Question: When will scientists find a cure for every cancer?

Jessica Chu answered on 13 Jun 2011:

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Hi Tommylee123,

That is a very good question and to be honest I don’t know- I can only guess in maybe another 100 years or longer? Some breast cancer types, if found at an early stage can be cured.
It seems like when we have a good treatment that works within a year of receiving the treatment, the cancer will have gained a new mutation so the treatment no longer works as well! Also when treating cancer we need to plan the dosage very carefully- if too high dosage we get lots of horrible side effects e.g. hair loss, vomiting, headache, diarrhea, internal bleeding and possibly death! etc. but if the dosage is too low then it will give time for cancer to mutate quicker!
So there are more things to consider even if we have found a good compound to treat it!

Even though we have brilliant drugs like Temozolomide, taxol, herceptin, vinca alkaloids etc. cancer is still such a horrible disease is because
1. cancer is a group of very complex diseases not just one type of disease.
Lung cancer cells are very different to breast cancer cells and these are also very different to colon cancer cells! They all have different mutations.
Every type of cancers are categorised into many many sub-types!

2. Cancer cells will develop a resistance to the drug by working in a different way, which makes it extremely hard to cure. For example, it is common to see more effective repair enzymes to fix the DNA in cancer cells if you try to attack the DNA of cancer cells or they will make more protein pumps on their cell surface to pump out the drug you are giving them!

3. We need more time, money and scientists for research!
It takes an average 15 years to successful have a good treatment on the market to treat patients. Cancer is a big killer but it is not a very old disease- it is occurring more because people in the developed countries live longer! And cancers usually take about 20-30 years to be big enough in the body to be detected at that time it is usually too late for treatment.
So it is important to go for body checks early to fight it before it gets too big!

Radiotherapy have been very successful for some skin cancers where they removed 100% of the cancer from the skin in some cases!

Other important stuff like diet and lifestyle plays a big part! Fruits and veg contain natural chemicals that will prevent cancer cells forming, which is why it is a daily recommendation of 5 a day! 🙂

Also here are just a few examples:

Unfortunately- I cannot copy and past pictures on here so I will give you the links to check out these structures:

1. Taxol, a natural chemical found in the Pacific Yew tree by Dr. Wani and Dr. Wall. It is used to treat breast, lung and ovarian cancers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paclitaxel

2. Temozolomide developed by Professor Malcolm Stevens and his group at Aston University. This is for patients suffering from Gliomas (cancer from spine or brain cells), Melanomas (Skin cancer) and Brain metastases (Cancer formed from another part of the body that has moved to the brain):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temozolomide

3. Flavopiridol is currently being developed by Aventis Oncology and The National Cancer Institute (US) and it is used to treat Chronic Lymphocytic Leukeamia (cancer of the blood)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavopiridol

I think Flavopiridol is the first one chemists/biologists have made from scratch that will interfere with the cell cycle proteins for cancer patients!

4. Herceptin
Herceptin is an antibody developed by Genentech.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trastuzumab

I will explain this one a little more because I find it hard to understand too but it is so interesting!! This treatment falls into the category of biologics (using biological stuff to treat diseases for example vaccination).

Antibodies is normally produced by white blood cells when a foreign harmful substance (antigen) is inside the body; antibodies will bind to the antigen so it slows down the movement of the antigen and to allow other white blood cells to eat it up!
Her2 is a receptor present on the cell surface to receive growth signals so cancer cells can grow non-stop. Her2 receptors are over-expressed in ~25% of breast cancer patients for example normal cells have 20,000 Her2 receptors on the cell surface, cancer cells can have up to 2,000,000 Her2 receptors instead.
This herceptin antibody is designed specifically to recognise this Her2 receptor and bind to it so it will be attacked by the immune system, which involves the white blood cells.

Hope these examples help! Let me know if you want to know anything else

Jess