weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy would reduce the risk of developing many common tumours — though, as public health campaigners point out, it would be preferable to tackle obesity by changing people’s diets rather than by medication. Beyond obesity, scientists are looking for carcinogenic signals among the many environmental and lifestyle changes that have taken place over recent decades.
專家們認爲近幾十年來肥胖症的迅速增加是導致年輕人患上乳腺癌和結腸直腸癌等腫瘤成長的一個因素。在最近在芝加哥舉行的美國臨牀腫瘤學會(American Society of Clinical Oncology)議上發佈的數據表明，服用流行的減肥藥物威戈維和威戈維可以降低患上許多常見腫瘤的風險，儘管公共衛生活動家指出，與其透過藥物治療，改變人們的飲食習慣來解決肥胖問題更爲可取。除了肥胖問題，科學家們還在近幾十年發生的許多環境和生活方式變化中尋找致癌信號。
As the disease becomes more prevalent, people are living for longer on average after diagnosis, though progress is currently slow. Human biology means that cancer will always be with us. But the new diagnostic tools and treatments emerging from the world’s labs promise to accelerate the extension of survival time — and make oncology a shining example of the value of biomedical research spending.
隨著疾病的普遍性增加，人們在被診斷後的平均壽命也在延長，儘管目前進展緩慢。人類生物學意味著癌症將永遠存在。但來自世界各地實驗室的新診斷工具和治療方法承諾加速延長生存時間，並使腫瘤學成爲生物醫學研究支出價值的光輝典範。