Abstract

Cancer mortalities are on the very top in most industrialized nations for a very long time. A notable exception is the USA. The cancer mortality of USA is second to cardiovascular diseases. The cancer mortality of China was the second to infectious diseases 50 years ago but is now surged to the first place. These mean that the health profession did not make a good progress to save the lives of cancer patients in the past. Cancer therapy is dominated by cytotoxic agents in the past. It is long overdue to deliberate cancer therapy employing toxic agents. Cytotoxic chemotherapy was a tragic byproduct of the World War II. Toxic sulfur mustard gas bomb was a weapon during the war. Victims of sulfur mustard gas all showed deficiency of lymphocytes. That finding inspired oncologists to employ toxic chemicals to treat leukemia patients. Cytotoxic agents became the dominant modality of cancer therapy, and the disappearance of tumor size became the standard criterion for the evaluation of therapeutic efficacy. Cytotoxic therapy was recommended to President Nixon to declare war on cancer in 1971 [1], which, however, failed to win the battle during the five years of intensive presidential support, and in the following 46 years of exclusive support from medical resource allocated to combat cancer. It is a shame that the health profession, which used to have the collection of very bright brains, fail to achieve a relatively easy presidential project than other much more difficult presidential Manhattan project and Apollo project.