The University of Alabama at Birmingham just became the largest enrolling center in the next study in this series, Cancer Prevention Study-3, or CPS-3, with a record 1,209 people signed up to participate at UAB. Nationally, the study will follow the health of 300,000 people for decades in hopes of making the next great leap in the understanding of what causes cancer. Specifically, the study will track the lifestyle, environments, diet and genetics of people not previously diagnosed with cancer in hopes of understanding what causes or prevents cancer for each person in the coming decades. The ultimate goal is to turn cancer from a major killer into a manageable, chronic disease (a nuisance) or stop it before it starts.
We thought to ask Edward Partridge, M.D., director of the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center, about the science behind massive, long-term studies like CPS-3, and about why they reveal clues about diseases that other studies miss.
Show notes for the podcast:
1:06 Population-based studies like this are especially important because they enroll large numbers of people who are well at the beginning of study. Researchers can they see who gets sick over time, and go back to indetify which factors were associated most closely with disease. Sadly, a good many of the people in the study will develop cancer in the coming years, Dr. Patridge said. Was it a certain kind of food, or a certain certain of a gene that created risk? This is a different type of approach than studies that look at whether a drug will work in people who are already sick.
3:14 Massive, decades-long studies reveal patterns where other studies cannot because of the detailed tracking of so people and so many factors for so long. In addition, what the study designers decide to track in each patient is based on many studies in recent years that offered new clues about what to track. Participants take an original survey, which includes trying to recall what their lifestyle was like in their youth, and then repeat the survey every two years. The first of the CPS-3 study results might come out within a year, with more results will then continuing to come out for decades.
4:38 Importantly, this is the first large cancer prevention study that is taking a blood sample from every participant. That will enable researchers to study genetic factors, and their combination of withf other diseases, medications taken. diet, etc., over time. The research team will also be able to look at epigenetics, the small chemical changes that turn genes on or off in reaction to the environment. In the future, this may enable the field to recognize future cancer risk from a blood sample taken from a perfectly healthy person and in time to intervene.
6:09 The CPS study before the current one, CPS II, led to a publication in 2001 that found obesity to be a major contributor to cancer. Today, some make the arugment that obesity has overtaken tabacco as the major cause of cancer. In 1970, four percent of children between the ages of six and eleven were obese. Today, that number is 20 percent, a five-fold increase. Children who are obese are much more likely to become obese adults, and public health experts fear that a wave of obesity-related cancer is on its way. CPS-3 will include the largest percentage of obese people of any cancer prevention study so far, and the obesity-cancer link will be closely tracked.
4:38 Importantly, this is the first large cancer prevention study that is taking a blood sample from every participant. That will enable researchers to study genetic factors, and their combination of withf other diseases, medications taken. diet, etc., over time. The research team will also be able to look at epigenetics, the small chemical changes that turn genes on or off in reaction to the environment. In the future, this may enable the field to recognize future cancer risk from a blood sample taken from a perfectly healthy person and in time to intervene.
6:09 The CPS study before the current one, CPS II, led to a publication in 2001 that found obesity to be a major contributor to cancer. Today, some make the arugment that obesity has overtaken tabacco as the major cause of cancer. In 1970, four percent of children between the ages of six and eleven were obese. Today, that number is 20 percent, a five-fold increase. Children who are obese are much more likely to become obese adults, and public health experts fear that a wave of obesity-related cancer is on its way. CPS-3 will include the largest percentage of obese people of any cancer prevention study so far, and the obesity-cancer link will be closely tracked.
7:41 Other burning questions in cancer research that CPS-3 will help to answer are, for instance, what is the molecular basis of the increase in cancer risk related to obesity. Researchers will also be looking at what the drop in smoking has meant in terms of reduced risk. Researchers are also keen to study for the first time many of the pharmacuetical drugs taken now taken by so many Americans for large portions of their lives. For instance, what are the long-term effects of a drug like metformin, taken for Type 2 diabetes, on cancer risk? It may actually reduce cancer risk and the study may explain why.
9:23 Among the most exciting things about the study is the combination of taking blood samples and the fact that researchers have now mapped the human genome, the complete set of genetic material. That will enable researchers to see which deviations from normal genes are associated with cancer. Dr. Partridge said that he believes this study, and related efforts worldwide, will have eliminated cancer as a major public health threat half-way through the study, say by the year 2050. By then, the field will detect and eliminate cancers before they become a health threat, or will be turning them into a chronic, manageable conditions, the way drug cocktials have enabled many AIDS patients to live normal lifespans.
12:19 In a sign of the challenges involved in curing cancer, our society has not yet fully made use of the knowledge and data collected by cancer prevention studies that finished up decades ago, said Dr. Partridge. We all know that smoking causes cancer, and yet 22 percent of Americans still smoke, and even more Alabama. We know that colorectal cancer and mammography saves lives, and yet 40 percent of people with insurance don't opt for these tests. The new study will reveal many insights as well, but making the cultural changes needed to realize their value will be a larger task.
13:45 The fact that so many enrolled locally here in Birmingham says great things about the community, Dr. Partridge said. He found it particularly gratifying that so many UAB employees enrolled. UAB is a major employer here, and to see nurses, staff, physicians and researchers, many of whom conduct research for a living, becoming participants in research.
14:54 Local enrollment in CPS-3 is closed, but folks can still visit the CPS-3 website to see what the
nearest enrolling center is. The study will finish up enrolling nationally by December 2013.
13:45 The fact that so many enrolled locally here in Birmingham says great things about the community, Dr. Partridge said. He found it particularly gratifying that so many UAB employees enrolled. UAB is a major employer here, and to see nurses, staff, physicians and researchers, many of whom conduct research for a living, becoming participants in research.
14:54 Local enrollment in CPS-3 is closed, but folks can still visit the CPS-3 website to see what the
nearest enrolling center is. The study will finish up enrolling nationally by December 2013.
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