Dr. Fisher caused international controversy by suggesting that cancer
cells metastasized throughout the body rather than spread like a stain.
Based on that idea, he recommended local lumpectomies to remove breast
tumors rather than disfiguring radical mastectomies, the traditional
treatment of the time that involved removal of the breast, large areas
of muscle and various lymph nodes.
Accused of endangering women’s lives, Dr. Fisher became “the most
hated doctor in the history of mankind,” but his
ideas won the day when studies proved that lumpectomies had survival
rates equal to radical mastectomies. Metastasis now explains how cancers
spread.
Dr. Slamon, chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology and
executive vice chairman for research for the University of California,
Los Angeles’ Department of Medicine, would help develop Herceptin, the
common immunotherapeutic drug to treat HERS2-positive breast cancer. He
pressured Genentech Inc. to conduct human clinical trials to test the
drug with HER2 representing 20 percent of all breast cancers. This pioneer
aided in the push in immunotherapeutic cancer drugs, he played an aggressive role in
pressing to translate breakthroughs into treatments.
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