President Roosevelt
It was recently revealed that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died as a result of melanoma, a cancer noted for its ability to spread or metastasize throughout the body. A tumor in his brain from the metastasized cancer caused the previously reported stroke.
In a study done at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia and in a second study done at the University of California, Los Angeles. research indicated that family history may be more important in gauging melanoma risk than the amount of sun exposure or other factors.
While our knowledge of melanoma has come a long way since the 1940s, it is still one of the deadliest forms of cancer. This is because it can be influenced by several different genetic factors each of which must be dealt with by a different treatment. Unless one knows the genetic code involved, one can’t know which treatment will be effective, assuming there is a treatment for a particular genetic mutation.
In a test of a new drug, PLX4032, 20 of 22 patients with a common form of melanoma, associated with a mutation of the BRAF gene, experienced a reduction of their tumors. It is believed that about half of all melanomas are associated with this genetic mutation.
Administered twice a day by researchers at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, PLX4032 blocked the activity of the gene. All of the patients in the study had the mutated gene and all had failed to respond to other treatments.
As this treatment addresses the genetic code which causes the cells to divide uncontrollably and not the cell division itself, it does not result in the devastating side effects of chemotherapy.
While the report was promising, the therapy is not yet viewed as a cure. It did, however, focus on the importance of addressing the genetic programming which causes the disease rather than the symptoms of the disease.
In the future, it is likely that new therapies focusing on genetics will be the answer to beating various forms of cancer, including melanoma.
If FDR had lived in the early decades of the 21st century and had the mutated BRAF gene form of melanoma, he might have stood a chance of surviving the disease.
