March 2011 podcast transcript

This month - one in eight women will now get breast cancer during their lifetime, scientists find the first new cancer accelerator gene in five years, a genetic pattern could predict how aggressive prostate cancer is, Cancer Research UK launches a petition for better radiotherapy services, and sporting personality Gary Lineker does us a favour.

Welcome to the Cancer Research UK podcast. I’m Angela Balakrishnan.

The lifetime risk of getting breast cancer has risen from one woman in nine to one in eight, according to new figures from Cancer Research UK.

Women’s changing lifestyles are thought to be the main reason for the increase in risk, as Catherine Thomson, head of statistical information at Cancer Research UK, explains.

“We know that there are many factors contributing to this, but partly things like family history does play an effect, but also lifestyle factors – we know that women are having children later in life, and also having fewer children, and there’s less breastfeeding going on, as well as other lifestyle factors.

It’s not all bad news though – we do know that improvements in treatment and early detection mean that breast cancer survival has improved dramatically. Back in the early 70s around five out of ten women would survive their disease – now it’s more than eight out of ten.”

Also this month, an international team led by scientists from our Cambridge Research Institute, discovered a new oncogene.

The gene - called ZNF703 – is thought to be overactive in around one in 12 breast cancers and could account for up to 4,000 UK cases a year.

Our science communications manager Dr Kat Arney explains more about the significance of the discovery.

“We know that at its heart, cancer is a disease caused by faulty genes, and in particular there are some genes that our scientists are very interested in called oncogenes. These act almost like an accelerator in a car – they make cells multiply.

Now normally this is good – we need cells to multiply when our cells get damaged or die. But sometimes the accelerator gets ‘stuck on’ - these oncogenes becomes overactive and make cells multiply out of control. Scientists have found quite a lot of these oncogenes – more than 70 – but there’s only a handful of them that we have definite evidence that they drive the growth of cancer.

In this new paper from Professor Carlos Caldas and his team, they’ve discovered one new oncogene to add to this quite exclusive list. It’s a gene called ZNF703, and it makes cells multiply out of control, causing a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer."

A Cancer Research UK-funded study has shown how the activity pattern of certain genes could predict how aggressive prostate cancer is before treatment, and reveal whether the disease is likely to come back in men who have already been treated.

The researchers, based at Queen Mary, University of London, found that men with the highest levels of ‘cell cycle progression’ genes – which encourage cells to grow – were three times more likely than those with the lowest levels to have a more dangerous form of prostate cancer.

And for patients who’d had surgery to remove their prostate, those with the highest gene levels were 70 per cent more likely to have their cancer come back.

Our science communication officer Nell Barrie explains.

“So our researchers have found that there’s a gene signature you can look at for prostate cancer. You can test the genes in a sample from the cancer, and it will tell you whether that cancer is going to be aggressive and fast-growing and perhaps needs very urgent treatment, or whether it will go on to cause no problems in the man’s lifetime – it might be very slow-growing, in which case you can just leave it alone and keep an eye on it.

This is really important because at the moment we don’t have a really good way to tell the difference between prostate cancers that are relatively harmless, and ones that are much more urgently in need of treatment, so it’s a really big step forward.

Aggressive prostate cancer needs urgent treatment, so we really need to know if that cancer is going to go on and cause problems – if it’s going to grow fast, if it’s going to spread. If that’s the case we need to make sure that the men get treated straight away.

However, there are other kinds of prostate cancers that we know will never go on to cause any problems – they grow very slowly and in fact you can have these cancers for years and years and you’ll never get any symptoms – it’s just not going to be an issue. And if that’s the case, it’s much easier to monitor the men, keep an eye on the cancer and make sure it’s not growing any faster, and they may in fact never need any treatment."

Cancer Research UK is looking for at least one hundred thousand people to sign a petition lobbying the Government to provide better radiotherapy services in England. Thousands of people have already added their voice to the campaign, but we still need many more to sign up and help us save lives.

In last month’s podcast we talked about radiotherapy’s ‘Cinderella’ status as the unsung hero in the fight against cancer. Few people realise that radiotherapy actually helps cure more people than chemotherapy. In a bid to raise awareness of this vital treatment, we’ve decided to make 2011 our ‘Year of Radiotherapy’.

Hilary Tovey, Cancer Research UK’s Policy Manager, talks about what we’re doing to build stronger political support for providing world-class radiotherapy services for patients.

“Our Voice for Radiotherapy campaign is about making the best radiotherapy treatment available for all patients across the country. So that’s ensuring that the NHS has got enough staff and enough equipment to deliver this really lifesaving treatment.

Radiotherapy is responsible for four in ten cases where cancer is cured, so it has a massive impact on people’s lives. So we want to make sure that everybody out there is getting the latest treatments, in the shortest possible time, as near to their home as possible.

What we want the government to do is produce an action plan for radiotherapy in England. And that needs to include ensuring that we’ve got the appropriate workforce in the service – highly trained healthcare professionals looking after people having radiotherapy, planning their treatment and following up after their care.

We need to make sure we’ve got the latest, up-to-date equipment to deliver the radiotherapy, and we also need to make sure that the service has within it the capacity to plan for the future, so it can evolve when the research that Cancer Research UK is funding shows that there are better ways to deliver radiotherapy.

We’re really asking people at the moment to sign up to the petition that we’re running, and we’re going to be delivering that to the Prime Minister in Downing Street over the next couple of months. If you got to the Cancer Campaigns part of Cancer Research UK’s website you’ll find a link there to sign up and give your name and your voice to radiotherapy.”

Finally, Cancer Research UK has launched a new campaign called ‘Do Me A Favour’ to raise awareness about the importance of diagnosing cancer early. Here’s our reporter Kat Arney with more.

Kat: We know that the earlier cancer is diagnosed, the more likely it is to be treated successfully. Here in the UK, experts believe that thousands of lives could be saved if the disease was detected earlier. To highlight this, Cancer Research UK’s Do Me a Favour campaign has enlisted the help of sporting start Gary Lineker and his wife Danielle.

The campaign asks people to send loved ones personalised video messages encouraging them to see their doctors and get themselves checked out, if they notice anything that doesn’t seem normal.

We caught up with Gary and Danielle at a photoshoot for the campaign launch, and asked them for their thoughts about staying healthy, and the importance of getting along to the doctor’s if there’s anything wrong. Here’s Danielle:

“I think we all worry about cancer. I’m not sure of the statistic but I think it’s one in three people at some point in their life get cancer.

My grandmother died at 60 from stomach cancer. I actually went back home to Wales and went through the whole chemotherapy session with her and it’s unbelievably frightening. That stays with you, and I think we’ve all seen somebody that’s been affected by it, and it really does stay with you.

It is a worry, because it’s so common. I think men do worry about their health as much as women. I think we live in this world where men are meant to be the strong, macho ones, whereas women are allowed to worry and men are not. So I think they do, but they make out that they don’t.

I think that anyone who’s worried about their health should immediately go and get checked out. If you catch things early enough nowadays there are a lot of effective ways and treatments to cure things.

My grandmother died at 60, and if she’d gone along and got checked out at the doctors earlier, I’m sure her survival chances would have been a lot better.”

Kat: As an England footballer, Gary knows the importance of staying in shape, but how’s he finding it as he’s getting older?

“I still try and work out as much as I can, and try and stay in some kind of reasonable shape. I think you’ve got to try and keep active, especially the older you get. Now I’ve reached the grand old age of fifty I suppose I need to work even harder.

Any athlete will obviously feel fittest in his life when he’s in the middle of his career, because we work out and train so hard, and everything that you eat is monitored, because to play in world cups, for example, you’ve got to be supremely fit. Whereas I’m still in reasonable shape but it’s nothing like being able to play 90 minutes at peak – it’s very difficult.

Giving people tips on how to stay fit - it’s quite easy for me who’s been an athlete all his life, as training comes quite naturally to me. Also I’ve only got a Saturday job so I get plenty of time in the week to do a little bit of work.

So it’s not always easy for people who’ve got 9-to-5 jobs and families when they get home. But if they can do anything at all it will help fitness-wise. And of course you’ve got to try and watch what you eat, and eat the right things.

I think if you’re worried about your health in any way, shape or form you should seek medical attention, because otherwise it’ll just nag away at you, and also of course it could be getting worse in that period of time. I’m as bad as anyone, but if you’ve got something, go and get it checked.”

So what sort of things should people be looking out for? To find out, I spoke to Dr Claire Knight, health information officer here at Cancer Research UK.

“There are more than 200 different types of cancer, and we can’t expect people to learn all the symptom for all those types of cancer. So it’s more about getting to know your own body. Know what’s normal for you, and that way you’re more likely to notice if there’s something different.

People often think of things like lumps and bumps as symptoms, but it could also be other things – maybe a persistent cough or unusual bleeding that’s persistent. Anything that’s different for your body, that you don’t normally experience, that hangs around for a while – it’s a good idea to get it checked out by your GP.”

Kat: What if someone’s concerned that it’s not that serious and they’re wasting their doctor’s time?

“It may well turn out to not be something serious. Many of the symptoms of cancer are also symptoms of other, less serious illnesses. But it’s certainly worth getting it checked out – you’ve got nothing to lose and we know that if cancer’s diagnosed earlier, then treatment can be more likely to be successful."

That was Dr Claire Knight, health information officer at Cancer Research UK, ending that report from Kat Arney.

So if you have a friend or a loved one who could use a gentle nudge about spotting cancer early, why not do them a favour by sending them a personalised message from Gary and Danielle Lineker. Find out more on our website.

We’ll be back next month with the latest news and features. In the meantime, let us know what you think of our podcast by emailing podcast@cancer.org.uk