JUNE TIME CAPSULE

500 BC

Hippocrates gives the name 'karkinos" and "karkinoma"--the Greek words for crab--to groups of diseases he studies, which include cancers of the breast, uterus, stomach and skin. The hard center and clawlike protrusions of the tumors remind him of the crustacean. "Cancer" is the word's latin form.

1838

Investigations of cancer tissues and tumors reveal that cancer cells are noticeably different from normal cells.

1898

Marie and Pierre Curie isolate radium, which soon proves to be effective in the treatment of tumors.

1913

The first known article on cancer's warning signs is published in a popular women's magazine.

1915

Japanese researchers prove that cancer can be caused by chemicals.

1922

The Public Health Service opens the Office of Cancer Investigations at Harvard University.

1937

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the National Cancer Institute Act, creating the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for the purpose of finding ways to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer. NCI's first staff is assembled through the merger of Harvard's Office of Cancer Investigations and the pharmacology division at the National Institutes of Health.

1943

George Papanicolaou introduces the pap smear.

1950

Ernst Wynder and Evarts Graham report a link between cigarette smoking and cancer.

1953

The American Cancer Society reports the results of research indicating that cancer causes death more quickly in patients with "repressed" personalities. There has been continued research on the relation between cancer and personality, with special attention given to styles of coping with stress.

1955

Congress appropriates funds for a national effort to test chemicals that could effectively treat cancer, known as the National Chemotherapy Program. Later that year, researchers Roy Hertz and Min Chiu Li achieve total cure of a human solid tumor.

1964

The landmark Surgeon General's public report Smoking and Health is issued.

1970

The first cancer-causing gene, or oncogene, is identified in a chicken tumor virus.

Researchers Howard Temin and David Baltimore discover an enzyme--reverse transcriptase--which made genetic engineering possible and altered the course of cancer research.

1971

President Richard M. Nixon signs the National Cancer Act, launching a National Cancer Program directed by NCI.

1975

Jimmie Holland, MD, establishes the field of psycho-oncology.

1976

Stanford psychiatrist David Spiegel, MD, begins to look at the effects of support groups for women with metastatic breast cancer.

1980

NCI commissions the National Research Council to review data linking diet and cancer. Later that year, E. Donnall Thomas, MD, pioneers the technique of bone marrow transplant to treat cancer.

1989

The Lancet publishes David Spiegel's landmark study, "Effect of psychosocial treatment on survival of patients with metastatic breast cancer," which shows that supportive-expressive group therapy in women with breast cancer improves quality of life and considerably lengthens survival time. These findings initiate a new path of research on the health effects of psychosocial support.

1991

Research finds that young children recognize Joe Camel as easily as Mickey Mouse, indicating that the character targets an audience under the legal smoking age.

Gene therapy is directed against cancer. NIH initiates the Human Genome Project to identify the function and location of each of the body's estimated 50,000-100,000 genes.

1993

Research reveals that a third of cancer deaths are linked to diet and that regular exercise offers protection from some forms of cancer. Later that year, the Environmental Protection Agency reports that second-hand smoke results in more than 3,000 deaths a year.

1997

More than 7 million living Americans have a history of cancer. Organizations such as NCI's Office of Cancer Survivorship and the National Coalition for Cancer Survivors are now promoting clinical research on cancer survival.

Source: Most of this information came from "Closing in on Cancer: Solving a 5,000-year-old mystery," a publication of National Cancer Institute.



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