• Question: Will we ever cure cancer?

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      Asked by Thingamagik to Alex, Anaïs, Peter, Sarwat, Shreesha on 10 Mar 2015. This question was also asked by ebonyford.
      • Photo: Alexander Henderson

        Alexander Henderson answered on 10 Mar 2015:

        Cancer treatment has improved massively over the last 50 years. Today, if found early, people stand a good chance of being cured. Cancer is a very broad term though that summarises a lot of ways cells can go wrong, in many different parts/organs of the body, and they’re not all the same. While I doubt there will be a single generic cure for every type of cancer, there will always be cures and strategies to treat cancer.

      • Photo: Anaïs Pujol

        Anaïs Pujol answered on 10 Mar 2015:

        We are currently doing. Some cancer are curable like breast cancer.
        I am scientist working on cancer drug therapy in biotechnology company. The main goal in cancer treatment development is to get something more efficient with less side effect. As you might know, cancer treatment are heavy to take (lots of side effects). The difficulty in cancer drug development it to get something able to target only cancer cells (currently treatment kill good cells as cancer ones).
        Then you need a drug really efficient to kill cancer cells quicker. To finish you need to develop imaging research to be able to diagnosis cancer sooner to be able to get an early treatment as an early stage of the disease. So yes I think we are on the good way to cure cancer as imaging research development has improved and new cancer treatment are also coming on the market. 🙂

      • Photo: Peter Maskell

        Peter Maskell answered on 10 Mar 2015:

        Possibly. but we will still die of something in the end.

      • Photo: Sarwat Iqbal

        Sarwat Iqbal answered on 11 Mar 2015:

        Quite much is done already. It’s getting improved day by day.

      • Photo: Shreesha Bhat

        Shreesha Bhat answered on 12 Mar 2015:

        hi thingamagik,

        It is possible. there are recent advances, one of which uses a combination of drugs. if you have ever thought about how the cancer cells keep on dividing? Where do they get the nutrients from? Its by a process called angiogenesis, which is growing of new blood vessels, so cancer cells sends a signal which grow new blood vessels surrounding the newly formed cancerous cells, which provide a continuous supply of oxygen and nutrients for their further growth. SO, if we are able to stop this process, it could stop the nutrient supply which will stop the cancer growth, and the same idea has been converted into a drug (avastin is one of them). Now using this drug along with a drug that can kill cancer cells is an effective combination which is working well for now. This shows that we are making advances and not far from achieving a cure for cancer.

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