Thousands of new cases every day in Italy alone and 500 deaths: these are the numbers of cancer, numbers that continue to frighten. Thanks to advances in research, however, tumors are increasingly curable: of the current 3 million cancer patients in our country, in fact, about 60% survive 5 years after diagnosis.
But what is a tumor and how does it form? Why do we get sick? What are the most effective therapies in the fight against an extremely difficult disease to fight because, as a moving target, it evolves and transforms to resist the therapies? And what are the new frontiers of Research?
These are the themes at the center of “Bersaglio mobile”, the new book by Professor Alberto Mantovani, scientific director of Humanitas and professor at Humanitas University, published by Mondadori.
Combating cancer
Through life stories and laboratory experiences, Professor Mantovani tells the story of the complex world of cancer and the various phases of the struggle of Research and Medicine to eradicate it. An extraordinary adventure made up of ups and downs, successes and dark moments, but characterized by constant progress in knowledge, diagnosis and therapy. In this scenario, traditional treatment approaches such as surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and targeted therapies, which have achieved important results, are now accompanied by immunotherapy: numerous weapons of the immune system (such as antibodies, vaccines and the cells themselves immunity) are successfully used in treatment and prevention. So much so that immunotherapy is changing – and will increasingly continue to change – the natural history of many types of cancer, thus fulfilling the dream of the fathers of medicine to defeat cancer using our natural defenses.
“The objective of this book, to share my knowledge on a subject of such wide interest, is intertwined with an ambitious hope: to provide the reader with the tools to immunize himself against all those fake news concerning treatments or techniques of cancer prevention that are so miraculous and lacking any scientific basis. And that, disguised as false hopes, only create bitter illusions”, underlined Prof. Mantovani.
