• Question: Are scientists close to finding a cure to curing cancer?

    Asked by Lilybug005 to David, Eva, Kate, Nicholas, Rachel on 17 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Nicholas Pearce

      Nicholas Pearce answered on 17 Nov 2015:

      Hey,

      Cancer is the name for a lot of similar diseases. Some of them we can cure very well already, like testicular and prostate cancer and we’re getting much better at curing a lot of the others.

    • Photo: David Nunan

      David Nunan answered on 17 Nov 2015:

      Hey,

      It’s a tricky one because there are many different types of cancer (or cancer of many different types of cells – like liver, blood, brain) it’s hard to find something that works on all of them.

      But you may have seen the recent case of the baby girl with leukaemia who was given no chance of surviving but has been cured. This was using a gene-therapy technique with new technology that allowed the doctors and scientists to really target the cancer cells. You can read more about it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34744851

      Some are calling this a new dawn in cancer medicine. They may be right but we have to wait and see if it can be repeated in more patients without any side effects.

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