New Haven Independent

The 500,000 square foot Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale will offer interdisciplinary care, while scientists at the West Campus will concentrate on discovery-to-bedside research, said Dr. Thomas J. Lynch Jr. (pictured), director of the Yale Cancer Center and the Smilow facility.

Lynch and colleagues spoke before about 70 current or former cancer patients in a West Campus auditorium reachable by following “Y” (for Yale) signs over labyrinthine roads through the 136-acre complex.

Mel Goldstein, the WTNH meteorologist who has survived 13 years with multiple myeloma, moderated the event.

“The best thing we can do for anyone is to help them. You truly are doing God’s work,” Goldstein said of the doctors, nurses and other caregivers at the Yale Cancer Center.

Dr. David L. Katz, director of the prevention research center at Yale, delivered the keynote address, “Feeding Your Recovery.” He advised the audience to eat more plants, and less food that “glows in the dark.”

About 18,000 new cases of invasive cancer are diagnosed annually in Connecticut, according to the Connecticut Cancer Partnership’s Comprehensive Cancer Control plan, 2005-2008, which was available at the event.

The partnership was started in 2002 by Yale, the University of Connecticut, the state Department of Public Health, the American Cancer Society, and the Connecticut State Medical Society.

The group’s 145-page plan contends that cancer treatment in Connecticut could be improved by widening participation in clinical trials, creating a statewide clinical trials network, providing equal access to treatment, bettering quality of social life support systems, and increasing education of cancer patients and the general public.

A federal study of breast cancer found that in breast cancer care, 66 percent of Connecticut oncologists follow guideline therapy, versus 70 to 75 percent nationally.
With colorectal cancer, 49 percent of Connecticut patients received standard adjuvant treatment compared to 57 percent of patients in the U.S.

The plan adds, “Despite efforts by the National Cancer Institute and national patient advocacy groups, the proportion of adult cancer patients who participate in clinical trials continues to be low.”

Lynch said the Smilow Cancer Hospital and the as-yet vacant West Campus will address many of these issues.

“Four hundred ten workers are working feverishly [in the Smilow Center] to meet the Oct. 26 opening,” he said.

That will be the only facility in the Northeast that blends in-patient and out-patient care in one place. Smilow will comprise 12 sub-centers for specific types of cancer, and will coordinate care so that oncologists can discuss cases with medical doctors, radiologists, psychiatrists, and other specialists to formulate treatment plans.

The Smilow Center and the 20-building West Campus, former home to Bayer Pharmaceuticals, will marshal “some of the very best researchers here, who will do translational research,” Lynch said.

Such research converts biological and genetic discoveries rapidly into experimental therapies. For example,cancer researchers elsewhere have started to analyze the genetics of tumor cells to determine the best course of treatment, Lynch said.

Lynch said Yale plans to draw leading researchers to the centers to search for new drug targets, monitor changes in genes that accompany cancer, and perform other cutting edge experiments, including:

• Survivorship. “We need ways to support the full patient, with exercise and spirituality. Depression can be treated by psychiatrists.”

• Continuing Health Issues. Many modes of radiation and chemotherapy can lead to new cancers and other problems later in life. Lynch said he has become convinced that chemotherapy alters mental status. “‘Chemo brain’ is real and can be addressed,” he said.

• It will take specialists to offer this subsequent care, Lynch said. “General doctors are clueless about survivor issues,” he said.

Katz [pictured] offered some seemingly simple dietary advice, borrowed from Michael Pollan, author of “In Defense of Food.”

Pollan’s oft-quoted nugget of wisdom is “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

“We’re made of food. We tend to be casual about junk food, but we want to build our kids out of junk,” Katz said.

“We tend to think of cancer as something that jumps out of the shadows, but that’s wrong,” he said. “We can prevent 30 to 60 percent of cancers.”

The food we eat powers the immune system, and the body’s immunosurveillance, a system that catches and destroys cancer before we become aware of it, he said.

Exercise, eat healthy, and the system works better, in theory.

“We’re inclined to think that cancer lies in genes. We can, in fact, nurture nature,” Katz said.

One simple method: Read food labels and buy products with the lowest number of ingredients. “What are the ingredients of blueberries? Blueberries,” he said. “Love food that loves you back.”

Why, a survivor asked, did her vegetarian friend die from cancer?

“Well, we control the ship and the sails,” Katz said. “We cannot control the seas.”