Will cancer ever be cured?
Cancer is a disease of the cells, which are the body’s basic building blocks. Cancer occurs when abnormal cells grow in an uncontrolled way. These abnormal cells can damage or invade the surrounding tissues, or spread to other parts of the body, causing further damage.
Dr. Jørgen Olsen, head of research at The Danish Cancer Society says, “I think it’s an illusion to imagine that after millions of years of this disease we’ll suddenly find a solution. I don’t think that we’ll ever beat it, but I think that we’ll get it under control so that it becomes chronic but not deadly,”. Prominent cancer researcher, Mads Daugaard from the Molecular Pathology & Cell Imaging Laboratory at the University of British Colombia, Canada, …show more content…
cancer cells quickly spread to multiple parts of the body, and they mutate constantly, rendering existing medicines ineffective. “Cancer cells are very adaptive, especially when the cancer is at an advanced stage,” says Olsen. There are some similarities between cancer and the principle of evolution, says Daugaard. Evolution is driven by natural selection, which means that organisms or cells that survive long-term are those that can adapt when their existence is …show more content…
Any one cancer tumour can be unique and require specialised treatment. For example, a lung cancer tumour in one patient may more closely resemble throat cancer in someone else, than another case of the same type of cancer. This means that oncologists cannot diagnose based on where the cancer is found in the body alone. Further, they cannot simply use the same medicine to treat the same type of tumour in two different patients. “It’s not unreasonable to think that we’ll overhaul our cancer classification system within the next ten years. It looks like more and more like we should look at what changes in people’s genetic material are behind the disease,” says
Cancer is a disease of the cells, which are the body’s basic building blocks. Cancer occurs when abnormal cells grow in an uncontrolled way. These abnormal cells can damage or invade the surrounding tissues, or spread to other parts of the body, causing further damage.
Dr. Jørgen Olsen, head of research at The Danish Cancer Society says, “I think it’s an illusion to imagine that after millions of years of this disease we’ll suddenly find a solution. I don’t think that we’ll ever beat it, but I think that we’ll get it under control so that it becomes chronic but not deadly,”. Prominent cancer researcher, Mads Daugaard from the Molecular Pathology & Cell Imaging Laboratory at the University of British Colombia, Canada, …show more content…
cancer cells quickly spread to multiple parts of the body, and they mutate constantly, rendering existing medicines ineffective. “Cancer cells are very adaptive, especially when the cancer is at an advanced stage,” says Olsen. There are some similarities between cancer and the principle of evolution, says Daugaard. Evolution is driven by natural selection, which means that organisms or cells that survive long-term are those that can adapt when their existence is …show more content…
Any one cancer tumour can be unique and require specialised treatment. For example, a lung cancer tumour in one patient may more closely resemble throat cancer in someone else, than another case of the same type of cancer. This means that oncologists cannot diagnose based on where the cancer is found in the body alone. Further, they cannot simply use the same medicine to treat the same type of tumour in two different patients. “It’s not unreasonable to think that we’ll overhaul our cancer classification system within the next ten years. It looks like more and more like we should look at what changes in people’s genetic material are behind the disease,” says