Page 8 - 82013-HL-1-7.indd

8 HEALTHY LIFE CANCER August 28-29, 2013
By BARBARA SHERMAN
Pamplin Media Group
Dr. Michael Heinrich stares down
cancer cells under a microscope in
his lab and researches new drugs
and treatments for cancers such as
leukemia and lymphoma.
He is a staff physician specializing in he-
matology and oncology at the Knight Cancer
Center at OHSU and the Portland VA Medi-
cal Center who has focused his research for
the past 15 years on gastrointestinal stromal
tumors and chronic myeloid leukemia.
“What we’re trying to do is we’re trying
to cure cancer,” he said. “The
first step is to convert it from
an acute disease with a short
survival into a chronic dis-
ease that can be managed for
years or longer. We don’t
cure diabetes or high blood
pressure, but you can live
with them with the appropri-
ate treatment.
“We are trying to develop
treatments that can control
blood diseases for long peri-
ods of time and with minimal
side effects. This is different
from past treatments that
featured strong doses of chemotherapy giv-
en in intense bursts of treatment. Once we
control cancers for long periods of time, we
can figure what else we need to do to cure
cancers.”
Heinrich said that 60 percent of his work
is devoted to research, 30 percent to patients
and 10 percent to teaching and administra-
tive work.
Why people get blood cancers is not as ob-
vious as the link between smoking and lung
cancer, for example, but it may be tied to
more urbanized environments, Heinrich
said. And exposure to pesticides and Agent
Orange leads to more cases of lymphoma
and leukemia.
In addition, treatment of cancer with radi-
ation or chemotherapy can sometimes result
in the delayed development of a blood can-
cer such as leukemia.
The risk of blood cancers is also related to
age, with higher rates seen among children
and adults older than 65 years of age. On av-
erage, every four minutes one person is di-
agnosed with a blood cancer in the United
States. That translates into about 150,000
new cases per year.
Historically, blood cancers were simply
classified as either leukemia (cancer of the
blood or bone marrow) or lymphoma (can-
cer of lymph nodes).
“With modern diagnosis and treatment,
we now recognize dozens or maybe a couple
hundred forms of blood cancers, each with
its own distinctive characteristics,” Heinrich
said. “Each of these forms of blood cancer
may require a different specialized form of
treatment.”
Although blood cancers are less common
than lung cancer or breast cancer, certain
characteristics of blood cancers have al-
lowed researchers to make more rapid
progress in figuring out the types of abnor-
malities that are associated with these can-
cers.
“We know more about lymphoma and leu-
kemia than solid cancers because it is easy
to draw blood and look at it,” Heinrich said.
“You can draw blood at any time, and the
cancer cells are traveling in the blood, so
they can be isolated and studied.
“In contrast, obtaining malignant cells
from solid tumors like lung cancer would re-
quire a biopsy or surgery. Even then, we
know less about how to grow solid tumors
and manipulate them outside the body.”
A newer weapon
Chemotherapy damages dividing cells,
and the theory for decades has been that
cancer cells divide faster than normal cells,
so they are affected more by chemotherapy.
But now doctors are finding that this isn’t al-
ways the case, and this realization has lead
researchers to explore new treatment ap-
proaches, according to Heinrich.
One of the newer weapons in the arsenal
of cancer treatments is using anti-bodies
created in test tubes to recognize and bind
to proteins that are over-produced by some
cancers. These antibodies help the patient’s
immune system to recognize and attack can-
cer cells. Compared with chemotherapy,
many of these immune treatments have a
much lower rate of serious side effects and
are suitable for long-term treatment to sup-
press cancer.
“Right now, our limitation is how many
antibodies can be developed and against
which cancer cell proteins,” Heinrich said.
“Even better, researchers have discovered
that chemotherapy plus immunotherapy
work even better together.”
Another new approach to treatment is to
use so-called targeted or precision therapy.
With these therapies, only the cells that are
malfunctioning are shut down. Blocking
these malfunctioning cells with a drug can
completely cripple cancer cells but with
minimal effects on the rest of the body.
“Cells are like complicated corporations,”
Heinrich said. “They have different lines of
communication, and precision therapy inter-
rupts the communication. In many cases,
cancer gets addicted to something, and that
makes it easier to attack. Some leukemias
are addicted to certain types of signaling,
and we can block the pathway. Regular cells
don’t use just one pathway.
Dr. Michael Heinrich is at the forefront of saving patients’ lives
new therapies are ever-more
successful in fighting blood cancers
PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP PHOTOS: JAIME VALDEZ
Dr. Michael Heinrichhas has focused his research on gastrointestinal stromal tumors and chronic
myeloid leukemia.
“What
we’re
trying to
do is we’re
trying to
cure
cancer.”
— Dr. Michael
Heinrich
CONTINUED / Page 10