11
Duke University
Medical Center
Intercom
VOL. 25, NO. 14
APRIL 7, 1978
DURHAM, N.C.
Computations could predict cancer cures
By William Erwin
A physician at the Comprehensive
Cancer Center has come up with a
mathematical way to predict when some
cancer patients will be cured.
Dr. Edwin B. Cox has proven his
method thus far with multiple myeloma,
a cancer of the bone marrow. Animal
studies done elsewhere suggest that the
formulas Cox uses should work for many
other types of human cancer as well.
Cox is an associate in the Department
of Medicine as well as a Comprehensive
Cancer Center faculty member. He
reported on his work Thursday afternoon
at a meeting of the American Association
for Cancer Research in Washington, D.C.
Optimal number of treatments
Prior to the meeting, the researcher
said that his method could spare certain
patients on anticancer drugs from getting
too few treatments or too many.
Too few treatments would allow a
patient's' cancer to return; too many
.... . ..
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treatments would prolong unpleasant
side effects after the person had been
cured.
Equally important, Cox said, the math
formulas could allow doctors to judge
very soon after treatment begins
whether the therapy they have chosen
will cure the patient. If it will not, they
could choose another type of treatment
without delay.
Life insurance formulas
Cox starts with formulas first used in
the early 1800's by life insurance
companies.
With these formulas, he estimates the
number of cancer cells in a patient's body.
Then applying some complicated algebra
of his own, he figures the percentage of
canCer cells killed with each treatment.
Projecting ahead, the physician
explained, "We can determine from these
formulas whether a given dose of
chemotherapy (drugs) repeated over time
will cure the patient. This gives us a way
of determining how long it will take to kill
the last cancer cell."
Fine tuning
Tests will begin soon to prove the
method with two more types of human
cancer — breast cancer and medullary
cancer of the thyroid.
Cox said he wants to help fine tune the
treatment of beast cancer with drugs.
"When chemotherapy is given after
surgery for breast cancer," he said, "the
duration of treatment has been picked out
of the air — six months or a year or
whatever we think the patient can
tolerate. We may find from the formulas
that one patient needs three months of
MOVIE DIRECTOR ON LOCATION—The Department of Surgery cooperated with the Central
Motion Picture Corp. of Taiwan during filming of 'The Eternal Love" here last summer by
making an operating room available one Saturday night. Here Director David Ting instructs the
patient (out of the picture) prior to a filming sequence. (Photo by David Williamson)
Lights, camera, action...Duke
Local ^stars' in movie premiere
By Joe Sigler
Attention all you stars of the Chinese
movie that was shot here last summer.
If your scenes didn't end up on the
cutting room floor, youll be able to see
yourself in living color on the screen in
Page Auditorium at 8 o'clock next
Thursday night (April 13).
And your family and friends will be able
to see you too, as long as the tickets last.
There will be no admission charge, but
admission will be by ticket.
Arrangements for obtaining tickets
may be made by contacting the Office of
Public Relations, 219 Bell Building, or by
caUing the office at 684-4148.
Page Auditorium, the entrance to
which is just to the left of Duke Chapel on
the main campus, seats 1,507 people, and
arrangements for tickets will be made on
a first-come, first-served basis.
Expression of appreciation
The movie, called "The Eternal Love,"
will be presented through the generosity
of the Central Motion Picture Corp. of
Taiwan. The director of the film, David
Ting, and its producer, George Chang,
are bringing a copy of the Cinemascope
film here especially to be shown to the
Duke and Durham community as an
expression of appreciation for the
cooperation received here during its
filming last summer.
Director Ting is the winner of three
Asian Film Festival awards, for best
director in 1974, for best director and
screenplay in 1975 and for director of the
best film in 1976. In addition to directing,
he also wrote the screenplay for "The
Eternal Love."
The movie is based on the true life of
Fred Chan, a young man from Hong
Kong who was a student at N.C. State
University in Raleigh when he was
diagnosed at Duke in April of 1970 as
having cancer of the thymus gland.
Young man's determination
Despite his illness, he continued his
studies in engineering. He earned his
bachelor's degree in 1972 and entered
graduate school.
From the time of his first diagnosis at
chemotherapy while another needs three
years."
Shouldn't give up hope
What if the method shows that a
patient can never be completely cured?
The patient and his doctor shouldn't give
up hope, Cox said.
"We've found that a myeloma patient
can have as many as 10 billion cancer cells
in his body and not have any signs of the
disease. The patient can be perfectly
healthy, but the remaining cells hiding in
the cracks will continue to divide," he
said.
This means simply that patients and
their doctors should watch for any new
cancer signs that appear, so treatment can
begin again. Cox's formulas could even
predict when treatment should resume to
keep the number of cancer cells
manageable.
Cancer growth predictable
The method works, the physician said,
because certain cancers grow in a
predictable way.
Soon after the disease begins, cancer
cells divide very quickly. But later, the
accumulated cells divide more slowly and
may slow down so much that they
actually divide less often than their
normal counterparts.
The disease can still kill at that point,
nonetheless. The patient would then
have billions of cancer cells. If these cells
have piled up into a tumor, they can cut
off the blood flow to a vital organ. They
can damage an organ by robbing it of
nutrients. The tumor can also break
(Continued on page 2l
Duke, and while continuing his work at
State, Chan underwent surgery,
radiation therapy and other forms of
treatment for cancer during four more
admissions to Duke Hospital.
On Feb. 8, 1974, Fred Chan entered
Duke for the last time. He died the next
day.
Chan's father, a Hong Kong
newspaperman, wrote a book about his
son, telling not only of his struggle with
cancer but also of the young man's
determination to continue his studies and
of the support and encouragement he
received from his family, his friends in
Raleigh and the people who cared for him
at Duke.
On location
After reading the book. Director Ting
gained the support of Producer Chang to
come on location to film the picture. In
addition to Durham and Raleigh, other
on-location filming was done in Boston
and Los Angeles.
(Continued on page 4)
mw/MSM''
KNOWING HE HAS CANCER. Fred Chan
(portrayed here by Louis Castro, a television
singing star in Hong Kong) seeks out the quiet
of Duke University Chapel. (Photo by John Btcton)