Kim Irwin ([email protected]) (310) 206-2805 Kambra McConnel ([email protected])(310) 206-3769Caryn Kolbrenner ([email protected])(310) 794-2273
UCLA'S JONSSON CANCER CENTER LAUNCHES STATE-OF-THE-ART FACILITY TO ATTACK LIVER CANCER, A DEADLY DISEASE THAT KILLS MORE THAN ONE MILLION PEOPLE WORLDWIDE EVERY YEAR
In an effort to shed light on a largely unexplored disease and provide more effective treatments, officials from UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center today launched a state-of-the-art liver cancer center. The Dumont-UCLA Liver Cancer Center is among a few centers worldwide that are attacking this deadly disease through a multidisciplinary treatment approach and a focus on basic research.
The Dumont-UCLA Liver Cancer Center offers the latest in experimental and traditional treatments, and is home to top-notch scientists laboring to unravel the mysteries of this deadly disease, which kills one million people worldwide every year, including 10,000 Americans. Little is known about liver cancer -- an important obstacle to laboratory study is the lack of animal models to illustrate the development and natural course of liver cancer in humans. Developing an animal model in which to study liver cancer will be a priority for Dumont-UCLA scientists.
With its West Coast location providing access to patients in China and Southeast Asia -- where liver cancer rates are highest -- the Dumont-UCLA Liver Cancer Center is uniquely positioned to attack this dreaded cancer. Asian populations experience a disproportionately high rate of liver cancer due to an increased prevalence of infection with the hepatitis B and C viruses, which are known to cause liver cancer.
Dr. Ronald W. Busuttil, a world-renowned surgeon and director of UCLA's liver transplant program, the nation's largest, serves as director of the new liver cancer center. The center was made possible through a $2 million gift from the Dumont Foundation.
"There is a desperate need for a liver cancer center. Why? Because liver cancer is the No. 1 cancer in the world, killing more than one million people a year," Busuttil said. "Right now, the fight against this disease is woefully inadequate. We'll be one of the few centers around the world solely committed to liver cancer. We'll be using a multidisciplinary treatment approach and cutting-edge clinical trials to get a hold on this deadly killer."
To staff the Dumont-UCLA Liver Cancer Center, Busuttil has drawn together the best liver experts, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, pathologists, surgeons and researchers."We are positioned to provide the best in care and the leading edge in research," Busuttil said. "Our goal is to find a cure for liver cancer, to bring new treatments from the basic science lab to the bedside of patients."
Dr. Goran Klintmalm, chairman of the Baylor Institute of Transplant Sciences at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, said UCLA becomes a leader in liver cancer treatment and research with the opening of the new Dumont-UCLA Liver Cancer Center.
"This is exactly the way we need to go to foster the development of liver cancer therapies," Klintmalm said. "What we know about liver cancer now is not enough. To become more successful, we need to know more. Clearly this is the way of the future. Those like UCLA that have the foresight to develop these centers will point the direction forward for the rest of us."
Dr. Rafael Amado, a UCLA researcher and oncologist, is studying liver cancer in the lab and administering experimental treatments to Dumont-UCLA Liver Cancer Center patients. The work of the new center is vital, Amado said, because physicians clearly need better weapons to fight this cancer.
"Once you develop liver cancer, it's almost always a death sentence guaranteed," said Amado, a member of UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center. "This cancer has a dismal survival rate and, in those patients unable to have surgery, we can't treat it very well with the tools we have now. We need to find out what causes this disease, what are the changes the liver cells go through to become malignant, what genes are turned on or turned off in liver cancer. This is virgin territory."
Liver cancer causes death in 75 percent of patients within a year of diagnosis. Worldwide, 530,000 new cases of liver cancer are diagnosed every year, with the highest incidence rates in China, Southeast Asia, and South and West Africa.
Amado and other UCLA researchers expect the number of liver cancer cases in the United States to increase as a result of hepatitis C infection. About 2 percent of Americans are infected with the hepatitis C virus, Amado said. Of those, 5 to 10 percent are expected to eventually develop liver cancer. In addition, Asian populations, which also have a high incidence as carriers of hepatitis B, continue to grow in the United States. New figures released this year by the U.S. Census Bureau show that Asians and Hispanics are the fastest-growing minority populations in this country. In the last decade, the nation's Asian population grew by 43 percent, with most of that growth occurring in California, which is now home to more than 4 million Asian residents.
"There is the potential for a big increase in liver cancer in the Western world," Amado said. "Los Angeles County, populated by increasing numbers of Chinese, Koreans and Southeast Asians, is already the area of the United States with the highest incidence of liver cancer."
Liver cancer is difficult to diagnose early because patients often exhibit few symptoms. The liver also is a difficult organ to examine manually due to its location under the rib cage. Conventional treatments fall woefully short of saving lives. Few treatment options are available now -- surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, radiofrequency ablation and cryosurgery. Liver transplants can be performed on cancer patients, but are rare, Busuttil said.
Removing the entire tumor surgically is the only way to cure liver cancer. However, if the cancer has spread beyond the liver, surgery is not an option. Surgery also won't work on a very large tumor or if multiple small tumors are growing in different parts of the liver. Radiation is not used often as it doesn't increase survival rates. Chemotherapy can shrink some tumors, but it also fails to increase survival rates. Radiofrequency ablation burns the tumors, while cryosurgery freezes them. Neither has been proven yet to increase survival rates.
For these reasons, the mission of the Dumont-UCLA Liver Cancer Center is vital-- to study the causes and development of liver cancer and create new therapies that cure the disease or at least significantly increase survival rates.
Dr. Pauline Chen, a transplant surgeon and a Dumont-UCLA scientist, is confident the mission is within reach.
"I think we have a chance of finding a cure for this disease, of understanding how this tumor works," Chen said. "We're taking what is now known and pushing the envelope. Our multidisciplinary focus will give us added insight into liver cancer. We're attacking from all fronts."
Patient David McCullough, a 52-year-old Woodland Hills resident and a special effects producer for the Walt Disney Co., was diagnosed with liver cancer in March of this year. Several surgeons, after viewing CT scans of the cancer invading McCullough's liver, declined to operate. There was nothing they could do, they told him.
"I didn't think there was any hope," McCullough said.
Then McCullough was referred to Busuttil, who removed three-quarters of the liver to make sure that all of the aggressive cancer was excised. So far, McCullough remains cancer free. He said he's extremely encouraged by the opening of the new liver cancer center.
"I think it's visionary," said McCullough, a father of four children. "It's a good idea to have a center that focuses solely on liver cancer and conducts research only on that disease. This is a cancer that needs much more research."
The Dumont-UCLA Liver Cancer Center offers a variety of cutting-edge procedures and therapies for primary and secondary liver cancer. The center is testing an experimental gene therapy treatment, one of the first centers in the world to use a genetic approach for this type of malignancy. A crippled virus delivers a necessary gene to the patient's cells, where it is hoped it will help the body repair itself.
Other experimental therapies offered to patients at the Dumont-UCLA Liver Cancer Center include novel treatments that target the biological mechanisms of cancer cells rather than all rapidly dividing cells. These specific, or targeted, approaches result in less severe side effects than those associated with traditional therapies such as chemotherapy and radiation. Among the biologically based treatments offered at the liver cancer center is a class of new medications called farnesyl transferase inhibitors. These inhibitors target a key step in cancer cell production of proteins needed to sustain life. The center also plans to attack liver cancer using blockers of specific cell molecules that trigger tumor growth, as well as angiogenesis inhibitors, a class of drugs that attack cancer by cutting off a tumor's blood supply.
Dr. Judith C. Gasson, director of UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center, said the new liver cancer center furthers her goal to expand research and broaden treatment offered for cancer.
"The strength of our cancer center is bringing together laboratory discovery and compassionate patient care," Gasson said. "I applaud Dr. Busuttil for launching this program that will impact so many lives worldwide."
Dr. Gerald Levey, dean and provost of UCLA, called the Dumont-UCLA Liver Cancer Center "the essence of what UCLA is all about."
"We're recognized worldwide for our innovation and translating science into better patient care," Levey said. "This center will bring the latest in treatments to the patients."
That's good news for Mai Yang of San Marino, who lost her husband, Paul, to liver cancer four years ago. Paul Yang died at 44, leaving behind his wife and four children, aged three to 13. Mai Yang said the creation of a new liver cancer center at UCLA gives her hope that another wife and mother will not have to go through the pain she endured when she lost her husband.
"This is important, very important," Yang said. "This gives me hope for other women's husbands. I'm very happy to see this happen. This will benefit people all over California and the world."
For more information on the UCLA-Dumont Liver Cancer Center, patients should call (310) 825-5318.
-UCLA-
For more information about UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center, its people and resources, visit our site on the World Wide Web at http://www.cancer.mednet.ucla.edu.
RSS