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Asked by A & E to Zoe V, Tamsin, Julie-Ann H, Jordan K, Alana M, Aishwarya M on 25 Jun 2024.
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Tamsin Dobson answered on 25 Jun 2024:
Yes, I do. There are many different scientists working to find a cure and big improvements have already been made in the treatment of different cancer types.
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Zoe Vance answered on 5 Jul 2024:
I think we’ve already made substantial progress with cancer treatment – the survival rate has about doubled in the past 50 years! A lot of this is likely down to improved detection (the earlier you detect a cancer the better the chance it can be treated) but there are also some fairly impressive treatments being developed, such as immunotherapy where a patients own immune cells are essentially taught to recognise and attack cancer cells.
How well we’re doing does vary a lot depending on the type of cancer, it isn’t actually a single disease but more than 200 different subtypes that are actually caused by different mutations. For this reason I think a single cure that covers all of them is unlikely, but most subtypes have a lot of people working on treatments in their specific area and I think we’ll eventually see that some types of cancer are completely curable.
Would also point out that we can almost completely prevent some cancers now which is a much better option, for example HPV vaccination goes an awful long way to stopping cervical cancer. So I think improved screening/detection also deserves a shout out rather than just thinking of a cure!
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