Childhood cancers: unlocking the cure
produced by Molly McGuiness
Since 1960, the overall five-year relative survival rate for leukemia patients has more than quadrupled. It’s one of the great success stories of cancer research.
Why have doctors and scientists seen such progress in treating this form of cancer, which was once invariably fatal?
The new PBS documentary “Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies,” a six-hour, three-part film series presented by the filmmaker Ken Burns and based on the book by Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, takes a closer look at cancer success stories and reveals the lessons they teach about fighting this deadly disease.
Yahoo News Global Anchor Katie Couric sat down with Ken Burns and Dr. Mukherjee to talk about the film and why childhood cancers could hold the key to a cure.
By the 1940s, scientists in cancer research had discovered that the only way to treat leukemia was to stop the growth of white blood cells.
“It demanded a chemical therapy, a systemic therapy to solve the problem,” says Mukherjee. “Nearly every child with leukemia was on a clinical trial. So every child was a learning opportunity. And so science moved forward very quickly, because every time, something new was learned, and we could use that to treat the next child.”
As treatments for leukemia were developed and tested, a roadmap for approaching other cancers started to take shape.
“It happened really trial, by trial, by trial,” says Mukherjee. “You know, the idea that you could combine chemotherapies comes from childhood leukemia. The idea that you had to give chemotherapy long after the cancer had really gone from the body to consolidate — that came from childhood leukemia. And now, immunotherapy has come from childhood leukemia to an extent, as well.”
Leukemia is still the most common cancer in children and teens, accounting for almost 1 out of 3 cancers.
There are an estimated 328,000 people living with, or in remission from, leukemia in the United States. The battle is far from over, but the future of the fight against it holds promise that was once unimaginable.
“It wasn’t, ‘What are we going to do?’ It was ‘How long before this person died?’" says Burns. “And now we are in a situation where we are curing 80 percent, 85 percent, 90 percent of leukemias. And this is the pathway, the doorway to the hope that we think this series is about.”
