Options
Cancer. will there ever be a cure
leicslad46
Posts: 3,370 Forum Member
✭✭✭
This is subject close to my heart and i have to ask this question. Will there ever be a cure for this vicious and indiscriminate disease. I lost my dad in april 2010 and now my mam has been told that she has a tumour on her bladder. She is waiting to go into hospital for an operation to remove it. So many seem to be suffering from cancer and i wonder if one day in our lifetime that there will be a breakthrough that will eradicate all cancers once and for all
0
Comments
Cancer is much like a heart attack, in that it's a condition brought on by, and affected by, myriads of different things - also there are many different types of cancer, so what helps one may be ineffectual against another. Personally I doubt it will ever be wiped out.
Very sorry to hear your news, OP - I hope your mum makes a speedy recovery.
Someone diagnosed with cancer today has a far better chance of surviving it than those fifty years ago.
Why would developing a cure put them out of business? A cure would be worth such an incredible amount.
And what about the research that isn't funded by drug companies?
The "why would drug companies do it" thing is like the "tyres that don't wear but the tyre companies won't let on".
Sadly no matter how many people repost status updates on Facebook, complete bucket lists, jump on every trending bandwagon or take part in appeals, it will continue.
Yes treatment of Cancers are improving but it's something that evolves and will continue to have the upperhand despite charities giving the impression they are winning against the fight.
Don't give up hope though for your mam! In the work I do I regularly meet those affected by Cancer and have seen many that have expected the worse but ended up in long term remission. I hope things turn out well for you both.
Exactly! Research takes place in multiple labs and institutions around the world (not all of them for profit, either). The medical community is hardly monolithic, and is made up of people who get cancer too. And who in their right mind would pass on the fame that would come with finding a cure for cancer?
It's really a specious (at best) conspiracy theory that's usually applied to the U.S. and doesn't really work when talking about countries with socialised medicine who could seriously reduce their health care costs if "a cure" were found.
If we work out how to stop our cells behaving as they do , we might only find that we have stopped them doing something else which is needed for life.
Why have we personified 'Cancer' to within an inch of its life?
Is this actually a useful thing to do? Does it not just infuse the illness with extra emotive nonsense?
Why don't we personify diabetes or heart disease if it's so effective?
Sorry it's just a personal bug-bear. It's an illness, not a tangible vermin.
Still doesn't mean this will prevent certain types of cancer from developing, though. At best, genetic engineering will only reduce the possibility of it happening.
I think they will one day find a way to erase certain types of cancer, but I don't think they can with other certain types.
"Personify"? Who personifies cancer? It's not given any human attributes, is it?
Do you know what personify means? Or have you just used the wrong word?
OP....sorry about your mum. Cancer is horrifyingly common, but if it's any consolation, there's never been a better time in human history to get it. More people now survive it than die from it & it's only been recently that we've been able to say that.
I don't know whether a "cure" for cancer is likely anytime soon, but prevention and very early detection are probably going to be the best ways to beat it.
I read somewhere that there's no type of cancer that can't be completely cured if it's caught early enough. Maybe they'll devise some blood test we can all take regularly and catch those cells just as they are starting to mutate.
Have you seen the Channel 4/Stand Up to Cancer advert? The Race for Life advert? etc.
Some forms of cancer are now curable, and others are preventable.
The next big breakthrough (IMO) will be the early detection of the more 'serious' cancers to enable treatments and surgeries to take place before it gets a chance to spread and become life limiting.
Indeed. The 'problem' with some cancers is that by the time you think something is wrong the cancer has already had a chance to cause damage, so any treatments are less effective than if it had been caught earlier. Improving detection and identifying those who are genetically prone to certain cancers would save so many lives.
I agree with you.
I also hate the whole “battle” terminology that goes along with cancer. Whilst it empowers some, it made my nan feel as if some people thought her husband didn’t fight enough, didn’t battle enough, didn’t want it enough, when he died of cancer a couple of years ago. In fact, she banned the term completely, and a note was put on my granddad’s file that doctors/nurses wouldn’t use such language.
In response to the OP – “cancer” is not a singular thing. There are a whole load of causes, suspected causes, and aggravating factors. There isn’t one cure for cancer, there’s a whole interlinked web of lifestyle factors, drugs, treatments etc., which all play their part in treating those suffering with cancer, and what works for one won’t necessarily work for another. What works for breast cancer won’t necessarily work for skin cancer.
I think scientists will continue to improve treatments for cancer, and develop newer treatments with fewer side effects. A single cure isn’t realistic given the nature of the disease, but the optimist in me likes to the we can at least come close to being able to treat it much more effectively. I think this will happen for the “popular” cancers first – breast cancer, lung cancer etc – and that less well-known cancers such as cancer of the oesophagus, or bone cancer will take much longer to see any results in improving treatments, or early detection & diagnosis which is just as important.
Still, I remain hopeful. We’ve come a long way even in the past 20 years or so, and we can only get closer and closer to controlling the disease.
I've just watched the stand up to cancer advert, and I don't understand the problem. Cancer is a tangible, emotive disease.
Oh God, now you've done it...
Causes range from environmental, genetic, viruses, lifestyle, bacterial infection, the state of your immune system and, most importantly of all, age. Many cancers are caused by several of these causes together.
Cures may be a long way off but research and studies done on improving survival rates means that many cancers are no longer the inevitable early death sentences they were only a few years ago.
Not with pancaretic cancer. The survival rates and the funding hasn't risen.
I think one day all cancers will be cured, but that day is a very very long way off.
Personally it makes me wonder if it is a cure and if so why are doctors ignoring it?
Pancreatic cancer is a difficult one, with single figure 5 year survival rates in the UK, Europe, US and Canada, mainly due to lack of early symptoms meaning by the time it is diagnosed it is often at an advanced stage or has metastised to other organs.
It is also difficult to treat and resistant to many available therapies but research is being done on modified Vitamin D therapy in the US which makes the environment of the tumours more receptive to things like chemotherapy. If the tests are successful it may also be used for lung, stomach and liver cancers which are also difficult to treat.