Foreword

Despite the continual rise in numbers of cases of cancer in recent years, mortality from the illness is decreasing steadily.  This decrease is due to the great number of advances in prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of the disease.  These include, among others; technical advances in imaging, improvements in surgical techniques, standardization of pathology reporting, advances in radiotherapy and finally, advances in the medical treatment of the tumors themselves.

Modern medical treatment of malignant tumors started in 1943 at Yale University with the introduction of nitrogen mustards, a derivative of the mustard gas used as a toxic weapon in the Second World War, which was shown to be effective in the treatment of some tumors such as lymphomas.  From then on, the progress in developing new pharmaceuticals for the treatment of cancer has been constant and this has allowed for the use of treatment programs combining multiple chemotherapeutic agents.

In the last decade, knowledge of the biology of cancer has increased exponentially and cancer research has produced a whole range of therapeutic leads for the development of selective drugs.

An example of results from this change in the model for drug development is Imatinib, for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia and gastrointestinal stromal tumors, both characterized by particular molecular alterations for which Imatinib has a very high sensitivity.  Another example is Trastuzumab, a drug developed for the treatment of a sub-type of breast cancer in which cells express a protein called Her-2/neu, necessary for the growth of malignant cells of this type of tumor. 

The first step was determining the altered protein which characterizes the malignant cells.  The second step has been the creation of drugs specifically aimed at blocking this particular protein, which causes the death of the malignant cells.  Research initiatives such as the Human Genome Project and the sequencing of the complete genome of certain tumors have contributed enormously to this qualitative leap in the development of these drugs.

In this context, it is important to underline the importance of private philanthropic organizations such as Fundació Privada CELLEX and Fundación FERO para la investigación oncológica translacional, both patrons on the VHIO Board of Trustees. 

The Research Unit for Molecular Therapy of Cancer-"la Caixa" is a pioneer project in our country; it was set up to put into practice a new model of treatment for cancer patients with highly selective drugs.  This is a vital step in expanding the knowledge of tumor diseases and how to treat them in an individualized way, that is to say, following the principal of administering the right drug to the right patient.


Dr. Josep Tabernero
Head of the Oncology Department at Vall Hebron University Hospital
Director of Clinical Research at VHIO