GUEST VOCALS Mark Matfield on cancer

This week marked the start of a revolution in the fight against cancer when schoolgirls in Scotland became the first in the UK to be vaccinated against cervical cancer. Quite apart from all the lives this will save, it is a landmark in medical history. A widespread vaccination programme should actually eliminate this type of cancer - the first time it has ever been possible.

As the scientific co-ordinator of the only charity that funds cancer research across the world, I feel elated and slightly awed. This vaccine is a big pay-off from the international effort to improve prevention, detection and treatment of this global disease.

AICR, the Association for International Cancer Research, based in St Andrews, funds first-rate science across the world. The first goal of cancer research is to understand this highly complex group of diseases and then to find effective ways to treat them. However, prevention is always better than cure and with this vaccine, the ultimate aim of cancer research is starting to be realised.

What about immunisation against other types of cancer? If this is the start of a cancer revolution, how far can we expect it to go? It is easiest to make vaccines against infectious agents such as viruses and bacteria. Several other types of cancer are known to involve viruses or bacteria, including tumours of the stomach, liver, lymphatics and skin. These are all prime candidates for the development of vaccines.

The most common cancers - breast, bowel, prostate and lung - present greater problems. They do not involve any known infectious agents. However, they do involve characteristic alterations to cell proteins and researchers have been working for decades to find a way of harnessing the immune system to recognise these changes and attack the cancer cells. The present aim is to develop cancer treatments using immunotherapy. However, once this has been achieved, the next step will be to develop vaccines that kill the early cancer cells and thus prevent tumours from developing.

AICR shares the view of scientists and doctors working in the field; that with this latest development comes the potential for preventing some, or maybe many, types of cancer in the future. That translates to hundreds of thousands of lives that could be saved, something really worth working towards.

Dr Mark Matfield is scientific co-ordinator for the Association for International Cancer Research