• Question: Will cancer ever be curable?

    Asked by followtheyellowbrickroad to Meeks, Pete, Stephen, Steve, Tom on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: . This question was also asked by popthebottle.
    • Photo: Steve Roser

      Steve Roser answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Cancer is a big scary thing, partly because there are lots of different types – there are those that are caused by viruses (like papilloma) which we CAN get rid of by vaccination, those that are lifestyle dependent – stop smoking and your cahnces of lung cancer plummet – those that seem to largely genetic (like some of the breast cancers) which we can try and screen out, and those that we can attack with chemicals, even if we don’t really know what causes them. So we can can ‘cure’ some cancers already and we will be able to treat more and more.

    • Photo: Tom Hartley

      Tom Hartley answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      My understanding (from overhearing people who really know about this, on this site) is that yes, but that different types of cancer will require different cures, so that it will take a very long time and lots of hard work to solve this problem.

      Thinking of that day, once we’ve cured cancer, people will live longer and die of something else instead – I wonder what it will be? I think I would prefer to live an active life and die of something fairly sudden. I am not so bothered about how long I live. So I would like medical research to focus on curing or alleviating illnesses which are debilitating and painful, rather than those which kill suddenly and relatively painlessly.

    • Photo: Stephen Curry

      Stephen Curry answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      I am very tempted to answer positively, but suspect it may not happen until we have a more or less complete understanding of the workings of the cell and its ability to migrate within the body.

      Of course, we can already cure (or treat) many types of cancer. Both my parents have suffered from it but thanks to surgery, radiation and chemo, are still very much alive (and playing golf). But of course many are not so lucky: I was at a lecture today in memory of a colleague who died of cancer last year and she was younger than me.

      It is certainly a very important area to work on, particularly since cancer affects so many people.

    • Photo: Marieke Navin

      Marieke Navin answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Some cancers are already

    • Photo: Pete Edwards

      Pete Edwards answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      I’m not an expert but I think most medical researchers believe that we will eventually be able to cure most cancers. A lot of progress has been made in my lifetime and many cancers that would have killed me when I was young can now be cured.

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