• Question: There are over 200 types of cancer, How many have these have they found a cure or are close to finding a cure to?

    Asked by ambehduce to Lyn, Katy, Paul, PB, Ruth on 19 Jun 2013. This question was also asked by sassydeepaige, jordanfarmer, andrei, charliefrancis, evemackley.
    • Photo: Katy Brown

      Katy Brown answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      I have no idea! Lots of types of cancer are treated in the same few ways – either with surgery, to cut away the cancer, or chemotherapy or radiotherapy to kill the cancer cells. Some types are more curable than others – it depends on where it is, how developed it is and how far it has spread.

    • Photo: Peter Balfe

      Peter Balfe answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      Too often we see phrases like “war on cancer”, which makes people think of sides, i.e. us vs. cancer.
      Cancer and its treatment is more like a game of chess, where each piece on the board interacts with all the others. As the years pass we are getting better at the game, with more and more checkmates for our side. But there will always be scenarios where we lose.

      Take a look here :
      http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/cancerstats/mortality/mortality-projections/projections-selected-cancers/
      To see how incredibly well we’re doing (CRUK is the biggest dedicated cancer charity in the UK).

    • Photo: Ee Lyn Lim

      Ee Lyn Lim answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      I’m not sure there is an answer to this question! For one big reason – metastasis. When a tumour has grown to a certain level, it will start releasing cancer cells out into the blood stream, and these cells will follow the blood all around the body and then attach themselves wherever they please! This means that a cancer that started out on your skin could quite quickly spread to your lungs, or brain, or gut. This is also a main reason why surgery sometimes doesn’t work in getting the cancer out, because it’s really difficult to tell if just a handful of cancer cells have gotten away in the blood.

      In theory, cancers that start in a particular tissue (liver, for example) will still have special characteristics that will identify it, wherever it goes – a bit like a fingerprint. But we also know that some cancer cells are able to ‘dedifferentiate’ – that means it can turn back into a state where it has no identity, and could become any cell – almost like a stem cell! In this case, it isn’t clear if we should still call it a liver cancer, or if it’s turned into a different type of cancer entirely. Even if it hasn’t dedifferentiated (that’s to say it still looks like a liver cell), being in a different location means we’ll have to think of different ways to treat it. We can cut a lump out of a breast – we can even cut off a whole breast – but we can’t very well chop out a whole lung to get rid of a tumour!

      That’s why it’s really difficult to say that a particular type of cancer has been ‘cured’. There may be 200+ types of cancer, based on the tissue the cancer is in and how the cancer started, but to be perfectly honest every tumour is different, and every cancer patient is different! We’re moving towards a future of ‘personalised medicine’, where you get treated for exactly what you have and don’t just get given a drug like everyone else, even if it doesn’t work for you. So when we’re working on a cure for cancer, we don’t say, “Right, I’ve invented this drug that will get rid of brain cancer forever!” – what we’re actually doing is inventing more and more treatment methods and expanding our inventory of weapons, so that no matter what kind of cancer comes along, we’ll always have options to try.

    • Photo: Ruth Mitchell

      Ruth Mitchell answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      I don’t have an answer to that question. Here is a comment though: A cure implies that it is gone completely when treated. With some cancers this is the case but with other it may come back even when treated. So one type of cancer in a certain person might be cured but the same cancer in another person causes different damage and isn’t. So we are not only looking at all the different types of cancer but also how to affects the person.

    • Photo: Paul Waines

      Paul Waines answered on 28 Jun 2013:

      Now this a question with no simple answer (at least the second part doesn’t). I don’t think any cancers have been properly cured.

      This is because cancer- all cancer- is very unpredictable in the way it behaves and grows. This makes it hard to treat with a cure that is sure to work every time.

      This is partly due to the fact that people vary a lot in the way they respond to cancer and its treatment. Its also due to the fact that even if a cancer is removed from one part of the body, its still hard to tell if some cells havent escaped to start a tumour somewhere else.

      So it seems that although there is some really good treatment around now (to ease the symptoms), a cure may be some way off for most cancers.

      Hope this answers your question (sorry I was late!)

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