CAFNR Against Cancer
Gretchen Hagen's personal fight against cancer began with a craving for ice.
The MU plant science research professor's initial diagnosis was anemia, a disease that causes cravings among many people, in this case for something icy.
But that symptom made little sense to her as she was healthy and active. Further medical workups on the Brewster N.Y. native revealed a rare cancer in her small bowel and lymph node. When found in 2006, the cancer was malignant and at Stage 3 - Stage 4 is dire.
Not only was the medical diagnosis devastating, so was the psychological impact. Hagen's grandmother had colon cancer and her mother died from it. Her father was diagnosed with stomach cancer in January 1983 and died that May. Knowing her family history, Hagen had routine colonoscopies, a procedure that can detect cancer in the large intestine.
"My initial reaction was extreme disappointment," she said. "I had done all the right things, colonoscopies, annual medical checkups and cancer screenings, to find any cancer early."
Even a few years ago, a Stage 3 diagnosis of cancer was a frightening diagnosis. Hagen had two things in her favor, however. She was determined to maintain a positive attitude and a high quality of life for as long as she was able. She also decided to take advantage of the latest medical advancements. That led to a combination of surgery and a dozen chemotherapy treatments over seven months starting in October 2006 and ending in May 2007.
A year and a half later, CT scans are showing no recurrence of the disease. If they stay negative for five years, an arbitrary but important benchmark in medicine, chances are excellent that Hagen will have no reappearance of this particular cancer.
Within easy walking distance from Hagen's MU lab are other MU researchers dedicated to learning more about the disease and how to prevent it, slow it or cure it. Much of this work occurs in the expected places, the School of Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine and the Bond Life Sciences Center.
But even closer to Hagen's lab is more cancer research and in an unexpected place, the MU College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources. Here, more than a dozen researchers are conducting a wide range of projects from understanding cancer at its most basic molecular level to looking at how certain foods can prevent or delay the disease. Some of the scientific work sounds like science fiction, with lasers being used to "hear" cancer and researchers tramping through jungles to determine if ancient folk remedies really do have a scientific value.
CAFNR research against cancer, like many other new approaches, does not use the old cut, poison or burn methods. The disease is attacked in many novel ways, including looking at how better nutrition can stop or delay the onset of the disease, how information about how plants work can yield clues about how cancer works, how certain peptides can zero in on cancer cells and how to "listen" for cancer.
Story by: Randy Mertens
Posted: May 18, 2009
CAFNR Against Cancer Articles
- CAFNR Against Cancer introduction
- Eat your veggies
- Mark Hannink, Mark Martin and Valeri Mossine examine how certain foods might prevent cancer.
- More plant friends in the fight against cancer
- Georgia Davis, William (Gene) Stevens and William Folk research plants that yield clues to fighting cancer.
- Examining cancer's molecular and cellular functions
- Steven Van Doren, Brenda Peculis, Thomas Mawhinney and Dennis Lubahn work to better understand how cancer cells grow and spread.
- Targeting cancer by peptides and sound
- Thomas Quinn, Susan Deutscher and John Viator develop new approaches for early cancer detection.