• Question: Do you think that a cure for cancer could be created in the near future?

    Asked by laceyc to Amit, Emily, Joanne, Martin, Paige on 16 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Paige Brown

      Paige Brown answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      Absolutely it could! The question is how long from now, and will it really look like a single cure? I think more likely we will gradually start to increase peoples odds of surviving severe cancers, using a combination of drugs and diet and exercise. Perhaps we will also be able to help people never ‘catch’ cancer in the first place. Instead of one cure, it may look like a combination of defences that eventually makes one or another cancer type very rare in the population.

    • Photo: Joanne Davies

      Joanne Davies answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      Yes, I believe there will be a cure for cancer within the next few years.

      I also believe we will be able to determine the cause, so we can stop people getting cancer altogether.

    • Photo: Amit Pujari

      Amit Pujari answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      Yes, and we are heading in that direction, but as Paige says the question is when?

      I think we have still lot to learn about cancer and how to tackle it.

      We know the basics about cancer, that it is a disease in which abnormal cells divide without control and are able to attack other healthy tissues. (though we know cell division-mitosis is essential for growth http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/add_aqa_pre_2011/celldivision/celldivision1.shtml but when it goes out of control… it is a problem).

      Cancer is not one disease, there are more than 100 different types of cancer (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/cancerlibrary/what-is-cancer). So you can imagine that treatments to these different cancers would have to be somewhat different. Hence there is a lot more work to be done.

    • Photo: Emily Bullen

      Emily Bullen answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      I think cures for cancer are improving right now, yes, and more cancers will be cured. There are so many types of cancer, and we are just starting to realise that they all have to be treated differently. Cancer treatment will become much smarter, and tailored to the cancer. At the moment we’re still guessing, and oncologists (cancer doctors) are still having to try different treatments before they find one that works.

Comments