Sparked by a front-page article in The New York Times, news of anti-cancer proteins exploded in the media. "We literally had every print, radio and film outlet you can think of broadcast from here in that first week," remarked Nelson Campbell, an executive for EntreMed, a biotech company that holds the patents for angiostatin and endostatin.

Campbell was reluctant to refer to this latest breakthrough as a cure-reflecting the current trend in medical science that refuses to overestimate cancer treatments, as has happened in the past.

In 1976, for instance, the head of the National Cancer Institute described one new therapy as "the kind of stuff that dreams are made on." Unfortunately, the benefits of that therapy produced little more than dreams. Today, the public wants hard answers to tough questions: how safe are these substances? What is their potential> how soon will they be out? Are there alternatives?

EntreMed's complex proteins, found in the body, fight angiogenesis-normally a good process that helps in the formation of new blood vessels. However, when cancer cells are present, angiogenesis actually supplies the cells with blood.

Although millions of people have tiny cancer growths in their bodies that remain, these cells stay dormant unless new capillaries ignite a raging cancer. "Tumors cannot grow unless they have blood supply feeding them nutrients and bringing them oxygen," reports Dr. Kim Lee Sim. Sim, who heads EntreMed's research on antgiostatin and endostatin, says the tumors themselv3es encourage this deadly form of angiogenesis. "Tumors do that. They put out growth factors to encourage the development and growth of blood vessels that will feed the tumor."

Historically, doctors tended to ridicule the idea of the angiogenesis connection to cancer, but no longer. "If you can choke these blood vessels off," Sim explains, "you can actually.. starve them to death."

In laboratory tests, that is precisely what happened. Scientists using animals with cancerous tumors discovered that cancers shrank, and in some cases even disappeared.

While this most recent breakthrough can be considered a victory in the war against cancer, it will take a massive effort and expense to bring a cancer medication to the pharmacy. Such a process, says medical journalist Bill sardi, is too slow and too costly. "If we are going to take 10 years and spend $200 million, drugs are going to be expensive."

In the case of angiostatina and endostatin, both have just begun that long journey. To begin with, EntreMed must manufacture enough medicine for human testing. Once production is up and government requirements are met, safety testing on humans will begin near the end of next year. Sim believes the safety trials could go smoothly because both substances are naturally found in the human body.

In the future, Sardi hopes to see inexpensive natural products used more in cancer treatment. Among the alternatives that have shown promise are vitamins. A and D, vitamin C combined with bioflvonoids, garlic, quercetin and several natural extracts-soy beans, prine bark (also called pycnogenol), and grape seed extract. There is evidence these supplements have cancer-fighting action, despite the lack of publicity they have received.

"It's not like we don't have science behind them," explains Sardi. "In many cases, we have many medical reports..but we are not telling the public about them." Conversely, he adds, "The more expensive prescription approaches are the ones that get all the publicity."

Standard To Live By

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. For by Me your days will be multiplied, and years of life will be added to you" (Proverbs 9:10-11).