• Question: Will we ever cure cancer?

    Asked by Chante to Eleni, Hannah, Jenny, Oli, Steven on 14 Nov 2016. This question was also asked by 457drug42, 875drug42, Gee9090, Joe989, Lewis -T-, lottie243, campbell0705.
    • Photo: Steven Street

      Steven Street answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      Hi Chante,

      I think to find a complete cure for all cancers will be very hard, as one of the main problems is that cancer cells divide extremely quickly… HeLa cervical cancer cells divide every 24h for example! This means that even if you had a drug that’s capable of killing 99.9% of cancer cells, that will still leave some left over, which can regrow back over time!

      That said, I think that it will become a manageable disease in time. People can be cured of cancer today, and scientists are developing a lot of exciting treatments all the time which should mean that it’s no longer the death sentence that it once was. This is simmilar to HIV/AIDS currently. Deaths resulting from AIDS are becoming increasingly rare with modern drugs. So in that respect, yes I think a cure could be possible! 🙂

      Steve

    • Photo: Eleni Vikeli

      Eleni Vikeli answered on 15 Nov 2016:

      Hi Chante,

      You are currently curing some types of cancer in great percentages. I am very hopeful that one day that will apply to any type, but that is something to expect for the future!

      p.s. I love your questions!All of them made me think hard for the answers!

      Eleni

    • Photo: Hannah Bolt

      Hannah Bolt answered on 15 Nov 2016:

      Hi Chante,

      Cancer is an incredibly complex disease, because it can affect so many different organs and areas of the body. Therefore, this means no one cancer is the same as a different type (for example prostate cancer is very different to bowel cancer) and this means we need different drugs to treat each type of cancer. Even worse, the same type of cancer can affect different patients differently due to genetics or environmental effects. This makes me think that finding a cure for every cancer will be very hard. With enough hard work from scientists we might get there one day though! We’ve already got lots of really good cancer treatment options avialable for patients and our knowledge about the disease is luckily increasing every day too 🙂

      Hannah

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