• Question: are we any closer to finding a cure to cancer?

    Asked by westy2714 to Angela, Gabriele, Karen, Maria, Shane on 11 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Karen McCarthy

      Karen McCarthy answered on 11 Nov 2013:


      Yes yes yes! Already we have made so many advancements against cancer through the power of science and research, and it’s always continuing. We currently have the cervical cancer vaccine, which is highly effective against the HP viruses which can cause cervical cancer. We also have excellant treatments for brain tumours, leukaemia and lung cancers, to name a few. Already people who are diagnosed with cancer are living longer, healthier lives because of the advances of research.

      The main difficulties in finding a cure is that there is no one type of universal cancer, cancer can act differently in different parts of the body, even in different people, so instead we need to work to understand individual cancers and find cures for them. Its a step by step process, slow but steady!

    • Photo: Angela Stevenson

      Angela Stevenson answered on 11 Nov 2013:


      Like Karen’s mentioned, there’s unfortunately no one cure for cancer since different types of cancers have different pathways. However, with all the cancer research facilities in the worlds we’re really cracking down on ways to save people! For example, prostate and breast cancer are two very common types of cancer, but people rarely die from these nowadays since they are well understood and there’s great treatment for these (at least in our part of the world).

    • Photo: Shane Mc Guinness

      Shane Mc Guinness answered on 13 Nov 2013:


      Well, cancer is the uncontrolled growth of cells in your body, beyond the control of your own immune system to handle it. But cells are meant to divide anyway. How else would you grow!? The trick is to stop this unwanted cell division from happening. If we could somehow tell these bad cells to stop dividing, then we could cure cancer. But because there are lots of different types of cells (muscle cells, blood cells, brain cells) there is no single message we can send to all cells that are going a bit crazy.
      But who knows in the future; scientists have already slowed down a lot of these effects in people with cancer!

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