is there a cure for cancer?

Question: is there a cure for cancer?

Asked by daiiseyy to Laura, Lily, Mark, Paul, Sarah on 21 Jun 2010 in Categories: General.
- Laura Maliszewski answered on 18 Jun 2010:
  
  Cancer describes a very wide set of disease with different causes. They all have in common uncontrolled cell growth. For some types of cancer, there are ways to stop this cell growth that are very effective.
  
  Some types of cancer are caused by viruses and recently vaccines that prevent infecition by those viruses have become available. The one approved in the US it’s called Gardacil and prevents human papilloma virus infection.
- Lily Asquith answered on 19 Jun 2010:
  
  There are treatments that can cure some cancers. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are effective in lots of cases. Proton therapy is a new very prommsiing treatment that will probably save millions of lives if it gets funded.
- Mark Roberts answered on 21 Jun 2010:
  
  Hmmm ok in short no. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy can work, but are not very specific and don’t always work.
  
  To give a more details answer – cancer isn’t really one disease. It is a generic name meaning a disease that causes cells to divide uncontrollably – which because our body is highly organised causes problems! Before we understood how it all worked we called these diseases cancer but now we know it’s really more than one disease
  
  In fact cancer is very personal as for cells to divide uncontrollably 7 systems in the cell need to break / not work normally. In each of these systems there are different ways they can break – this means that each person’s cancer is potentially different to the next (in terms of what is broken!) [though there are things that are more likely to break that others]
  
  So this means there will never be ‘a cure for cancer’ there may well be many cures and what works for each patient will be very dependant on what is broken – so cancer will end up being an individual cure.
  
  This is probably the way medicine will move into more personalised cures for each disease
  
  Hope that answers your question.
- Sarah Bardsley answered on 21 Jun 2010:
  
  Cancer is caused by the abnormal and uncontrollable growth of cells. As yet there is not a single cure but treatments like chemotherapy exist which can get rid it. For some cancer types scientists are developing vaccinations which could prevent people getting caner in the first place.
  
  In the future, everyone may be able to have their genetic information analysed for medical purposes. This means that your DNA code would be read and scientists could identify if you were more susceptible to getting diseases like cancer. If you were identified as someone who is more susceptible you could take steps to manage your health and lifestyle in a way that reduces this.

Question: is there a cure for cancer?

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