Cancer is not just about tumours—it’s about the people who develop cancer. In my career, I have seen a lot of improvements in the treatments for cancer, which include better survival rates and less toxic treatments. I have also seen an increased appreciation for cancer prevention and for survivorship—the two ends of the spectrum.
I have been involved in a number of prevention...
All the drugs we use in clinical trials have to be tested in the lab before testing on patients can occur. The first studies in humans are called Phase I studies and are done with a new drug or new combination of drugs. The aims of Phase 1 studies are to see what the correct dose of the drug is, what the side effects are, and how the drug is distributed in the body. We are also interested in...
When I began treating breast cancer, we treated patients according to whether they were pre-menopausal or not, and whether there was any sign of cancer in the lymph nodes of the armpit. We knew that some cancers were more aggressive by looking at them under the microscope and that they often recurred. In breast cancer, we understood that a majority of tumours responded to hormone treatment...
My name is Karen Gelmon and I am a medical oncologist. As a medical oncologist at the BC Cancer Agency, I see patients with breast cancer, Kaposi’s sarcoma and persons with any type of cancer who are interested in participating in Phase I clinical trials of new experimental drugs.
I first came to the BC Cancer Agency’s Vancouver Centre as a resident training in internal medicine,...
