Cancer prevention

Well, you look at Iowa and you worry about the pesticide, you worry why is that sort of cluster and clusters.

The good news, and this is really the good news, I just tweeted that ironically a couple of days ago, is we've now completed our first NCI-sponsored cancer prevention trial, truly cancer prevention, not cancer treatment, preventing cancer.

And one million Americans have this genetic probability of an 80% increased risk of colon cancer called Lynch syndrome.

And so what we call the cancer vaccine in which we teach the T cells in your body to recognize the cancer before it comes and then give in this trial to stimulate those T cells and then prevent the cancer from actually occurring in the first place.

And now the second year colonoscopy is coming up this time next year.

And then the trial will be revealed randomized against placebo.

I am really hopeful this would be one of the first cancer prevention vaccine.

We can go to the next level where you have a cancer.

I'd know what parasites you have, everything.

So I personally, so years ago, I'm personally interested in cancer prevention.

That's been my whole life.

But in

What what is on the list of how to best live kind of more cancer proof, if you will?

Well, it's interesting, Kevin, because the irony of cancer prevention is that we're constantly looking for something new when some of the most powerful tools that we have actually been sitting right in front of us for decades and decades.

And the list is one that is familiar to most people, but it's don't smoke.

move your body, meaning exercise, watch your weight, try to eat reasonably well, try to limit your alcohol, protect your skin from ultraviolet radiation, and get your screening done.

Well, what I do with patients is I have a kind of a four question test that I'll walk through with them.

And so when somebody comes in and says, hey, listen, I've heard about I read this or this or this on the Internet about cancer.

cancer prevention or cancer care, what do you think? My questions are this.

Number one, what exactly are the people that produce that supplement claiming? Are they claiming it will prevent cancer? Are they claiming it will treat cancer? Are they claiming it will help with symptoms or whatever it may be? What exactly are they claiming? Number two, what is the evidence for what they're claiming? Is it evidence just in the test tube in the lab? Is it animal studies, mouse studies? Is it observational data? What is the evidence that they're presenting? Number three, what are they comparing this treatment to? Are they comparing it to nothing? Are they comparing it to a placebo? Are they comparing it to standard therapies for that cancer? And then finally, who is selling this? That's a good question.

Among the honorees receiving institutional recognition was Dr. Sanjay Shethe, a professor of biostatistics at MD Anderson, who received the Margaret and James A. Elkins JR.

Faculty Achievement Award in Cancer Prevention.

The award recognizes original contributions that advance the understanding and prevention of cancer.

The institutional celebration also appreciated early career and translational researchers across the medical center, including Dr. Palani Raja Thandapani, an assistant professor in the Department of Hematopoietic Biology and Malignancy.