• Question: thank you for your time i learnt alot more about cancer but are we going to see a cure in the nearby future ?

    Asked by anon-181878 to Alex, Leo, Damian on 12 Jun 2018. This question was also asked by anon-181927.
    • Photo: Damian Mole

      Damian Mole answered on 12 Jun 2018:

      I genuinely think we are going to see that – although the speed which that happens will depend on individual responses and certain types of tumours. For example, this was reported last week in Nature Medicine (click on the url link below):
      https://www.natureasia.com/en/research/highlight/12537
      It’s really promising…

    • Photo: Alex Haragan

      Alex Haragan answered on 13 Jun 2018:

      Cancer is a really broad term. Every organ can get multiple different types. There are hundreds and hundreds of cancer.
      So a cure for it all, in our lifetimes, is extremely unlikely.
      >
      However certain major cancers we do already see occasional “cure”. We don’t like to call it that because of the risk of it coming back – but in recent years we have seen “Uncurable” cancer patients completely disease free for years because of new treatments.
      >
      A major field is that of the immune system. Damian links to a recent item – though that particular process is never going to become mainstream, it is another proof of concept study that the immune system can, when correctly used, kill cancer.
      There are other examples from different methods – which means we have got a way of curing at least certain kinds of cancer.
      So yes I would say we will see cures for some cancers in our lifetimes, and eventually all one-day, but not all soon.

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