Do you think there will ever be a definitive cure for cancer?

Question

above all a cure that is not worse than the cancer itself ...

Answer 1

Well, there’ll never be one magic bullet type cure, a one-size-fits-all cure for all cancers. Cancer is hundreds of diseases, not just one. The difficulty is that different cancers are caused by different things, so no one strategy can prevent them, and different cancers respond to different treatments so no one treatment can cure them all

Some cancers can be cured these days though. Cancer Research UK says that 7 out of 10 children are cured of cancer. Testicular cancer, Hodgkin's disease, and many cases of leukaemia can all be cured in adults with chemotherapy, most skin cancers are cured with surgery, and many cases of thyroid cancer and cancer of the larynx are cured with radiotherapy.

Many other types of cancer are also cured if they are found early enough - 75% of breast cancers that are found very early - at stage one - for example. There is still a long way to go, especially with some of the commonest types of cancer such as lung, breast, bowel and prostate cancer.


There is much research going on in all types of cancer to try and find a cures- dedicated hard work by those same people who some suggest are conspiring to hide a cure.

There is no conspiracy to hide or prevent a cancer cure in order to maximise profits. The conspiracy theory is an urban myth, a sort of game played by those who have not had cancer or close experience of it.

Think about it, if there were such a conspiracy:

*whoever discovered the cure would be keeping quiet, even though it would bring them fame and fortune. Any drug company discovering a cure would make more money than they can have dreamed of making up till now.

*every medical professional in the whole world would have agreed to keep the cure secret. Every single one. One blabbermouth, one disgruntled researcher or sacked nurse and the whole conspiracy’s blown.

*the thousands of people who would have to have been cured by it in order to prove it worked would be keeping quiet about it too. Newspapers and other media wouldn't have got a sniff of it.

*doctors, scientist, researchers etc would be watching their relatives die and dying themselves (they and their families develop cancer at the same rate as the rest of the population) even though they knew of a cure

Current treatments aren’t perfect, but new ones are being developed all the time, and we know the existing ones save some lives and extend many, many others. Certainly they are NOT worse than the disease itself.

Answer 2

Yes. And, I am not being overly optimistic, but I know that there are many, many 'cures' for individual cancers right now. The problem is that no one can hand you one pill that will cure every single cancer . . so in that way . . it may take a while for that riddle to be solved. At the moment all cancers can be treated and that treatment can and often does lead to an individuals cure. The confusion of most people who are unfamiliar with this disease is that they equate all cancers equally . . and all stages of cancer equally . . there are vast differences between cancer types, stages, and grades of all cancer. What is deadly is not the type of cancer that anyone person gets . . what is deadly and the most difficult to treat and 'cure' . . is metastatic cancer. Metastatic cancer occurs in all types of cancer and is inadequately described as 'the final stage' or 'advanced cancer' or 'stage IV' . . metatastatic cancer is treatable . .but much more difficult to 'cure'. The reason is because metastatic cancer is the process of one or several malignant tumors shedding hundreds if not thousands of microscopic cells directly into the blood stream or lymphatic system. Those metastatic cells . . which are invisible to the eye . . can travel and lodge anywhere within the body . . most commonly they travel to the lungs, liver, bones, or brain . . the same path as the blood. We really do not have an answer that will stop metastatic cancer . . other than catching it before it becomes metastatic. There are chemotherapy drugs that will work for some types of cancer and radiation can sometimes stop some cancers . . but there is no answer that will work every single time for every cancer.
Thus, a patient relys on a combination of treatments .. and good luck in order to combat the disease.

But, since my son has been involved in Clinical Trials and I have seen the research being done for advanced cancers . . it often seems like the answers are right on the cusp . . they are there but medical science hasn't quite unlocked the secrets. Targeted therapies seem to hold some type of promise as at least two types of cancer is seeing good results and others are being investigated.

Still a cure seems elusive at the moment . . . but hope remains that someday we will see the end of this disease forever. (incidentally, there are many, many diseases that have no definitive cure . . there still is no cure for the common cold.).

Answer 3

No. Though it will sound cynical cancer is big business. How many hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, doctors, nurses and more would be out of business if a cure for cancer were to be discovered? The numbers are staggering. I know because my son had cancer just before his 3rd birthday and fortunately he had an eminently curable type of cancer. Compare it to Jerry Lewis' MDA telethons that have been going on every Labor Day weekend for what 45 years or more? Despite raising tens to hundreds of billions dollars not one child has walked or been cured from Muscular Dystrophy. One day when another disease comes along that cannot be cured only held in remission, then maybe someone will come up with a cancer cure but it will not cure all forms of cancer. Sad but true, I believe. My father and oldest brother died of cancer and my mother is a breast cancer survivor. There is way too much money in cancer treatment for them to find a cure and put all those folks in the unemployment line.

Answer 4

Sure, absolutely. More likely, the causes will be understood and people will get it much more rarely.

I don't believe the cure is worse than the disease. The disease kills you. It doesn't get much worse than dead. Chemo and radiation aren't fun, but they're generally better than dead. There are many medecines today that lessen the worst side effects significantly.

I guess each person has to make that choice though. However, some people are so afraid of the treatments, partially because of statements like that, that they forego the treatments they need to stay alive.

Answer 5

It seems doubtful, just as the common cold has no cure.
Yet it seems if cancer is caught in early stages, it can be controled for a certain length of time.

Answer 6

Be realistic, no hope for curing. Speaking is quite different from acting.

Be more active role and be wiser to set priority on budgets to fight. Kids should like microscopes and microorganisms more.

Answer 7

eventually there will be. We've come a long way with our medical research.