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IPFS News Link • Science, Medicine and Technology

How Close Are We to Curing Cancer?

• https://www.nextbigfuture.com

It's a question that everybody's asking, since everyone knows someone who has been diagnosed or is currently dealing with some form of cancer: just how close are we to curing the disease?

We're at a point where a cancer diagnosis is scary, but manageable in many cases. After getting a breast cancer diagnosis, for example, your life will certainly change, but the average 10-year survival rate is 83 percent, and there are many treatment options available. Prostate cancer, so long as it doesn't spread to other areas of the body, has a 5-year survival rate of 100 percent.

But what about that other 17 percent of people struggling with breast cancer? And what about people for whom cancer spreads? Or more aggressive, life-threatening forms of cancer, like pancreatic cancer, where the 5-year survival rate is just 7 percent?

How close are we to finding a cure?

The Challenges of Curing Cancer

First, it's important to understand just how hard it would be to find a catch-all "cure" for this multifaceted disease. In fact, it may be impossible.

For example:

* Cancer comes in many different varieties. Cancer is a convenient term, but it's not a very descriptive one. It's an umbrella category for hundreds of different diseases, which affect different body parts, behave differently, come with different symptoms, and are associated with different risk factors. Even within the specific types of cancer, there are many different sub-varieties, and it's entirely possible for one instance of the disease to deviate from our expectations. Beyond that, cancer can spread and evolve into different varieties, making it extremely difficult to find any single comprehensive solution.

* We don't understand carcinogenesis. Carcinogenesis is the process through which healthy cells become cancerous, and it's something even our best oncologists don't fully understand. There isn't a single action or event that can switch a cell from transitioning from healthy to cancerous; instead, we have to consider the interactions of many different variables. Hundreds to thousands of genes all play a role in how cancer mutates, and until we understand all those interactions, we won't be able to prevent, mitigate, or reverse that mutation.


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