Cancer is the defining medical challenge of our times. An impressive body of evidence supports the notion that prevention can be a major component of cancer control. The prevention of cancer rests mainly on the development of biomarkers that identify subjects at risk for cancer and those who will benefit from a given intervention, and on the development of safe and effective agents. Compounds, like tamoxifen and raloxifene, already in clinical use for the prevention of breast cancer, underscore the viability of the approach. They also emphasize the need for additional agents against the various forms of cancer that claim so many lives.
Of the several approaches followed by investigators in the quest for new chemopreventive agents, bioactive food components are emerging as most promising. The significant body of work on such agents to date made apparent the need to review the progress that has been made and to identify the challenges ahead. These considerations prompted us to organize a symposium focused on bioactive food components and alternative medicine. Its title was “Bioactive Food Components, Alternative Medicine and Cancer Chemoprevention: Recent Advances” and was held in October 2007 during the annual joint World Congress on Advances in Oncology and International Symposium on Molecular Medicine. Our symposium brought together in the Greek island of Crete leading experts in the field from many countries. This supplemental issue of Nutrition and Cancer includes twelve excellent papers presented at the symposium as well as a superb overview of both the meeting and the field by Gary Stoner.
We wish to thank Dr. Leonard Cohen, Editor-in-Chief of Nutrition and Cancer, for his enthusiastic support of this issue; the authors of the articles published here; Dr. Demetrios Spandidos, organizer of the World Congress on Advances in Oncology for hosting our symposium with exemplary hospitality; and the many participants, both presenters and discussants, who provided a high level of scientific exchange and made this a most exciting and useful event.
Our symposium was supported in part by grant R13 CA132241, awarded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), and grants from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, Ohio State University, and Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center. Their support, even more remarkable in a period of fiscal austerity, is greatly appreciated by organizers and participants alike.
The publication of the proceedings of the symposium, which makes accessible to the scientific community its key presentations, should contribute to the overall effort to conquer cancer through its prevention.
ALTERNATIVE FORM
Food Components, Alternative Medicine and Cancer: Progress and Promise
Cancer is the defining medical challenge of our times. An impressive body of evidence supports the notion that prevention can be a major component of cancer control. The prevention of cancer rests mainly on the development of biomarkers that identify subjects at risk for cancer and those who will benefit from a given intervention, and on the development of safe and effective agents. Compounds, like tamoxifen and raloxifene, already in clinical use for the prevention of breast cancer, underscore the viability of the approach. They also emphasize the need for additional agents against the various forms of cancer that claim so many lives.
Of the several approaches followed by investigators in the quest for new chemopreventive agents, bioactive food components are emerging as most promising. The significant body of work on such agents to date made apparent the need to review the progress that has been made and to identify the challenges ahead. These considerations prompted us to organize a symposium focused on bioactive food components and alternative medicine. Its title was “Bioactive Food Components, Alternative Medicine and Cancer Chemoprevention: Recent Advances” and was held in October 2007 during the annual joint World Congress on Advances in Oncology and International Symposium on Molecular Medicine. Our symposium brought together in the Greek island of Crete leading experts in the field from many countries. This supplemental issue of Nutrition and Cancer includes twelve excellent papers presented at the symposium as well as a superb overview of both the meeting and the field by Gary Stoner.
We wish to thank Leonard Cohen, Editor-in-Chief of Nutrition and Cancer, for his enthusiastic support of this issue; the authors of the articles published here; Demetrios Spandidos, organizer of the World Congress on Advances in Oncology for hosting our symposium with exemplary hospitality; and the many participants, both presenters and discussants, who provided a high level of scientific exchange and made this a most exciting and useful event.
Our symposium was supported in part by grant R13 CA132241, awarded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), and grants from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, Ohio State University, and Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center. Their support, even more remarkable in a period of fiscal austerity, is greatly appreciated by organizers and participants alike.
The publication of the proceedings of the symposium, which makes accessible to the scientific community its key presentations, should contribute to the overall effort to conquer cancer through its prevention.